I went driving last night, and was boosting down the road, car runs amazing. Then I went to go up a steep hill that is by my house, when I felt a power loss in the low rpms. Once the car went above 3kish it seemed to run right. But now at idle, and low rpms the car runs ruff, loss of power, and it sounds funny. There doesnt seem to be any smoke, but my freind was behind me when I was boosting down the road. He said he saw a little cloud of white smoke. Any info is greatly appriaciated. i ordered new plug for starters, and I checked my map sensor. Im hoping it is a fouled plug, but I have never had one go bad on me. Am I screwed?

~Mike

 

anyone?

 

Damn, i think it may be time man. I hate to bring a dark cloud over you but i believe these are the symptoms. Compression check would be the most logical thing to do right now. Good luck.

 

I agree. You probably blew a housing seal which will cause coolant to leak into the combustion chamber. During cold startup in the morning, if it idles rough with white smoke that smells sweet like coolant indicates your engine is doomed and it's time to break out the check book.

 

well it is not making smoke during start up. It just sounds strange. Has anyone ever had a plug go out? if so what did it do?

 

ACtually you know what? IT happened to me.

Except it wasnt a bad plug, it was a plug wire that came loose off the leading rear rotor if i recall correctly. On cold startup, it would shake and idle funky, if i try to raise the rpm's, it would get worse. I had to let it warm up before it evened out. After it warmed up, driving was normal except when in boost where it would make boost late as hell, like 5500rpm and it wont boost correctly, id get about 4psi.

So yeah, check your plug wires and plugs. I guess thats the only thing you can do now before you go insane when you might find out its the long way downhill (if you know what i mean )

 

Ya I just changed the plugs seems to be a bit better, but now that I looked at my wires they are horrible.. They are oil saturated, and nasty. Hopefully this is the key. If not I may be looking under other threads for afforadable engines, lol.. Not what i wanna do at all!

 

I had my mechanic take a look at it, and it looks like one of the fuel injectors is not getting the power it needs. Anyone ever heard of this? What would make this happen? I have a power fc, can they go bad?

Mike

 

I haven never heard of an injector not getting enough voltage....are you running original stock injs? I also doubt it is the power fc, although that is a possibility I suppose. Perhaps an injector is leaking on you. Is the car hard to start?

What is your vacuum at idle? what is your idle rpm? It certainly sounds like a compression problem (lack of low rpm power), or if you are on your original motor it may be the coolant orings. When my original motor went due to coolant seal failure, it ran like an absolute champ the day it let go.

 

When you pull the wire from the injector it gets no juice? I don't know what the deal is. We put a test light on all the injectors, and one of them gets no power. I am running the rx7store modified fuel rail with 1600cc injectors. I am on my original 50k miles engine. My mechanic did not do a compression test, but he pulled the plugs, and he said that all the compression feels about the same. The car is not very hard to start.

 

Well, that's good news, all of that sounds like the motor doesnt have a compression problem.

You didnt answer my question up above about the idle vacuum and rpm......

 

hmm.. I will go check it out in a few.. stay tuned

 

ok...

Vacuum is holding around 17ish
The Idle is holding strong at 1250-1290
The car starts right up

 

That idle is high, but I assume that's b/c the car is cold. Once it warms up and the idle drops to 800-900 rpm check and see what it is, and if it holds steady or if the vacuum needle is oscillating.

 

the car seems to idle at 1500k even when it is warmed up. and the boost vacuum is 17-18ish. They are working on the car now, but none of them are rotary mechanics per say. I think the engine might be messed up. What is the best way to repair an engine. A rebuild, or just get a street port?