OK, start with its a '90 13B

I bought it as a "non-running" car, the body shop that bought it said it went the the auction as a "running and driving car" but when they went to start it and put it on the trailer, the battery was dead and they hadnt gotten around to tryin a new battery as they onl had the car for about 2 days before i seen it and made thenm an offer on it. I replaced that, put some new plugs in it. It does turn over plenty, I dont know anything about rotaries so i may make myself sound like a complete retard here but... the way it sounds when i turn it over. IF it where a regular engine i would say there is no compression. Do they just sound like that or what?
Anyways what are some things you guys can think of for me to check out? I am working on the car outside (about -3*) and will only be able to work on it today and may be tomarow, then i wont be able to again until next weekend.


Thanks

 

Pull the spark plugs and see if you can hear if it has three steady chugs from the front and rear rotor. If not it has bad compression. If it has compression try and do the unflooding procedure.

 

To follow up on what Monkay said. Remove the EGI fuse from the engine compartment fuse box, remove a plug from one of the rotor housings--only one. Crank the engine and listen for 3 "rapid" chugs, like chug-chug-chug, as the rotor turns. Then replace that plug, remove a plug from the other rotor housing and do the chug test for that rotor.

If you get no chugs or just one chug, like chug-silence-silence-chug-silence-silence-chug, and so on, from either of the rotor housings, you might as well stop right there since it is likely your engine has one or more failed apex seals and will need to be rebuilt or replaced with a reman engine.

If you have compression in both rotor housings, continue with the troubleshooting procedure. Check the color of the center insulator on the spark plugs and if they look pretty good, like brownish, squirt a little oil (an ounce or so) into each rotor housing. Replace the plugs, replace the EGI fuse, make sure the battery is fully charged and try to start the car without pressing on the gas pedal. (Expect a LOT of smoke if the engine starts. Not to worry.)

If the center insulators of the plugs are wet and/or black looking, replace them and do the oil-squirt thing. Make sure you get the correct plugs. Incorrect, particularly longer-than-normal-threaded-area plugs have been known to cause apex seal damage. (Jeeze, I love hyphens.) Good luck!

 

OK, plugs are brand new, so there is no color or anything to them. I am going to check for the CHUG-CHUG-CHUG real quick. As far as replacing the engine or rebuilding it... i would probably just throw in a SBC instead as i know nothing about rotaries and i dont know of any places that wont charge me like $1000 to rebuild a standard engine, so they would probably want $1500+ EASILY to even touch that motor.

thanks for the quick responses and for not flaming me : )

 

got the whole CHUG-CHUG-CHUG thing going on pretty good (i think, i mean i dont really know what it is SUPPOSE to sound like) but there was a definate CHUGx3. The plugs where wet, so i decided to check for spark, didnt seem to have any. first i just kept on of the plugs in a wire, set the plug on the car and turned it over, didnt see anything. So i then shoved a test light up inside the plug wire and again turned it over, once again nothing. battery ended up getting pretty week, so it is on quick charge and when i try again i will be putting it on BOOST so that should be good.

Any ideas on spark? looks like the wires are pretty new! they are NGK, blue wires. Where is the fuse panel? i pulled the EGI fuse under the hood when doing all the above, but want to check all the other fuses too.

 

I'd check all your fuses under the dash and all the fuses in the engine bay.

I'm not sure but taking off the egi fuse is what you do to deflood, i believe with it off you wont get anymore fuel or ignition (not 100% sure about ignition).

To get the car started you will need the egi fuse in though, you just take that out when you are deflooding, youll take that fuse out let it crank for a few secs once or a few times (depending how bad its flooded). Then youll put that fuse back in there and try cranking it up to get it to start up.

If there is no spark at all to the plugs though, this would cause the engine to never start.. my rx7 had this problem and i had to replace my whole main harness to the car (the one that goes from the fusebox in the engine bay, to the fusebox in the car, to the ecu, all stuff on the dash, and all the way to the rear taillights).


Another thing you can do once you verify you do have spark, you can also put some small amounts of oil in the spark plug holes to help create more compression (like a teaspoon or two of oil in each sparkplug hole) ...just put whatever oil you are using in the car now (im guessing 10w30, i use castrol gtx 10w30). Other people use marvel mystery oil too Ive heard, but I have never used it ( I only had to do this really once on the engines first startup after rebuild)

Dont use atf (automatic transmission fluid) instead of oil in the spark plug holes to help increase compression, lots of people says its ok and that its good to do but truth is that atf will eat up any of the soft seals in the engine (rubber etc), and if you cant get the started up quickly then letting atf sit in the engine is a VERY bad idea...so just dont even bother with Atf alltogether!


Goodluck.

edit - the fusepanel in the car is locoated on the drivers side on the left side under the dash, it will have a black cover on it.

 

Not to insult you or anything, but did you put the EGI fuse back in?

 

Honestly, i thought the EGI fuse was just a fuel fuse. didnt know it controled spark at all. dont worry about insulting me at all, i wont cry. Its just that with all my other cars, there are seperate fuses that control the spark anf fuel so i assumed this was the same...

If you'all wanna keep ideas flowing, i will be heading back out there tomarow around noon, it would be cool to have a bunch of different ideas to try out. I will probably have a video for you guys tomarow as well.

 

egi is fuel only pull that crank car for ten seconds then put the egi back try to start

 

OK... i did that. So that EGI fuse being out has nothing to do with there not seeming to be any spark then. Any ideas on that? I am going to check the fuses tomarow when i get there (if i can find the fuse panel) so i can eliminate that. As of right now, i am working on my 3.4L DOHC sapped '87 fiero, so i will be in and out for a while (tryin go to finish it up so i can bring the RX7 home and work on it in my nice warm shop instead of outside at my fathers house.

So far everyone i've talked to that isnt on this site has said to do a SBC swap. I would much rather getting the 13B running, then turbo it. I am going to be searchin around on here when i get more time so please forgive me for all the questions

 

You could have a bad crank angle sensor.

Its basically what controlls all the timing and is what the timing is set with and without this part being functional there will be no spark.

Im not sure how to test it to know if its good, but i do know if its bad that you will see no spark on both coils leading/trailing.

Maybe someone on here knows how to test for a bad crank angle sensor ?

If no one knows how or there is no way to test it, I would go ahead and try to get a good working used one.

They go for about $20-40 dollars shipped on ebay or even through here.

If you replace this and there is still no spark, then the problem is elsewhere...possibly the wiring.


I would check all the wiring under the dash and engine bay just to be sure, my car I didnt think had any wiring problems until I looked under the dash and found several wires melted together grounding each other out along with a bunch of wires stuck into my fusebox from wires that were broken/melted etc.

Thats why I had no spark, we checked to verify spark when the harness was bad and there was no spark but the coils both had power, i replaced the crank angle sensor but it didnt make me get any spark.

I then bought a parts car for $325 for all the parts and wiring I needed and rewired my car with the wiring from it and after getting the engine rebuilt and put in it runs

 

OK, ill be heading over there in a couple hours to work on it again. What is the best way to check for spark?

 

N/M found the fuse panel guise thing...

but any other ideas?

 

one way to check for spark is to hold the spark plug and lay that hand on the car and turn the engine over. It may be painful, but you will definatley know if you have spark. j/k, you probably shouldn't try this.

Are you getting fuel?

 

best way to check for a spark

1 - remove the plug
2 - pull the spark plug lead out from the engine - but leave it in the coil
3 - put the plug back in the lead
4 - rest the plug against the metal part that holds the bonnet ( hood ) up
5 - put all the fuses back in
6 - get someone to crank the car - you should see a spark from the plug

if not - then you know you have no spark

if you have a spark then you are on the right road

i tried ages to get mine to run , i had fuel , spark , charged battery and everything - it would crank , but never run , every time i tried i flooded the car ( plugs covered in petrol )

after much head scratching - i pulled the ECU to find out it had been sat in about 3 inch of water - second hand ECU went in ( about £30 ) and it fired up first go

when you have the plugs out - make sure they are for a RX7 aswell and not some ford plugs - they should be BUR9EQ or BUR7EQ ( or summat like that !! )

Stu

 

put a new battery in it and it fired right up after about 3 seconds and a ittle gas pedal smackin. Smoked like hell for about 1 minute then stopped. Check engine light is on, how do i go about checking the codes in this badboy?

Pretty excited! only paid $400 for the car, $20 for plugs/12" of fuel line/hose clamps. Now i just need a passenger fender, hood and front bumper...

 

if its a USA spec car - the you should have a light on the dash board

you need to jumper a connection in the engine bay , turn the car on ( not running ) and the dash light should blink a code for you

have a search on error codes

Glad its running

Stu