the day before yesterday my FD made a weird noise... it sounded like water pouring through a pipe. the car ran perfectly fine until i stopped at a gas station to buy a drink. as soon as i pulled out of the gas station it fell flat on its face and basically sputtered as i turned onto a sidestreet. when i was on the side street i came to a stop, waited for a second, then kept going. she barely sputtered at all.

yesterday afternoon i turned her on to warm her up before running an errand. she idled for about 2 seconds, then the RPMs dropped until it died. i turned it back on and the same thing happened, but idled for 3-4 seconds before the RPMs dropped off and the engine died. the third time it made that same water-through-pipe sound, so i killed the engine. i decided to tear into her today to see if i could find the problem, and the car was smoking like crazy, lots of white smoke from the tailpipe.

the car is my '93 Touring and has a little under 48K miles, here are all the mods:
Efini Y-Pipe
Ported JDM downpipe
Pettit AST
Viton vacuum hoses w/ Tefzel zip ties
Removed AWS, EGR, double throttle, and stereo

is the engine screwed or is it something else? i would say screwed right off the bat, but sometimes she runs perfectly fine and once in a while she sputters out...

 

Lots of white smoke from the tail pipe is coolant. You may have blown a coolant seal. If that's the only thing wrong with it, usually they're rebuildable.

 

is that something i could do myself? i've never rebuilt a rotary before, but if it's something generally "simple" i can do it.

coolant is what i suspected... the coolant is very low right now and i figured that pouring sound might've been coolant. i'm just surprised it was so much so quickly.

 

Yep it's dead, perfect time for an LSX conversion.

 

no thanks, i don't believe in compensating

nah, i like the rotary. i've got a thing for "different" engines. my other car has a Boxer (STi). all my friends have inline 4's (Honda Civics, Eagle Talons, Nissan 240SXs...) and i like being different.

 

In that case you can do the block weld fix for a temporary solution and then get the rotary rebuild videos and and overhaul kit and do it yourself or order a reman.

 

cool. i'm looking at rebuild kits right now. the tricky part is finding what i actually need. thanks for your input!

 

You can't do the block weld if you are already spewing white smoke out the tail pipe. That trick would only work if you are getting the buble symptom and mysterious slow coolant loss. Even then it would only last a few weeks depending on how you drive.
As for the rebuild, you will need about $900.00 for a full rebuild kit (including new apex seals et. and assuming no warpped housings and everything in within rebuildable spec), about $ 500.00 worth of tools (micrometers, calipers etc. not something most people would have around the house). This is all based on the assumption that you can pull the engine and re-install your self.
This is based on my own experience of 2 rebuilds.

 

You dont want to do the block weld trick if you want to reuse all the parts you have. If the break in the coolant seal is large enough the grains of sand can get into the rotor housings and acutaly make scratchs in the housings making them useless.

 

i'm in a bit of a jam then... i recently got out of the military and i'm waiting to start up my new job. unfortunately they keep pushing my start date back further and further and now i'm basically running on fumes with my bank account. had i started work on time, everything would be fine and i'd just have the engine completely rebuilt, ported, etc... but i'm getting fucked and don't have many options. i know the rest of the engine is still good, she pulls strong and runs well (when this isn't happening...) so i'm not worried about apex and side seals yet. so if i pulled the engine, can i replace the seals by themselves or do i have to do more than that? i'd love to do more but like i said i'm kinda stuck.