As a sanity check: Is the gas in the car good?

 

Check gas tank for corrossion. 15 years is a long time to sit.

Check engine bay for signs of actual rat's nesting.

 

yup. Drained tank and filled with 93. Verified clean gas pumped into feed line at pump and at rail.

 

You may have stuck apex seals. Compression test might help reveal that.

Probably stop trying to make it run, til you have done one.

I would be seriously concerned about the condition of the internal coolant seals.

Going forward, watch carefully for exhaust in your coolant, or coolant vapor in your exhaust.

 

I would say if RC checked the injectors and cleaned them, they are good unless they were rebuilt 15 years ago and sat that long after rebuild. I had mined done recently by my friend at Boostlab and they are doing well. I would check compression, could even be a stuck seal if its been sitting for that long or possibly bad fuel like mentioned above. I've unstuck a side seal with ATF on one of my old engines. Definitely take a peek in the tank to make sure its not full of rust. And you have to remember, its not going to run "well' with the stock ECU.

 

The injectors were cleaned in the last month, so they are not top suspects at this time. It did seem last night that the engine was idling 'better', perhaps just slowly burning out the 2-cycle oil I had squirted in to lube the seals before the first starting? I should have checked the forum before we resumed yesterday, or I wouldn't have kept trying to start it before doing a compression test as Redbul advised.

We are likely at a stopping point anyway, as we noticed previously that the TPS was cracked; and last night we confirmed that we could not get voltages within spec for the wide or narrow band signal. So I'll be looking for one of those. Adjusting the TPS did seem to make an appreciable difference in idle quality.

When I have a working TPS, and pending a compression check, we'll see what problems remain. Is a proper rotary compression tester necessary for this purpose? I'm trying to only buy necessary things as best I can, cause lordy knows there's so much stuff out there to buy!

I wouldn't think the stock ECU vs the Pettit unit would make any difference for the purposes of starting up and idling; but supposing I can get the car moving under its own power again, is there any benefit to trying to get it to run as well with the current configuration and stock ECU (as it can) before swapping in the Pettit? Or am I mistaken thinking the Pettit will be more suitable at all? I'll probably spend some time swimming through the forum archives to get a better idea.

I bought most of this stuff 15-20 years ago, and my interests are much more towards (relative) reliability and drivability than when I was a youth haha.

I'm trying to do the fewest changes at once as I can; but if that general practice may not be the best in this situation, I'm happy to hear what others think.

Thanks again for the advice folks!

 

When I did the engine revival on my FD that sat for who knows how many years, I struggled to get it to start and run.

I too had done 2-stroke/atf in the engine to free up seals. This fouled the plugs almost immediately and I ignored a simple plug swap for more complicated causes.
Change your plugs right away and see if the car runs any better. It's simple, and you'll need to do this anyhow.

 

Let me know if you can't find a cheap TPS.

$100 would be cheap. $400 would be retail.

 

@tomsn16

 

Look into picking up a used Power Fc for you year.

Then become aware of all this.

https://www.rx7club.com/3rd-generati...anger-1171091/

 

https://www.rx7club.com/3rd-generati...esome-1161545/