Hello everyone, I need help with my 12A. I'm stumped.

August 5, 2017, on the way back from the summer Sno-Drift Rally, I decided to lay down a sick-nasty one-wheel peel, went a bit above redline on accident. Came up to the next stop light in my little town, the car stalled with the clutch in and the car in neutral. Checked vacuum lines, no dice. Flat-towed it home and pulled the motor. Money pending, it sat about six months.

The day the Atkins package arrived, I tore it apart to find no seals had been blown, no signs of engine damage from me, the PO rebuilt it with about 8mm of chipped chrome in each rotor housing. Bought new ones from a really cool guy on Facebook (Thanks Hector!) Everything else was FLAWLESS. Replaced every hard and soft seal with Atkins parts, brown water jacket seal and cryo-treated apex seals and side seals, low-friction corners and Atkins corner springs. Meticulously trimmed my side seals to <.001". Spec'd everything according to the FSM and forum veteran advice. Got her together, compression is amazing. Rebuilt the carb, used new needles and seats. Set the floats with dial calipers. Put it on, hooked everything up, invited some family and friends over for the big day.

It won't start.

The float levels are dead-on. So I replaced the dizzy cap and rotor, brand new MSD Blaster High Vibration coils, NGK plug wires, BR8EQ14 plugs, Optima Yellowtop. No dice. siphoned the tank and put in 5 gallons of 93 octane, 2.5oz Idemitsu premix. Triple check the wiring diagrams, everything seems to be good. Vacuum seems to all be hooked up correctly. Fuel lines aren't switched. Little valve is the right direction. I've deflooded it a few times now, dried off the plugs. I've exhausted every option I can think of. It just won't start. I'm losing hope, but I have far too much time and money in this to give up. Any input is greatly appreciated. Thank you all.

 

Welcome to the board.

How close does it sound? Is it at least popping?

Start simple.
1. Recheck the plug and coil wire placements.
2. Remove the distributor. Re-TDC the engine and replace.
3. You replaced the coils, so make sure they are wired up correctly and each in the right spot.
4. Try different plugs
5. Try some Seafoam down the throttle bores. (Had a really stubborn rebuild once that I put Seafoam in it, out of desperation, and it fired right up.)

 

Try poring some oil down the primary barrels of carby and pump acc pedal 5 -6 times to get some fuel in as well then crank over if sounds like it wants to start but wont repeat oil again and fuel and should start

 

I tried that. I also made sure I'm getting spark, and timing is correct. forgot to say that. It won't fire at all.

 

I've since gotten it to pop start in first gear with a little oil, and it runs great! Got the idle down to 750 when it warmed up. I'm going to see if a 2nd gen starter will help, I completely fried the big fat 12A starter trying to start it so much. If the 1.2kW 2nd gen starter isn't enough, I have a 2.0kW RX-8 starter motor as well that I can try.

 

Well, that's good news that you got it running enough to idle. Something to consider though with your possible use of the Rx-8 starter is you need to verify if it will fit. Remember the Rx-8s use the larger 240 mm (???) flywheel, not the smaller NA (225 mm) flywheels.

 

I know; I'll be using the nose of the NA FC starter. The motor itself is the same on the FC-FD-RX8, and the flywheel on the 12A and the NA FC are the same size. Got the info straight from our very own forum elders. Hopefully the new starter is all it needs, why else would a car run great but not start?

 

Got the new starter in, now she starts up pretty well with a little 2-stroke oil down the carb and gas or ether. Takes a second. And like I said, it idles alright, but I've run across another problem... it doesn't drive. For the past month I've been fixing some stuff up, replaced all the clutch hydraulics, then I went to replace the fuel filter and the PO apparently decided it didn't need one. It has a non-OEM Bosch pump, and no filter. So I installed a filter inline before the pump, and I'll be buying a new pump and FPR when I can afford it. This pump sounds a bit weak, it never cuts out, but it goes up and down in volume.

Anyway, the issue. Just backing out of my garage and back in, it always stalls. I can usually get it out of the garage fine by going easy on the clutch at 3000+ RPM, but the 2' or so little ramp in front of my garage is insurmountable. The tiny amount of load makes it die.

Revving it at idle, it stumbles a little. just a little. Adjusting the mixture screw doesn't seem to do too much, though it seems to like being all the way backed out. Like, to the point where the screw isn't being tensioned by the spring under it anymore. Float levels look fine. Accelerator pump is working. Plugs have looked slightly damp any time I've taken them out, presumably from the 2-stroke rather than the gas? Any help is much appreciated as always. I'm so beyond frustrated with this.