My buddy's 1990 GXL has been having issues for the past week. He came home for a few minutes and when he went to leave again it had a hard time holding an idle. It died at the first stop light and was hard to get started, put some gas in it and took it home, now it wont fire at all.

Checked the fuel pump and spark yesterday. Planning on checking the fuel injectors later today. Is there any common electrical issues with these things that cause them not to start? We checked fuses and relays. I am completely new to rotary motors so any help is much appreciated. Thanks, Thomas.

 

So does the engine have:

-spark?
-fuel?
-compression?

 

It has spark. I popped the fuel injectors out today and they are getting power and fuel pressure but they are not squirting anything.

 

How are you testing the injectors?

 

I pulled them out of the intake, still connected to the fuel line and had my buddy crank it. Nothing came out of the injectors but when I pull one off the rail, the rail still has pressure in it.

 

Tested the injectors with an ohm meter as well and they are both fine.

One question I do have is that the Haynes manual says there is two sets of injectors, a primary and a secondary, but all I see is one set. Could they just be referring to a different year model? It is for '86 thru '91.

 

You are probably looking at the secondary injectors, which are mounted on a rail to the upper intake and easily visible. They don't fire during cranking. The primary injectors are mounted under a rail at the middle iron and only visible when the upper intake is removed.

 

Thanks for the info.

I talked to him today and he heard something about putting about 1/3 of a quart of ATF into and then trying to start it because the seals might be messed up. Does anyone have any experience with this trick?

 

is this car flooded ? it sounds like it

 

Well it does get flooded when we try and crank it because it isn't firing. When we pull the plugs and let it dry out, same thing.

 

I just flooded my car and these were the same symptoms. Changed the spark plugs and it ran.

 

Hmm, thank you for the input. So did the plugs go bad because it got flooded or did the gas just have a chance to evaporate out of the rotors?

These rotary motors are greek to me, everyones input has been much appreciated.

 

Don't use ATF, just use a little oil.

If the engine is flooded, it won't unflood itself. You will need to get some oil in there to build up compression. After it starts and burns off all the excess fuel and oil, change the plugs.