Rx-7 catching fire repeatedly?!
 

Ok,

As the title states... my rx-7 catches fire constantly.
The fire breaks out right by the injectors area. This only happens when I am really pounding on the car.

My question is:
Do the secondary injectors kick on after a certain rpm or speed or do they all spray at the same time?

The rats nest elimination was done and it's a single turbo setup.

The oil squirters are capped off.
The fire breaks out between the LIM and the UIM right near the injectors.

The fuel modifications were a machined down primary injector rail to fit 850cc secondaries. The machining was done by a well known shop and I replaced all the rings gaskets.

There is a black spacer on the primary fuel rail, right where the two 10 mm bolts bolt onto the block. is that supposed to still stay there? or is that supposed to come out?

help would be nice, so I am not so worried about my car catching on fire all the time :)

if you still have the fuel pulsation dampner it is known to fail and burn your car to the ground and it scares me that you would be willing to drive a car that is catching fire.

Search ....fire you will find all kinds of threads

z

i mean no offense by this but... wtf!? why on EARTH would you keep driving if it catches fire!? why would you even CONSIDER driving it if its caught on fire ONCE. There are stories back in the day of FD's burning to the ground because of shit like this...

i think you need the park the car until you've looked into the problem... not keep driving it.

theres a picture set somewhere out there, of a black FD burning completely in about 10 minutes

Yeah... I'd stop driving the car, now. Fuel leaks are no joke, fuel FIRES will take you out.

But a flaming engine under WOT makes your car faster !!!

thewird

I've never heard of a fire at the injectors that didn't result in replacement of the wiring harness, solenoids, gaskets, o-rings, injectors, and fuel lines. Replace anything that's damaged. And yes you need that spacer under the primaries.

I believe the secondaries fire only at / above mid rpms. I'd have to run a search to find the number.

If I were you I'd start by parking the car. Period. The next time could be the time the fire gets going and melts your engine bay onto the road.

Then pressurize the fuel system with the UIM off and figure out if there are any fuel leaks. FPD, injectors, injector o-rings, etc. Then I'd use a battery and long wire to fire each injector to see if that creates any leaks.

Dave

That's not so bad, the image of a flaming FD cruising down the highway is an awesome sight. Just have a phone book in your car with the area Townships Fire department numbers highlighted, or better yet just put them on speed dial. Next time the fire breaks out, have them hose you down and go on along your way. Just don't pull in a gas station when you are on fire. That really would be bad.




I've heard it all now.....



Later

Are you an idiot? As stated above why would you ever CONSIDER driving the car? Yes, the secondaries do not kick in until around 4000rpm. I am not 100% on that but it is somewhere between 3500-4000rpm. Maybe you have a bad injector o-ring? Leaking fitting? And if it caught fire you will surely have to replace some wiring that is there in that vicinity. Or at lease I would. By your sig you are still in college. Maybe you need to make sure you keep going to class...

"Maybe you need to make sure you keep going to class..."



Texas AM fire school would probably be the best class he could go to.

Wait a minute....is this what it means to be "flammed"



Later

gee, leave guy alone, his fixing it now.

Rotary=fire extinguisher is just an a pillar away.

I dont care who the fuck calls me a ricer.

I would definately not drive my car if it cought fire once. The proximity to the fuel injectors and the exhaust manifold/turbo is too small to take any chances....... I'm not turbo yet but the point still stands.

Hope you got it fixed and aren't cooked to your seat on the side of the road somewhere......

Ok, Thanks for the flames guys.... flames.. har har..

Well apparently I'm not idiots like you guys that think that you'll keep driving it.

It caught fire when at the drift track. It was placed in a garage and I tored it completely down to fix it. Then next drift session, took it out again, and similar problem. Back to the garage. Now yesterday. Same thing happened yet again. So It's not like I'm just driving around with it catching on fire and just blowing it out. Apparently the people flaming must have thought of doing that.

It's a Fix, fail, Fix, Fail... and now I'm asking for people for ideas for something I'm missing.

These are the fixes I went though.....

First time, I thought it was the o rings, and the gaskets on the primary fuel rail. So replaced all of them. Replaced all the wiring that had burnt. I replaced all the fuel lines made sure all the injectors were seated properly, and made sure the machine shop did not mess up the machine.

Second time, I found that the LIM two vacuum nipple connections, the caps were gone, so when the secondaries kicked on it sprayed fuel out. Ok, fixed that problem. Replaced everything yet again, thinking that the fire might have warped or misshapen the o rings and gaskets. Rechecked all wiring and made sure everything is up to par.


If I was as brilliant as everyone flaming, this thing would have burnt to the ground. I'm not driving it around not fixing the problem. It caught fire, I fixed it... So I thought. But it just seems like I'm missing it.


Thank you for the person that brought the fuel dampener to my attention

any other ideas would be very help ful.

I've tested Turned on the fuel pump with the UIM off, There are no Leaks anywhere.

Now here is the next thought I'd had.

I took it out to RX7 Store.net to have them tune it.

They told me my OMP is not working. They made me run premix and cap the oil squirters. I know the one way check valve in the oil squirters are bad, because I had them hooked up to a vac line and they were coated inside. So I capped all of it so they aren't spraying oil everywhere.

Now could I have a pin hole leak in the Oil squirter lines that the OMP kicks on randomly.. and gives it a little squirt and then it will ignite from there?

Who was phone then???

Your engine would have to be approaching meltdown or the leak would have to be more than a "pinhole" so that oil would run onto the turbo manifold in order for an oil fire to result.

As Dave said, you also need to fire each injector manually to see if it leaks. Just because they were pressurized to idle fuel pressure doesn't mean the fuel system doesn't leak. I would also check the o-rings carefully just to be absolutely sure.

do you premix? i saw that the oil injectors arent used...

Yeah it's premixed 1oz to one gallon... no smoking.

I think I'm going to take it all apart yet again and replace everything. The 850cc injectors I got off the member off here. They could be a hairline crack on them and I wouldn't even know!


Thanks though

Jack

If you bought the secondaries off of someone else, I'd just send them out for ultrasonic cleaning and flow testing. Call before you send them, but I believe they test at full pressure which means they could tell you if they're leaking. Plus your injectors end up nice and clean with fresh o-rings.

Dave

might as well just remove your OMP and put a plate there to eliminate that suspicion. Then, replace your FPD if you still have it. Check your wire harness VERY thoroughly. Such as remove all insulation near the area of fire, bend every wire to see if the insulation is cracked. Arcing can ignite fuel that may be leaking from ... somewhere.

yeah I'm good about wiring.

I am MECP certified, which usually means nothing, but electrical is my specialty. I have made sure all the wiring is good.

I am going to pull the injectors and get them flow tested properly.

^^Grammar skills..... Please keep going to class.

Anyways, I would also take a look at the intake holes where the injectors push into. Maybe there is a small metal burr or something else that could be slicing or placing a blemish on the oring. First thing is first though, I would send those injectors off to be tested. If they come back bad send me a pm I have a set of perfectly functioning ones in my garage somewhere that you are welcome to.

you said you capped off the hole for the OMP, did you remove the OMP or line, stupid but you might have missed it and it might be the problem, leaving the lines exposed and omp there.

Sorry about grammatical errors. I hate english class.
My major is Biotechnology.

Ok, The OMP is not fully capped. The lines lead up to the squirters. The head of the squirters where they get vacuum lines connected to it, they are capped off.

Jack

KD Rotary is in PA and can probably do a very good job getting your car sorted. I know a few FD track cars that have been maintained by KD and tuned by KD and have stood the test of time.

If anyone has it, I would like to see the flaming FD picture.

Sounds to me like an o-ring on one of your injectors is bad. I have a friend who tells a story of using an aftermarket fuel rail and using that companies o-ring's wich caused his car to burn. I saw you had modified injectors, I bet your fuel leak is coming from your injectors around an o-ring down to your exhaust manifold.

Give the guy a break, he is probably new to the car. Otterball, give me a call at the shop. I'd be glad to help.

What was that post about anyways?

I don't care about the flames. I've wrenched on plenty of cars, but I'm not a person that treats it like a god. I thrash the crap out of them.

Honestly, this is my first rotary car. My previous was a r33 GTS-4 ( yes.. I owned the world's SLOWEST skyline.. bleh)
a 2nd gen crank walking eclipse tsi, and then a 240sx s14r33 conversion.
Before that it was all american muscle cars.
This is definitely not my DD. I dd a 05 4runner every day. This is just my fun car to mess around with. I have learned to accept the Love hate relationship with my rotary. But from all my previous experience, it's always good to ask people that have been around the car more than I have, then posting about how amazing I got everything right on the first try.

Every person that would have saw my car when I first got it, would have cried.
No door handles, the kid used the hood prop and opened the trunk to open the door. the front was damaged, the hood didn't latch, the flip lights were stuck upward. The second turbo was blown, the car had a 3 inch pipe welded to the precat, and a ebay muffler was slapped on. rear tires on the stock rims were a 225/35/16. the fronts were 245/45/16 If you know tires, you would have known how rediculously stupid it looked. The windshield had a big crack on it. He drove it every day like that!!! The only good thing I got out of it? a Power FC ..

From then on

I've switched to the Apexi Isamu Single Turbo kit
Apexi Noir Exhaust
Another Power FC
AVCR to manage everything
Nice set of staggered wheels on it.
Did all the body work and repaired everything
Rats nest elimination
FMIC
New Radiator setup
New AST
Rechecked compression all around and I got 110 psi on all both rotors and all rotor faces
So it definitely has come a long way.

Oh wow! You're alive!


It sucks getting a molested car, doesn't it? I'm finding missing shit and shit that shouldn't even be there on my fc every time i work on it...... My afm is upside down too. I'm probably going to strangle said previous owner. He was supposed to come by yesterday and pick up some parts and then i was going to bite his head off about all the shit his ricer ass messed up and failed to mention....

Anyway, let us know when the problem is resolved.

yeah I'll take it all apart yet again, just no time recently. I will get to it this week though!

So I took it all apart and this is what I discovered. One of the bolts on the secondary rail came slightly loose. So when they kicked in it lifted the rail up just a little bit. The reason why it caught fire is because it is the vapor and the wastegate has this 90 degree dump pipe that spits out flame and it's so hot that it ignited the vapor. So I fixed that and no problems now.

Why in the world did Apexi not make the wastegate exhaust into the downpipe?! This just makes it all frightening when a flame shoots out of the wastegate.. :-\

Thanks everyone!

He's an S14 guy who treats his FD like it's a 240.

And yeah, Otter, take your car to IRP. Ihor will take care of you. :icon_tup: he's the best rotary mechanic in the northeast, if not in the country.

So what did you do to stop the flames from coming out of the wastegate?

Good to hear you got it sorted out. I came in late but it's still nice to see a thread with a conclusion lol. Did you get the modified primary rail from me? I've sold so many I can't keep track! I was actually nervous till I got to the end of the thread. If you have any injector problems let me know...

I did get the modified rail from you.. The machine shop said it was like .0037th's off or something like that.

lol, at the s14 comment. I do thrash on it. Hey, you gotta pay to play like my buddy said. It's a car. I have fun with it.

I didn't solve the wastegate problem yet, but I think I'm going to talk to my buddy and have him try to weld it so it goes into the downpipe

:bigok:If you don't have fun with your FD, then you might as well not own it.

I got nothin but love for otterball, just like to bust your chops every now and then...

Say, when are you going to be able to paint my car, I think you were saying possibly december last time we talked, right?

well right now I have a fox body mustang torn apart in there, the stroker crank ovaled out one of the cylinders and one of the head studs stripped out the block, so that's in the garage.

Also a Datsun 280zx is in there for body work and modification. so I'll see how it goes...

nice to see ya got it fixed yourself i always like seeing people fix thier own stuff it makes the world a smarter place. i have to admit though when i first posted here it sounded like you were DD it that way with a fire extinguisher in hand to put it out when you stopped. lol and im a firm believer if you dont drive your car whats the point in having it go buy a model instead.

z

They are all milled exactly .125". I've seen some that have more of a mill (looking at reference marks) but I honestly think most factory rail were milled more than others. I think this would be due to impurities in the casting process and instead of throwing it out they just mill it slightly more. Regardless of the mill amount a rail wont leak as long as the o-rings are good and the injectors have a load holding them down. I also always use lock tite on them so there's no chance of the screws coming loose. I use a special green solution so I can see if someone has tampered with them too:rofl:

P.S. If you're in anyway unsatisfied send it back to me and I'll send you a fresh one for no additional charge! :)