Hi, I need some help.
We have this car here at our shop, It's a 89 RX7 convert. I got two different stories from the customer about what happened with it. First he said the car has been sitting for a while and now it wont start. Second he said he drove the car and it wouldn't start the next day, So who knows what the real story is. Anyway the car has the 1.3L 13B engine. From the looks of it, it has been sitting for a while. When I first looked at it, it cranked real fast and sounded like it lost compression. I had one of these cars years ago with the same problem so I had an idea where to go with it. I first checked the little antifreeze bottle near the firewall that is used for cold starting and found that the pump was unhooked. I hooked the wires back up and filled the tank. Now the pump runs while cranking. Next I ordered two sets of plugs and put one set in. I still couldn't build up compression. Next I removed all the plugs and shot a lil oil in each plug hole. When I cranked it then I had a little compression. I pulled the plugs again and dried them off. I put them back in, pinched off the fuel line and cranked it over again. I did this several times. When I first hit the starter I got a few fires out of it for the first 5-10 seconds than nothing again, (I did this with the fuel line pinched and un pinched) I would pull the plugs again and reinstall dry ones. After a while I decided to crank the engine over without the plugs in. When I did this I had compression coming out of the rear two plug holes but nothing coming out of the front two. I verified this with a compression tester.

Is there anything else I can try to get the compression back? How do I know if the front rotor is shot? Do any of you guys have any other ideas? I don't really get too many of these cars in the shop so I don't have that much experience with them. The owner has a used car lot and he brings ALL his cars to us so I don't want to sell him anything he doesn't need or chase him away. I have both Mitchell ON Demand and Alldata shop manuals on out computer but there is no information on this problem in either program.

Thanks for any help,
MIKE

 

Step 1. UNplug that antifreeze bottle. I'm surprised the car still has it, there was a TSB that said to eliminate that. It causes flooding.

Step 2. Remove the lower plugs and the EGI fuse and cranlk the engine to clear it out.

Step 3. Put a small amount of tranny fluid (the red stuff) in each lower plug hole. This is to bring compression back, as the engines lose compression when they flood due to the gasoline washing the lubricating oil away from the inside surfaces of the engine.

Step 4. Crank it some more. until compression comes back. if compression doesn't come back, the engine is probably fried.

Step 5. Install NEW spark plugs, put the EGI fuse back in, and start the engine.

Did you have ALL of the plugs out when you tested compression? You can't test compression that way - leave the upper plugs in for best results.

 

if the car is stickshift i would definatly try pushstarting it! if it ran fine before it will run fine again! push the car till it starts , go at least 35mph in 2nd gear... the x-tra load will help start it easier, its worked for me dosens of times!