Hello! I've been searching the forums for a bit, and was trying to find a thread that asks the question on the title, but no luck finding one.
Out of curiosity, I'm just wondering how long do you guys go on without driving your rx7 sometimes? and when is it consider bad/dangerous to not drive for a long period of time?
Do you have any tips that can help keep in long term storage for these cars?

I have a single turbo 13b pusing around 350~, I drive ATLEAST once a week if I can't other days. It is my project car so I keep her in most of the time unless there's track days/car meets etc.

Is not driving a rotary engine for a long period of time worst or the same as a piston engine?
Or are there any major/minor differences from them?

Thank you for your time! Again, I'm just super curious and thought I should ask the forum gurus

 

You can store them for ages.....all of us in Canada park our cars 4-8 months a year. The worst thing is starting it too frequently without driving hard to clean out the carbon buildup.

I have a heated garage, a battery tender and put fogging oil into the housings via the spark plug holes, then just turn it by hand a couple of times over winter. Mine hasn't moved since mid September and I expect it to fire up with ZERO issues this week, just like every spring

Regarding a long term storage guide, some great advice here:

https://www.aaroncake.net/rx-7/storage.htm

 

the important thing for when you drive it, is that it needs to get up to temp and stay there a while. just starting it and turning it off is probably worse than just leaving it parked.

i've started a few up after 3-4-10 years and the coolant and fuel systems become problems when it sits that long, among other things

 

Basically this is how I see it -

- After a month the battery may be weak and may not crank
- After 3-4 months you should prime the oil system to not start the car on dry turbo bearings. Pull EGI fuse and crank until you have oil pressure, then start and drive normally.
- After 1 year you will have sticking/rusty brakes and fuel may start to go bad. May have cosmetic issues (mildew in interior)
- After 3 years you have bad gas for sure and brakes need to be fully looked at. Consider replacing tires. Coolant is overdue for changing.
- After 5 years, possible rusty gas tank inside, surface rust setting in on exterior suspension components, brakes possibly locked up, tires are totally gone.

One of the big pains in the butt is the gas tank. I'm helping a guy here in town with a car that hasn't run in 20 years, the gas tank inside is a NIGHTMARE.

Dale

 

Mil guy here often have to store it for 6-9 months at a time. Although I've never not had it start up first crank! (after some lubrication cranks)
Dale clark pointed it out it's super important to take out the EGI fuse and give her a few cranks I usually find 3 does the trick and I get pressure around the second. Make sure you wait a minute between cranks gives the battery time to recover. Third is just because I'm paranoid and don't mess around.

I usually go through a few steps before

1. FRESH gas and filled up to full if it's only gonna sit less than a year. Mainly to stop condensation from forming in the tank with a full bottle of Fuel Stablizer. I like using stabil it may be too much but it's never affected me.
If it's sitting over a year it's better to drain it and make sure your cap seals well, water/bad fuel rusts tanks and at that point it's basically FUBAR inside and you might as well buy a fuel cell. Make sure you drive the car too after you add stabilizer to mix it up real good.
After if you can either burn it off gently(no boosting around hard it's knock resistance is probably that of 87) or straight up drain and replace it. The stabilizer should keep it from absorbing too much water and from separating.

2. I usually do fresh oil change before and after storage. mainly to keep freshest/purest oil inside the motor and keep bearings/turbos happy. don't like the idea of oil just sitting in it stewing and tentatively separating into it's base parts.

3. Dryer sheets! this is a weird one but that and moth ***** usually deter critters from nesting in your car i usually drop a few in random places in the engine bay and interior. don't forget to remove them.

4. If your not gonna tend the battery and have a big *** one (like 1100cca kind) make sure you DISCONNECT IT and it should last you enough to start after a year. I have one big *** deep cell (not sure the name it's a random Japanese one) It doesn't even seem to notice it's been sitting forever. otherwise you'll probably need a tender/new battery by the time you pick it up again.

I've left the car for 6months to a year at a time and it always started up fairly easily after I remember to reconnect the EGI fuse (forgot every time)
Granted I also replaced the fuel filter before I did it for the first time so make sure it's at least new.
It worked every time though! These little rotaries can take a lot when looked after.

Edit: forgot to mention I usually leave it in gear and turn the wheel a little to keep it from moving with the handbrake off keeps the pads from sticking to the rotors. I had a buddy have his Silvia get stuck and overheated them to where he couldn't really drive the car he thought it bogged around too and didn't notice until I told him his wheels were smoking! He needed new pads and rotors after that. But they did burn a cool shade of blue!

 

Some good advice here! I've never primed the oil system after 5-6 months of storage, guess I should be doing that now that the engine is rebuilt recently! Glad I went through this thread since my car is coming out storage next week!

 

I talked to Bryan at BNR supercars a while back, he said that he's seen a lot of bad stock turbo bearings from cars that are stored for the winter up north. Car sits for 3-4-5 months, spring comes and the owner starts the car up. The AWS kicks in and revs the car immediately up to 3000 RPM so the turbos are spooling hard on dry bearings.

It only takes a minute to pull the EGI fuse and crank to build oil pressure, totally worth doing.

Dale

 

For the past 18 years mine’s parked from at least Thanksgiving to Easter. Full tank non-ethanol if possible in a temp-controlled garage. No stabil. Occasionally on a mild day I’ll open the door, Start it up and let it idle up to op temp. Maybe roll the car back and forth a couple times under power. I agree with j9fd3s here. But I don’t pull the egi or flog the throttle. Original turbos and it boosts fine with no smoke...yet.

 

What I do to prevent the AWS 3K RPM startup is to leave the trans in 1st and then start as normal with the clutch disengaged (clutch pedal depressed). That makes it rev to only ~1500 RPM (OE ECU programming) instead of 3K. I have been doing that on every cold start since I learned it soon after I bought the car in 1992. That will minimize exciting the turbo while its bearings are dry.

 

Wow!! Thank you for all the useful information guys!
So for priming the engine again after a long period of time..
Let's say I leave my car in storage for just about 1-2 months
Should I pull the EGI fuse and crank the car?

I also heard cranking for 10 secs for 3-4 times is suffice/enough?

Thank you!

 

I've stored mine more times than I can remember for 2+ months over the winter. Never had an issue just starting normally (1st gear, like i said above) over the 28 years I've had the car.

 

Ah I see, makes a lot of sense on the 1st gear part.

Have you ever used sta-bil to stabilize ur fuel system or any type of oil/fuel treatment?
And do you fill the tank all the way up before u store it for those 2+ months?

 

i wouldn't bother to pull the fuse for just 1-2 months, although it is certainly fine to do so.

i would not crank for 10 seconds 3-4 times, that would have a higher chance of flooding, which is worse

 

i've never used the stuff, but if its going to be sitting for more than a winter its a good idea. i'm not sure how the modern evap systems change things, but full tank is best. apparently condensation can form in the air space if the tank isn't full. the FD is sealed up better than a 1950's car though, so its probably less of a problem...

so i live in California, and we have a pretty nice climate, bare metal takes a couple years to rust. the oldest gas i've used/seen was about 10 years old, and the car actually ran, although not well. i didn't have a place to drain it... the next oldest was about 5 years old, car ran fine and even passed our smog test.

the car that sat for 5 years had a wrecked cooling system though, and the tires and brake hydraulics were shot (and the paint, it sat outside) the car that sat for 10 years came with no cooling system at all, possibly why it was parked in the first place

 

I use Stabil on other things like mower, generator, and lawn tractor, but not in my FD. Also no fuel or oil treatments. I do try to fill the gas tank before storage, but not all the time.
I can get away with that because it's stored in a heated building that I also use for my race shop. So there isn't a lot of heat-cold cycling that would cause water to be drawn into the gas tank.

 

ah okay, so how many times // seconds should i crank the car for it to prime the internals/turbos with the EGI fuse pulled out?

I know pulling the egi fuse and cranking a few times helps with deflooding the car also, but i just learn that it helps when the car sits for too long as well, which is very informative just trying to find out whats the best method and times i should be cranking it

 

With the EGI fuse pulled, I would crank the engine for about 10-15 seconds, then let the starter rest for 20 seconds, then crank 10 more seconds. Starters aren't designed to crank the engine for minutes at a time, it's a good idea to let them cool down. With luck, your oil pressure gauge on the dash might show oil pressure. The OEM sensors aren't great, and yours is probably pretty old now too. I think my RX7 has sat since October, I'll try to keep an eye on the gauge to see if it shows oil pressure when I start it and then post back here.

If you really want to know how long it takes the turbos to get oil, try loosening one of the drain lines and watching for it to leak. My guess is it should happen pretty quickly, but I haven't tried this myself.

 

thats a great idea & yea please post back here and let us know how it goes!

 

Ah ok, I have a single turbo on mine so the car has been modified, I don't have the AWS or Twins, so I wouldn't need to build oil pressure, correct?

 

You don't HAVE to but it's worth doing if it has sat for all winter. Single turbos still have bearings that need oil.

Crank until the oil pressure gauge shows pressure then put the fuse back in and start the car like normal.

Dale

 

Got it 👍

 

Having a battery isolation switch helps out a lot with battery conservation. One thing I have noticed in my 5 years of owning an FD is that if you don't go through a tank of gas frequently enough, it gums up your injectors and you have to clean them every two years or every year if you like pre-emptive maintenance. If you don't premix, you should be fine for longer. I drive mine roughly every week to every other week for at least 50 miles or so and have had to clean my injectors twice in the time of ownership. Of course those were the stock side feeds, but my Integra goes through the same issue at about 2 years as it's around the same driving schedule. Oil should be changed yearly or on a standard mileage interval as condensation can get in to the oil from sitting and not burning off properly and keeping up on changes is really important. We have to go through all of our farm equipment since they only run in the summer and sit all winter. I think coolant is supposed to be every two years, but I'm not 100 percent sure on that, but I know that coolant does pretty bad things when it contacts iron and aluminum in the same system.

 

I primed my car's oil system today, at least I think I did. It has sat for about 6-7 months without running, since November. I cranked it for what felt like a long time with the fuel pump fuse removed, but when I looked back at the video it was only about 15 seconds total. The factory oil pressure gauge showed zero the entire time I was cranking, but I loosened the oil filter after cranking and there was oil in it. I didn't think to loosen the oil filter before cranking, that would have been a better test. I didn't start it yet, might try cranking for longer tomorrow.

 

let us know how it goes tomorrow! hope it all goes well for you

 

Just did the same to mine yesterday after sitting for ~8 months, I crank it several times with the EGI fuse out till the oil pressure gauge starting to show reading, put the fuse back in and she starts up nicely.