Yesterday on my way to a friends' I think I may have blown my motor, but I still don't know whether I did or not.

While I was in 3rd gear, I noticed that I was boosting unusually well and I was flying down the feeder. I put it in 4th and it starting jerking a bit (as if the boost came on and off.) At this point I downshift to 3rd, than 2nd, and turn right. As I was making the right I noticed that I was barely getting any power in 2nd gear. The car was going incredibley slow, even when I had the gas pedal to the floor.

I came to a light, and came to a complete stop. When the light turned green, I tried to turn right but the car died. After trying 4 or 5 times, the car finally started but it had a ROUGH idle and if I didn't give it gas, it would die. I managed to get it into a gas station but it died again. When I tried to start it up again, it wouldn't crank. Everytime the key was turned, greyish white smoke came out. The car is going to be towed tonite.

Can anyone help me out?

Thanks in advanced.

 

sounds like it could be apex seals...thats for sure....check the compression.

check to be sure the map sensor has the vacuum hose plugged into it as well.

a compression check will answer your questions.


j

 

I checked the map sensor, and everything looks fine.

Thanks for the info.

 

aaaaah memories of the 2 times i blew apex seals. sorry to hear that but it sounds just like what i heard when i blew my engines. first thing's first double & triple check that it's not a vaccum hose because i had a busted one before and my fd had the same symptoms that you're describing. that's real easy to fix and you're all back to normal. that's happened a few times actually and i got the same white smoke, messed up idle, etc.
on the other hand.... if all the vaccum hoses are cool then you gotta run a compression test... then it's "nervous time." if the apex seal if busted it'll look like this pic that i scanned of the compression test on my last engine.

good luck

 

aaaaah memories of the 2 times i blew apex seals. hopefully you just busted a vaccum hose because that also has happened to me a few times and you get the same symptoms (white smoke, messed up idle, car turning off etc.) try to do the conversion of all your vaccum hoses to silicone to they won't deteriorate on you.
if all the hoses are fixed or fine and it still is acting like that then you need to run a compression test. that's when it's time to sweat if the rotor is still good then the result will look like the no.2 rotor on the right side (picture enclosed) of the test from my last engine. if the rotors are good then they'll look like the no.1 rotor on the left side (9.0:1 compression ratio)
good luck

 

sorry i didn't think my 1st post went through so i had to rewrite anyway GOOD LUCK!

 

It's been two days and the car still won't crank and I'm not getting any compression.

It's just free-spinning everytime I turn the key. Does anyone else have anything they might want to add?

 

Take it to a reputable rotary shop. They can better diagnose it. It does sound like a blown seal though.

Mario

 

sounds like a blown seal to me..

same thing happened to me just a couple weeks ago

 

O.K. I went over and looked at Aspire's car 2 days ago. I just want to see what you guys think. Hopefully it will be the same conclusion I have drawn. When he cranks it over complete freespin. No compression pulses. O.K. we know theres a problem but that doesn't necessarily mean the engine is bad. Pulled a spark plug from each chamber out and cranked the engine to see if there were any pulses. None on either rotor. Everytime I have ever seen a bad motor only one rotor not both had bad compression. His turbos spin fine as well. If a seal had broken these should have gotten destroyed. The spark plugs were just soaked in gas. I have had very flooded rotaries freespin until they became unflooded before so I was starting to conclude there must be an ignition problem and not a blown seal. Next step: checked spark. Fine on the front rotor but NO spark at all from the rear. Hmmmmm..flooding, not running, no spark starting to see the whole picture now. His car is totally bone stock right down to the air filter and boost level. Engine isn't that old either. I don't see why it would blow an apex seal but I can believe that a coil could go out. I wish it wasn't buried under the manifold so I could run more tests easier.Does all of this seem to make sense to anyone else? Any other possible ideas? I think I found the problem though. when the engine started acting up it didn't just give out. No flames out the back, no grinding sounds or lockup. It just started hesitating and running really bad with no power. After it was shut off it wouldn't start again.

 

I have to thank Fred for taking the time to help out a dumb kid.

Are you going to stop by again? If you can't I completely understand.

 

No offense, but I think the compression test was done wrong. Even if he had a blown apex seal or two, there would still be compression. It may be extremely low, but there will be pulses of compression. Take the EGI fuse out and crank the motor while the compression meter is screwed into the spark plug socket.

 

I still haven't ruled out the fact that the engine may be blown it was just a quick diagnosis in a few minutes in the driveway with nothing more than just a socket set available. But due to the fact that there is no spark on the rear rotor I'm leaning towards an ignition problem.

 

Sorry man, no good advice here - the guys you've got obviously know a fair bit more than me. Good luck though, and if you can get it up to Dallas, you can have RP look at it.

 

rotorygod, are you saying that BOTH rear plugs had no fire? If so, that also means at least one plug on the front rotor wasn't firing either.

When my '95 flooded I had just pulled in to my garage when it died. Didn't know enough to think twice about it then. The next day when I tried to start it, the engine would seemingly just free-wheel with no apparent compression. This sounds really similar to Aspire's situation so maybe his is just flooded now with some type of failed ignition problem.

 

First, Check the codes in the computer with a wire or paper clip...see if it spits out any codes..
Second, If your rear rotor (spark) isn't firing that tells me you have an electrical problem and your engine may be fine..just flooded. You may have a bad leading coil or wiring harness or the wire came out of the coil. Pull off your intake manifold and look...Also, check your trigger sensor but I bet it's fine.

 

Coills don't usually die unless they are hooked to an amplifier, but I would not rule out the coils. It does sound funny that you are not getting spark on the rear plugs since the leading coil is for both front and rear rotor, and spark at exactly the same time.
Mr rx-7 is correct about checking for the codes. You should always check the codes before anything.
It almost sounds like one or more of your injectors got stock though nearly unlikely.

 

Thanks for the info everyone.

I had a local rotary tech take a look at it. He ran a compression test, and just like Fred (rotorygod) said, I was getting no compression. He said that I may need new housings, but it seems unlikely that I will.

The car was towed to his garage so that he can run some tests to see if in fact the motor blew. He's supposed to call me this weekend to fill me in on the details.

I'll keep you guys posted.

 

Sounds like multiple broken apex seals to me. Perhaps one broke off and damaged the others? That would account for the zero compression in one rotor housing. The symptoms are of a broken Apex seal. Hope you find your problem soon.

Kace