Hello all,
I am posting this mainly to brag about my fb but also to help anyone who possibly has experienced similar issues I had to deal with. And also to send out some feelers as to what I should research next for my fb! Long read so read the tl:dr if you are just curious as to what I have done thus far.

Tl:dr. Carb rebuild, spark plugs, wires, ignition coils, cap and rotor, holley red fuel pump, fuel pump regulator, tranny fluid, oil, and coolant replaced, RB header back exhaust, RB springs, replaced fuel lines, removed emissions BS. now I am looking for ideas on what to do next! let me know!

Story Time!!!
About 4 months ago, my old car died (shitty old ford passed down through several siblings, I was the last to get it and it was beat to sh*t, thanks a lot bro's!), timing belt snapped on an interference motor while driving. This led me on a journey to find a new car! I had 4 'requirements' for my new car 1. had to be a manual 2. had to be rwd 3. Had to have pop up lights 4. had to be a 2 door. I know these are not great requirements for a car but its what mattered to me! I initially started looking into 240's but finding one unmolested was quite a challenge. After a few weeks of searching I gave up and turned my focus towards miatas, but I wanted one with a hard top because I heard horror stories of people cutting holes in soft tops. Finding a miata hard top that was also unmolested was quite a challenge. While looking for miatas, I came across an rx7 at a Mazda dealership and it fit all of my 'requirements' so I went to check it out.

Upon arriving at the dealership (I called ahead and told the salesman that I was looking at the 7). As I was inside signing release papers to take the car for a test drive, I could hear the 'mechanic' outside turning the car over repeatedly without it starting and damn near flooding the thing to all hell. I quickly got the papers signed and ran out there and realized the genius did not have the choke out. Once the choke was out the car roared to life in a cloud of smoke and gasoline fumes. It was love at first sight!

On the test drive, a few things immediately occurred to me as issues. 1. the engine violently shook the entire car, the salesman who knew nothing about anything assured me that it was normal for rotaries to shake this much…right… 2. the car would not physically rev past 3500 rpm unless you really attacked the gas pedal with some force, and even then the car shook more uncontrollably above 3500 rpm's. Oddly enough, this is exactly what I was looking for; a car that needed some TLC that I could bring back to life, I was sold. Also the car was in near perfect aesthetic condition and completely stock, so that also helped and with 76,000 miles.

At the time, I knew little to nothing about rotaries or cars in general, I knew rotaries went around in a circular motion, but I didn't know the specifics of how or why, so I took a step into the unknown.

List of Repairs: (all of the information I have gathered and repairs came from this forum! The repairs have all been done by myself with help from friends when needed)

The first thing I did when I got the car was replace the spark plugs, cap and rotor, plug wires, ignition coils, and timing belts. This made the car run much better but it still was not great.

I then replaced the tranny fluid, oil, and coolant, which were all surprisingly clean, but I figured it was better to be safe than sorry.

The next item on the list was to attack the carb. Prior to purchasing this car, I had little to no knowledge of what a carb did, let alone how to rebuild it. After many hours of research (on this forum) and many pictures and step by step instructions I began my week long journey of messing with the carb. Unfortunately, none of my friends had any knowledge of carbs either so I was on my own. After 3 failed attempts of rebuilding the carb and reinstalling it in the car and turning it over, then pulling it back out and rebuilding it again and a weeks worth of time and many new swear words, I finally got it right and the car came back to life.

For anyone considering rebuilding their carb but too afraid to do it, the hardest part was getting that one mother loving bolt off on the driver side next to the fire wall. Whoever designed that should be beaten with a 12mm wrench. On the bright side, now I have 'rx7' specific tools because I had to bend my wrench at a 90 degree angle to get to the bolt Also for anyone looking to do this, take pictures of everything! If the instructions say to take off the dash pot, take a picture of it and where it attaches and then remove it, don't just take it off and hope you remember how to get it back on, you won't.

Unfortunately, after many days of turning the car over and trying to tune the carb, the starter motor died shortly after getting the carb reinstalled. I then thought it would be a good idea to replace the starter motor while the car was still on the ground This turned a 20 minute task into a 2 hour back breaking pain… I would not recommend doing it this way….

After tuning the carb and readjusting the timing, the car ran much smoother, but still had that infamous 3k hesitation. Also a new development occurred around this time. Under heavy load the car began to chirp uncontrollably and very loudly.

I went for the obvious fix and changed the belts with no luck...

Regardless of the chirping, I was determined to figure out the 3k hesitation! In my close minded head, I was certain it was a fuel issue. Thus, the most logical thing to do was rip out that old fuel pump and put in a brand new holley red pump with regulator…which was a huge mistake… don't do it, ever. People said it was loud, but i figured it couldn't be that loud or else why would anyone buy it….boy was I wrong

I did some research and found a post with pictures outlining how to do the instal and I followed it closely. What seemed like a fairly straightforward instal turned into a nightmare. I had to fabricate a pump mount that could be mounted to the existing stock pump bolts thus eliminating the need to weld onto my chassis. Also the pump had to be mounted upright which created a whole net set of challenges. I used this opportunity to clear out all of my fuel lines using compressed air, and replace all of the rubber tubing. This is where I made another mistake…At the time I was unaware that the little box with an fuel inlet tube and outlet tube located before the pump but after the fuel tank was a pressure release, so I deleted it and lost it… I now have to relieve the vacuum pressure in my fuel tank manually by opening the gas cap before and after every drive… Oh, did I mention the pump is F*CKING LOUD! I hate it and want to burn it in the pits of hell!

Anyways! this of course still did not fix the 3k hesitation, however! it did slightly reduce the chirping noise which was nice. The next logical thing in my close minded imagination that was causing the hesitation was a vac leak. I used the old school method of spraying starting fluid all over the vac lines while the car was running but I couldn't find the leak (because there wasn't one…). But I was certain there was one because why would I listen to logic and reasoning Well the hoses were looking pretty shotty anyways so I decided to replace all of the hose lines. Of course this had no positive effect other than it is one less thing to worry about in the future.

I decided to turn my attention to the chirping noise because I was too pissed off at the hesitation to think logically. I posted on this forum with a video and many solutions were thrown out, most of which I had already addressed ( vac leak, weak coils, bad plugs, etc…) Then one glorious individual suggested timing issues and said it might be pre- detonation. But I had already checked and rechecked my timing!

I decided to check it again but instead to test different locations on the adjustment slot. I noticed as I advanced the timing all the way to the end of the available adjustment, the 3k hesitation seemed to get slightly better but the timing marks were way off! Going with this logic and forgetting about the timing marks, I pulled out the cap and rotor and moved the teeth over one notch and checked the timing by 'feel' instead of a timing gun. After several adjustments back and forth on various teeth, I finally was able to eliminate the 3k hesitation! this also got rid of the pre detonation! The car now runs crazy smooth and has no hesitation or chirping noises! (if anyone thinks that this may be an issue that I can no longer even find the timing marks when trying to time it, let me know!)

At this point, I would say my car was running in near perfect condition! so I focused my attention on minor performance improvements. I installed a RB header back exhaust and RB springs.

Other minor fixes include, replacing an after market stock deck that the previous owner installed but was not working correctly. I also reattached the center console lid which had been abused and broken off by the previous owner. I sanded out and repainted the drain holes in the rear hatch which were rusting, and I installed a fuel pump kill switch in a super secret location

I am extremely proud and happy with how far I have come with my car and I love driving it as much as possible, even though it drinks fuel like a damn drunken sailor and now that I have been ***** deep in my car and bonded with it over hours of driving and hours of repairs I can truly say I have an unhealthy attachment to it.

If you made it this far thank you for reading along! Now is your chance to throw out some ideas on what to do next. I personally love the look of the car and I do not plan on doing anything aesthetically to it. I am all ears on performance upgrades, I have been looking into porting, and possibly carb upgrades. Also I might look into replacing the rear drum brakes with discs. Let me know what you think and I will begin the research process! Like I said before I am extremely happy with where my car is now, but I am just looking for ideas!

 

 

That sounds like a nice car you have there, white is my favorite color on first gens. As for as performance upgrades the rb Holley set-up it's nice.

 

nice car good luck with it

 

Nice car man mine is stock-ish too just wait till it's not fast enuf so you brake open the keg and port the hell out of it then you'll fall in love with the brap brap brap of happy rotarys

 

Thanks for the replies everyone! I am already itching for more power! but I just got my car running well within the last month so I do not want to go back to having her up on blocks again…. at least not yet I will definitely look into porting here soon, any recommendations on the type of port?

 

I would say it depends on how to drive I have a bridgy that I love an use as my daily driver it idles a little rougher and gets really crappy gas milage and is also very loud
Most people that port and drive it I the streets go with a small to mild street port tho I've driven both and with the bp it wants to rev alot and u get better high end power but less low end torque hope this helps a little I can send you a vid of mine over email if you want

 

It's really unusual for a Mazda Dealer (or any manufacturer Dealer) to be selling a car of this vintage from their used car lot. They almost always wholesale out any Trade-ins they get that are over 10 years old. That's why they end up at "Joe Blows" Car lot on the corner.

 

yea I guess i lucked out! however like i said it was running like shizzy so i assume they probsbly had a hard time getting rid of it, even pawning it off on someone else...