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Hey guys my names Caleb.
im 20 now, bought myself a beautiful 1998 rx7 almost two years ago now... then i ruined it!
I made a rookie mistake of not researching enough about rotary engines, and proceeded to install a full 3 inch downpipe WITHOUT a new ecu and tuning..
Eventually i blew my rear rotor apex seals 2-3 weeks later LOL.
Now, progressing a year and a half from then, I have gone through the process of having a full engine rebuild, including a small bridgeport and 2 piece mazda apex seals, removed the stock OMP and using a good mixture of premix oil now, always putting in 98, ive also installed an Apexi Power FC.
I then also removed the twin turbos and upgraded to a single turbo - AR70front/100rear. I recently went though to auckland and delivered my car to a renown rotary workshop there, they proceeded to replace my injectors, primary are now 1000cc, along with my secondary being 1550cc, installed a good FPR, a 50mm wastegate, a huge BOV, remade the 3 inch downpipe, and cleaned up a few small things in the engine bay.
I am now sitting at home with my rx7 parked in the corner, she has not moved for months! But im in the process of saving for a tune to get that done before i go through to finish my certification.
Finally - the guy from the shop said that they started her up after they finished installing everything, he said it takes a bit to start and runs very rich... now i do have a concern..
when i got her home months ago i believed that the car was ready for a tune, fast forward to about end of last week, i couldnt help myself and had to just go over everything they did finally, and bloody well good i did!
i found that the AN adapters they had put on, one of them were LEAKING FUEL right over the ignition area.. so that worried me a bit, i tightened it so it didnt leak anymore, then become curious as to what else they might have stuffed up.
So i decided hey lets start her up and see if they broke anything or missed something else (after checking over the new modifications manually ofc)
Now heres my main problem... she doesnt start!
i turn her over, she whines away trying to get enough torque to start up, she has a few combustions happen, car reaches about 400 rpm before it has a few pops out the exhaust and the motor fires up to about 750-800rpm before she sputters and dies, almost as if shes just drowning in fuel... but see the thing is i managed to get her up to 1500rpm with applying a little bit of gas, but once i let go she putters down and dies...
Now im stressing!
Did they blow my apex seals by starting it up at their shop?!
or did i just over fuel the engine by repeatedly turning it over without it starting?
anyway thanks guys, cant wait to be apart of this club fully, and have a running rx7 again! haha,
cheers.
Caleb.
Oh i forgot to mention.. she smokes a hell of a lot on that start up.. but its not blue or white its more of a dark colour... smells very rich of fuel too!
Welcome to the forum!! Definitely going to want to head over to the 3rd gen tech section when looking for repair and tuning advice. Those guys there will definitely be able to help get you squared away. Would love to see pictures of the car!!
Hey man thank you! I will head over there with the query and see what they say. Heres a picture in her current state - unpainted bodykit, origin labo front end with the luxury sports bonnet! Rest of the car is factory silver with the infamous whale tail haha!
Welcome to the club. Your car still has the twins, right? Reason I ask is because Mazda redid the vacuum system for Series 7 (96-98) and Series 8 (99-02) with the "black box" turbo control system and the diagram is quite different from the more common Series 6 (92-95) setup one can find via Google. Also, I'm confused about the order of events here. Did you blow an apex seal and then have it rebuilt and modded by this shop, and suspect it blew a seal again? Or am I misunderstanding the series of events?
Anyway, since you have concerns about apex seals, the first thing I would do is a Compression Test. Nothing will tell you more about the health of a shortblock better than this. Banzai Racing Compression Test
Since it's a Series 7 FD, between the puking fuel system and the above-mentioned differences in the vacuum system, this sounds like a bunch of bad juju starting come into the light. While there are bits and pieces of info floating around, misinformation seems to go hand-in-hand with Series 7 and 8, so I would doubly verify everything you find. Things like the "Black box" seem to be either undocumented or incorrectly documented outside of Japan so far. That and there's 6 different versions of the Power FC available for the FD (3 for S6, one for S7 and 2 for S8), so quite a few variables with varying degrees of comprehension and possible bodgery being discovered as you found out firsthand with the fuel system.
I have a copy of the 96+ diagram if you need it, but it's in Japanese and it'll be a few weeks at the soonest before I have time to even look at it to advise properly on it, as I'm WAY deep in the Eunos Cosmo workshop manual right now.
