Damnit!
 

I just bought a FD from PA, I like in Texas. I talked with the seller for awhile about it and he said the car was in working condition with 117000 miles on the chasis and 35k on the motor. He said there was a small oil leak that he had fixed coming from one of the turbos and that the ABS light was on.

I had SGS inspect the car and besides tehre being some oil under the engine they said the car was fine. I had the car shipped from PA to TX and it got here today at 1pm. I checked out the car and didn't see any noticable problems. I got in the car and started it up and it seemed fine. The car idled fine. I let it sit for a few minutes and then drove it down the street a little. The car felt like it had very little power (about equal to my auto, base RSX). I turned back to the aprking lot the car was originally at and o the way back i got on the throttle. The car did not pull hard at all, and it still felt about as fast as my auto base RSX. I pulled back into the parking lot and parked it and right when I parked it the coolant light came on and the buzzer went off. I then could smell the coolant burning and I got out of the car and the coolant was pourijng out of the engine and running down the parking lot. I popped the hood and let some heat out and there was coolant that had sprayed on the under side of the hood and there was some on the intake manifold.

AST?

Radiator?

Coolant hose pop off?

Blown Engine?

I know there really isn't anyway to determine the exact problem online but a best guess would be nice.

I don't think the turbos were replaced with the engine so maybe that explains the lack of power, I felt no difference at 4500 RPMs. Maybe I'm lucky and it's just a coolant leak and bad turbos and not the engine?

Also I know that because I bought the car it is my responsibility to cover the costs. It also seems that because there was sometihng wrong with the car when I bought it some of the responsibility should be with the seller? I'm just not sure what to do as I've never had something like this happen.

FYI, never by an rx7 sight unseen.

Yikes!

can you tell what failed?

There are alot of RX-7 guys and good shops in the area.

I'll bet it's a coolant hose. Or maybe a cracked radiator or AST. To help find it, you might try topping it off with distilled water and applying a coolant pressure tester.

Once you find it, the fix shouldn't be too difficult. But at least you noticed it immediately and probably made no damage. Then at your next convenient time replace all the rest of the coolant hoses.

As for the lack of power, it's probably a boost leak or loose vacuum hose. Turbos generally never fail to produce boost, when they die they puke oil into the intake or oil smoke in the exhaust. Lack of boost is by far more common. Put a boost gauge on there and see what it reads (after fixing the cooling system thing of course).

Dave

Take it to:

http://www.gothamracing.com

or

http://www.rx7.com

whoever is closest. Get a professional to look at the car.

After I got off work the problem was EASY to spot.

I looked around the engine bay and under the intake manifold and under the oil filter there is a fairly large hose coming from the passenger side fire wall (it comes out of the firewall as a rubber hose and then goes into a metal tube along the fire wall and then goes into another rubber hose and into a nipple under the oil filter). The nipple had completely broken off.

I borrowed my girlfriends, parents, friends, friends trailor and took it to a local NON rotary shop. We are friends with the people there and they were upfront that they don't know a lot about rotaries but would only touch what they were comfortable with. I can't imagine the coolant system wouldn't be able to be fixed by a mechanic from a performance shop. I would of taken it to Gotham or rotary performance but I didn't know the guy who loaned the trailor so I didn't want to use his trailor to go about 20-30 miles.

I'm still concerned that the car had no power. Before I had the problem I floored it a couple times and it didn't seem to be right. It felt more like 155 hp than 255.

Any ideas about not having much power? Will fixing this coolant problem fix the power issue? :scared:

http://img311.imageshack.us/img311/3782/hose4qb.jpg
The hose where the nipple broke.

http://img311.imageshack.us/img311/6747/hose25bw.jpg
Top circle is where it's supposed to go, bottom circle is the end of the hose with me holding it back.

i had the same problem I just ripped off the plastic disconnect and attached the hose to the metal pipe using an adjustable hose clamp. Never had a problem since I dont think its going to solve your power issue maybe you ecu when into limp mode try reseting it. Also check if a intercooler hose is loose or the vaccum line to the MAF sensor is off or broke.

Thanks for the advice, I'll check them out.

I asked my friend who is a Mazda tech (I know I know) but he has owned 2 RX7s and worked on both of them himself and knows quite a bit. He thought it was a solenoid of vacuum line.

He was pretty sure its not the engine. Thanks god. :bigok: