Warming and cooling down the FD
 

I was looking into buying a 3rd Gen RX7 and I have done extensive research about this car before buying it. I heard it's not a reliable engine but I think it's mostly due to the driver. I read that seals break and this leads to total engine failure. I also read that the rotary engine should not be treated like a regular engine in that you can turn it on and "just go". I read that the engine needs to warm up to a certain RPM in order to properly warm up the turbos and the fuel to air ratio. Is this accurate and other personal experiences with this situation?

the way i do it :
i have installed numerous gauges amongst which i have oil temp ( Filter ) and water temp ( water pump housing as coolant comes out of the engine )
i have all the emission and many other systems removed form the car but the procedure is the same
cold START:
keep car revved ~2200 RPM until OIL temp reaches 55 Celsius .. then you can go

stop : for the last km to my house ... i pop the hood open ( i do not open it ) and roll the car in 2nd ~ 1500 rpm
i usually get home with water a bit lower than 90 C and oil ~70-80 C

then once parked i give it a throttle blip to ~ 3000 and simultaneously shut the engine down ( no fuel will ever sit overnight inside the engine like this )

i don't usually let it idle once parked as a turbo timer does because i will see temps increase if the car sits within the garage ( to a max of 95 C water and a max of 92 C oil )

that`s pretty much it

and remember it`s not a space shuttle it`s just a stupid car :) , just take care of it and .... unfortunately even if you take care of it things can go wrong .. thing that you cant necessarily control .. but when the car runs .. it RUNS ;)

btw .. best car ever :)

great instructions. Thanks man.

By bliping the throttle do you mean holding the revs at 3k and wait until it completely stops or just stab it up to 3k and then remove your foot from the gas while you pull the key out?

rev to 3k and turn it off while its there.

honestly all that stuff is overkill, either that or u need a rebuild. just warm the car up for about 30 seconds or until the idle smooths out and drive it.

when i shut off i bleep the throttle to ~ 3000( similar to revmatching bleep , actuallt exacly the same )

and i dont need a rebuild , i just rebuild 7K ago :) , my frist personal rebuid :) im so proud of it

btw all that start up procedure takes ~ 1min 30 sec ....

I think you have OCD. That is way to much stuff to screw around with.

all that takes ~ 2-3 mins lol
what is OCD?

i just got my first FD, already modded to single td07-25g and some other stuff but just FD's get hot and stay hot, you can't treat it like an SR or honda engine b/c it's built to be a race car...well one of the good things i just got done doing was lower theromo and copper Koyo rad, with a/c on and in stop and go traffic i never go over 95c now before i would always have to turn a/c off and let it cool down in traffic, but like stated before, once it's warmed up you notice a difference in the car, and i also agree turbo timers are a waste for these cars!
LOVE FD!!!

Well my original engine lasted 108k till I blew it from over bosting. How relaible was my car? Very reliable till the end. Never any flooding or hard starting issues EVER. Excessive idling is a NO NO with any rotary. Warming up the car is unecessary. I never did it however, I did let the AWS do it's thing when 1st started. This is when the engine goes to 3k at start-up for about 20secs then idles down. I don't care what anyone says, THIS WILL NOT HURT THE ENGINE as mine was proff and has lasted longer than 99% of the engines on this forum. The really nice thing about the AWS feature (that most here don't realize) is it helps burn the excessive gas that gets dumped in during a cold start. Any excessive gas that gets left behind later helps build excessive carbon build-up (which is something you DO NOT WANT).


The absolute best way to cool the car down is too drive it very gingerly a mile or so before shut down. This is the best way to get cooling air through the radiator and oil coolers.

That's not to excessive when you consider his climate location way up north.

my old FD's engine is STILL going, over 110k now...

i made sure it was warmed up before driving it too hard.

cool down was, turn engine off, turn key to on, turn on AC (which runs the fans), and then turn key off, and let turbo timer run the fans for a while

i did have an oil temp gauge for a while, and since theres no fan on the oil cooler, oil temp goes way high with the car stopped.

it seemed better to have the engine off and fans running