I had brought my 88T2 to the Mazda dealer in order to diagnose a bad idle issue - it starts and runs but idles terribly around 400rpm. Anyway, I'd had enough of fooling with it as I have a million other jobs around the house plus I work alot and I wanted to drive it!

It's a Mazda rebuild with about 40K kms on it, so it's a good engine, there was just something like a vacuum leak and I just don't have the time.

Anyway, he spends 3.5 hours checking air, fuel, spark, exhaust, compression and doesn't find anything, and then they tell me 10 - 12 hours to tear it down and rebuild with new wiring harness, cause it's "just in terrible shape". - mint 10AE no winters Mazda rebuilt 180K km, clean clean clean, yet "just in terrible shape" so it needs 10 - 12 hours of work.

What to you guys think of that?

 

I think its a bunch of BS. Did they even give you a diagnosis?

 

hahahahahahahaha.........if you pay for that then you are stupid........this is obviously not a daily driver so you don't NEED to drive it ASAP....take the time to check it out yourself....try checking the CAS, and the TPS.....you already know WHAT's not wrong ( Assuming the dealer people KNEW what they were doing)

 

**** the dealership, fine someone here that live close to you and or trouble shoot it, check all your vac lines etc.

 

Have you jumpered the initial set coupler to kill the BAC and set the throttle plate screw?

 

I know 500times more then the dealer and I'm still skimming the surface. I went to the dealer to get some keys and was talking to the so-called "rotary-tech" and he had no idea they made turbo rx7's before 92.... Learn how to do everything by yourself, thats really the only way to own an rx7 without paying shitloads for someone to "work" on your car... They charged my sister $45 dollars to spray carb cleaner through her TB and they said it took an hour...

 

those *******

 

I've tried all the obvious things twice. I hear you guys, but I also got a '92 535i that needs lots of work, and a house that's 112yrs old that needs lots of work. I'm just one man man!
I would have payed like $300 to have it running perfect by the weekend, that's what I had in mind when I brought it there.

I spoke with the mechanic just now instead of the idiot service manager and he's about 1.5 hours so far and is going to check compression and then call me again. I'll probably just tell him to leave it and I'll fix the goddamn thing myself.

He did mention that feathering the throttle can make it run (I knew that), but applying full throttle causes it to die. Can you infer anything from that?

 

full throttle as in 100%? fuel injectors? TPS? fuel pump?

 

Tps

 

never take a rotary to the dealer.

I worked at a mazda dealer and when people came in with a rx7 they would called for me.I was a sales person.

all they know is to tell you to get another engine.

 

yup....they wanted 9K for a new engine..........i laughed and walked away..........paid 4K for a mazda reman including labor from a local rotary shop.

 

well, compression test came out very good.
He said the rotors were full of raw gas though, so maybe a bad injector?

 

he tore the engine apart? uhhhhhhhh.....

 

There's really not much that can't be checked on your own within a day.

I'd start with the following:

Full tune-up (including resetting and adjusting the TPS, fuel filter, plugs & wires, oil change, timing, etc)
Check the TPS & AFM and intake air temp sensor, as well as the water thermosensor
If it's still acting up by this time, I'd check all the major sensors at the ECU with a multimeter.

Shouldn't take anymore than 3 hours at most.

 

I was a service advisor at a Mazda dealership for 6 years.

Yep, start here, after making darn sure there's no vacuum leaks between the motor and the throttle body. Intake gaskets have a habit of leaking, and yes that will give rich running symptoms! Since you don't mention this as an ongoing problem, I assume it started long after the engine was replaced, which leads me to think it's a vacuum leak. Rarely did I see wiring problems on those cars, if there was one it could usually be traced to a butchered aftermarket install with Scotchloks or some such crap.

The guy at the dealership has probably seen only 2 or 3 of the pre-RX8 'no-BD' (non-OBD II) cars in his entire life, so is probably trying to use 15 year old books translated from the original Japanese. This makes for interesting diagnostic flow charts.

 

The only time I go to a dealer is to get parts like Oil pedastil Orings, Coolant hoses,or some hard to find part.

I never go to them for technical experience. There is none.

Although I have wondered if I'd make some $$$ as the only competent rotary mechanic working at a Mazda dealership here

 

This reminds me of a story.

Lady calls me, has a 91 FC. Everytime the check engine light comes on, the car gets slower (Limp Mode). Dealer says the motor is blown and they recommend a trade in on the car.

I replaced her OMP for price of parts plus two 12-packs of corona. Car runs fine..

Dealers dont KNOW ****..

 

I should kick your *** just for admitting that

In my experince, only people more clueless on rotary powered cars than service advisors at Mazda dealers are mechanics at Mazda dealers.

 

you have a part number for those o-rings? i could use one

 

Sounds to me like the guy might have just been referring to the wiring harness being in terrible shape.

If it has a 40k mazda rebuild that was put in at 180k then your car has 220k on it. No matter what you do or how nice you treat it you're liable to have a toasted wiring harness. Trust me, my 10 AE is well taken care of and it's still a brittle, burnt hunk of crap. 17 years and 220,000km worth of heat and stress would do that to the best of us

 

I've jumpered initial set and it idled very low (way too low).
It had a vac leak (high bouncing idle) last fall when I parked it. Took it down to the block and built up again new gask and vac lines, had inj. cleaned and a new pd and fuel lines, new plugs.

 

dbl check for vac leaks, and then adjust the throttle plate screw to idle at 750 w/out the BAC.

 

did you check the intake hoses for cracks when you had it torn apart?

 

Is there a mechanical idle?
Meaning if I removed the BAC and capped it off, are the throttle plates supposed be open a crack (even when the car is warm) allowing a small amount of air in and the engine to "base idle"?

Or is the BAC the sole source of intake air when the car is warm?