Any advice from FD experts is greatly appreciated. I can't find any threads from others with the same problem....

My '95 doesn't seem to want to redline in 3rd. I've never taken it that far in other gears, but close. Flooring it thru gears, when I get to about 6500 in 3rd, the car suddenly loses power. It's like you completely let off the throttle, but you actually still have it to the floor. Only happens in 3rd. Motor has 93k miles. (I know, time for a new one.) Seems to shift fine, boost fine. Basically stock. Any ideas? Mostly just trying to determine if it's motor related, or tranny. I plan to replace the motor soon anyway, so if that's the case I won't be too concerned. But if it's something else I'd like I'd like to know before I make it worse. Thanks!

-Eric

 

Are you doing 3kRPM @ 80 MPH?

Raj

 

That's a good question.... one I don't have an answer for right now. I'll take it out today when I get home from work and find out. That sounds about right, but I can't be positive off the top of my head.

 

3krpm in third gear isnt 80 I dont think. That sounds more like fifth gear to me.

 

Umm, Raj? That would be 5th gear. :-)

Eric, do you have a boost gauge? If so, what do you see at the 4500 RPM transition and at higher RPMs? Try a gentle rolling start from 40 mph (~3k RPM @ 3rd gear) and gently mash the throttle to the floor.

BTW, after the car has had a chance to warm up there should be no problem taking the car to redline in the lower gears. In fact, one time on the track my instructor (who also drives an FD) jumped on me for shifting too early - I was shifting around 6k! Rotories are capable of very high revs.

The only problem with taking it to redline in 4th is that you are going about 140 in the end. ;-)

So every once in a while let it all hang out and indulge yourself in the sound of the rev limiter buzzer. :-)

In a safe and responsible manner of course.

-bill

 

Hmm... I thought he was askin about 5th. Which got me confused when I'm concerned with 3rd. Makes more sense now. And no, I don't have a boost guage. Not yet anyway. Just got it less than 2 weeks ago so I'm still workin on getting all the "little" things. I can borrow one from a friend tho, so I'll check that out. I planned on doing that anyway cuz I wanna see if it has the correct 10-8-10 pattern or not.

 

My old engine did something similar before it died. While the car was floored it would sometimes act like i let go of the pedal. The exhaust note would change almost sounding like a 2 cycle dirt bike. I had low compression on the rear housing. After tons of troubleshooting i thought boost may have been blowing by the apex seals. That was just a guess though. With that many miles on your engine i'd just drive it as is and don't beat it.

 

You may be hitting fuel cut. Do a search on fuel cut for more info.

 

its not good not to beat on the rotary. you need to beat on it once an a while.

how if the car is stock?

i think the problem is his cats. have you toped out 4th and 5th?
main reason why i say this is because 1st and 2nd are easy to push, but once you get at higher speeds, its harder on the car to move, so maybe the cats have just that tiny bit of cloging to not allow him to top out those higher gears.
if you can bring 4th to 8k then im wrong. but this is just my guess for right now.

 

Well, I haven't tried anything yet to find out for sure. (top out 4th, check the boost pattern or anything) Spent a couple hours last nite throwing in a short shifter. Mmmm..... notchy... (Ok, so it was more like 4 hrs but that includes tryin to figure out some damn reverse guages that irritated me ) So I'm thinkin this whole clogged cat problem could be on to something since my exhaust DOES smell like sulfur. But then, how would it have passed I/M like 2 weeks ago? Eh, I'm just gonna get rid of em anyway.

 

flooring a turbo charged car isnt the way to get the best power....try using 3 quarter throttling in 3rd gear at the rpms that you said you felt a power loss at....might have something to do with your wastegate opening...sounds like its malfunctioning...the wastegate is letting the boost out and not letting the boost reach the engine ....so i think it is a wastegate problem..just try 3 quarter throttling it might help