Hey Guys,

Had a problem this past week with heating. I do a lot of driving (about 350+ miles a week) and had a problem where if I was at about a 1/4 tank of gas my car would start to heat up faster than normal if sitting at idle (temps would raise from 180F to about 220F in a matter of 3-4 minutes when sitting at idle). When the car would hit about 225F it would begin to sputter and have a rough idle. When I'd try and restart it, it would start up, but would act like it was struggling for dear life. When I refilled the tank the problem went away, but when I hit about 1/4 tank again it did the same thing. I checked all my fluids and it was all fine. I just did a bit of highway driving past the 1/4 tank mark and am at about 1/8 or less of a tank and the car seems to run fine (engine runs as smooth as silk, well, for an rx7 with a downpipe and a catback anyway). Changed the oil this mornin, but when I went to change the oil it smelled like gas (not smelled like it had gas in it, but smelled like it was gas, a lot stronger than I've ever smelled it before). I had changed my oild just last week (about 400 miles ago), but just to be safe changed it again this mornin. Gonna dump and flush the radiator tomorrow. But just wonderin, anyone ever have this problem or know if the rx7 has problems startin when the engine's hot?

 

When was the last time you changed your fuel filter ?

 

that's what i was thinkin too, never had, but got the car about 10,000 miles ago (had 78,000 on the odo). would a clogged filter do this though?

 

yes it would, you need to change the filter every 3-5k miles.

 

Vapor Lock. its common

 

Yeah, especially if you pre-mix with beach sand.

In all seriousness, it doesn't need to be replaced every 3-5k miles. But if are unsure of whether it has been replaced or not, now would be a good time to replace it.

 

I think that may be a bit extreme. The owner's manual recommends 30k iirc (it may even be 60k, knowing mazda, lol) but i have always changed mine about every ~15k or so. I had mine relocated to the rear subframe, so now it takes me 5 mins to swap out rather than 2 hours .

 

hey guys, thanks for the responses, gonna look into getting the fuel filter soon. One question though, what is vapor lock? how can you get rid of it?