I'm sure this topic has been discussed to death at this point but here goes. I have a 1988 rx7 se with 105000 miles on it, she starts up no problem idles at 3000 rpm for a few seconds, drops to 1500-2000 for a few then tries to drop lower but at that point it dies, I'm not sure what could be the problem for certain, if you hills the throttle she will stay running but as soon as you let off she dies. While driving it I haven't noticed any lack of power, the engine spins freely, no excessive smoke or backfire. I've read all sorts of threads where the culprit was either vacuum lines or a faulty tps but in those topics the symptoms seem a bit different. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

A bit bit of background on the car, I bought it in 2005 from the 1st owner with 72000 miles on it, I drove it for 2 years until it was side swiped by a drunk driver and the insurance company totaled it out, at that point I bought a 2007 mazdaspeed 3 and gave my parents the rx7 because one of their cars had died, long story short they didn't understand the basics of rotary ownership and the car fell into neglect over the years, about three years ago the car stopped holding idle so at that point it was parked and hadn't been operated up until a week ago when I regained ownership, my plan is to restore her to the state that she was when we first met. With all that said I'm not completely inexperienced with rotaries but I'm not in any way knowledgable either so I'm hoping to find some help with this!

 

Primary injectors might be clogged.

 

Ok I will try cleaning them out, hope that does the trick! Any ideas on why it would be running a bit hot? The temp gauge isn't getting that hot but after a half mile to a mile drive the engine bay gets really hot and there are some crackling noises not sure what that could be?

 

Temp gauge, if accurate, would read 1/3. if it's higher you need to be very careful because it could damage the apex seals. A faulty water pump or bad thermostat could contribute to your problem. Injectors are best treated w/a professional cleaning. And of course a vacuum leak could be the cause of your poor idling and having to play w/the throttle to keep the car running (most likely the problem).

 

Ok thanks for the advice, it cools off once it's running but starts to climb when it's stationary. It gets a little over half way on the temp gauge. Thermostat was changed out at about 80k so not sure if it's that. Any ideas on how to determine if it is a bad water pump?

 

The thermostat needs to be a factory replacement as others plainly don't work properly. W/respect to the water pump you'll have to search for that answer to get a definitive response.

 

Belt tension can also play into the Temperature problem.If the belts on the pump are loose then the pump is not doing it's job effectively.

 

So the tps was way out of adjustment so fixed that, but it still isn't holding idle. Vacuum lines look good, so next up is new / repaired injectors. If that isn't what's wrong any other suggestions?

 

Vacuum lines need to do more than looking good. While idling spray it and see if the idle changes. If the idle changes briefly then you have a leak.

 

Going to do a fog test on the vacuum lines today hopefully it's a vacuum leak otherwise I don't know what's going on with it :/