slowly losing power
 

A friend of mine asked me to post this question. He said for over the last year ~ 15,000 miles on his car, he's noticed that he's lost / losing power on it. He said it does not "put him back in his seat as it used to". What could this be? Would bad seals result in a gradual / slow loss over time? Or even turbos? I'm not sure what's going on with his car since I figured that either of the issues mentioned would result in an immediate engine performance decrease, not one over time...
Any ideas guys?

ive experienced this issue too... when you first get your 7, and you first drive it the ride is exilerating, and it THROWS you back in your seat. but after you've owned your car for a while, especially if you havnt done ne mods to it for a while, you become more acustomed to it and it doesnt thrill u as much ne more. tell your buddy to get a Garrett T3/T4 super 60 and all his problems will be solved

Well, it's kind of hard to answer the question when we don't know ANYTHING about the situation? What's his boost level?

To be honest, I don't even think he has a boost gauge in his car. It is COMPLETELY stock. SuperRotorMan - I hear what you're saying, getting accustomed to the speed, but I think he feels that he is actually losing power.
Not looking for a precise solution here, just what are some possibilities of what could be wrong with the car?

If it is a completely stock car he might have a boost leak somewhere due to a cracked hose or some vacuum line. Tell him to check that. Better yet, tell him to spend a few bucks on a boost gauge, then he will know if it is something wrong with the car or that he got accustomed to the car's power

Well, we need basic info to provide any help. The two most likely culprits are a boost leak or clogged pre-cat/main cat. Without a boost gauge, it is pretty difficult to troubleshoot.

If nothing else, he can go buy a cheap mechanical boost gauge and some vacuum line from the auto parts store. Hook the gauge up to the unused nipple on the passenger side of the upper intake manifold, it will be covered with a rubber cap. This is a cheap and temporary way to hook up a boost gauge....have him get out and do a WOT run in 2nd or 3rd gear from about 2500 rpm to redline. Have a passenger watch the rpm and boost pattern. Report back to us.

man, with rotories there are soooooooo many possibilities that i doubt ne one here on the forum could give you very much insite, mainly due to our lack of knowledge of the situation, but i have to go with DMonkeyRX-7 on this one, if anything would cause a slow, gradual loss of power it would be something along the lines of a vaccume line or hose that has failed. or even the stock blow-off valve is starting to go, that is quite common in older, stock 7's. Instead of releasing the excess back pressure when you clutch, it just constantly dumps boost back into your intake... thats my oppinion

I'm going to suggest 2 things:
1) He's getting used to the car and it doesn't feel as fast anymore
2) He needs a boost gauge, even if rigged temporarily, since loss of boost is almost certainly where a loss of power would come from.

Dave

I had the same problem, even a few of my friends have asked me whats wrong with the car. There's a difference between getting accustomed to it and just not being thrown back in the seat. My boost was fine. I'm spending a lot of money now to try and get that feeling back again. Guess I'll find out when I get it back in a few weeks.

He thinks its the apex seals going? As for me, when the seals blew on my car - the previous owner of my car said it just happened out of the blue one day, not over the course of 15,000 miles.... I guess I'm kinda curious too, could this be a case of needing apex seal replacement?

It's very unlikely to be related to apex seals.

You need to figure out if the boost is reaching 10psi. It's probably just a boost leak causing the power loss.

Dave