I was looking at buying a 1991 RX-7 Coupe. The car cranks but won't start. I am pretty sure the engine is flooded due to the gas on the spark plugs. But what I want to know is if the flooding will affect the compression numbers i am getting from the engine. Using a conventional compression tester I got a reading of 30 from the front rotor, and 60 from the rear, I think the unit used is PSI. The engine currently has 120000 km on it. I really like this car and any help would greatly be appreciated.

Thanks

 

Flooding will kill compression. Remove the EGI fuse in the engine bay fuse box, take all 4 spark plugs out of the motor (and with a very very strong battery, like an optima red top) crank the motor over at 15 second intervals until black smoke stops coming out and then some. Insert spark plugs and fuse and try to start.

Edit: bah, saw its a s5, hold the accelerator to the floor and then start cranking at 15 second intervals. Less work.

 

I needed to get a new set of plugs, before it would crank over. Even though there was no visable problem with the old ones.