I own an 86 N/A GXL and it had some overheating problems due to coolant leaking. I dumped some Blue Devil sealant in to see if that would fix the problem and it did for about a month. During the overheating period smoke poured out of the exhaust sometimes. Now the car doesn't start, it will turn over but not start. T'm completely unsure if this is due to coolant leaking into the combustion chamber and being burned off out the exhaust meaning I probably need a new engine or if I have bad fuel injectors. If anyone could give me any advice on what the problem could be it would help me out so much. Thanks!

 

Overheating can kill motors in a jiffy and adding that sealant probably is going to make your life a mess if you get it rebuilt.

What color was the smoke?

 

Yea I've read that overheating is almost instant death in a rotary motor but the smoke was white. Sometimes it wouldn't smoke and other times it would billow out the exhaust so bad.

 

Admittedly I had to refresh my memory, so here is a fantastic quote from Roen.


Unfortunately it doesn't sound all that good for you. One thing you can do is pull all your spark plugs and turn the car over with the Injection Fuse pulled and anything in the motor will spit out. Then you should be able to determine fuel or coolant.

A compression test after that with a fully charged battery would be a good idea to see if overheating did something bad.

 

Overheating is very bad it toasted my 88

 

my heater hose blew in my 87 sport killing the coolant seals, but it was so well preserved it ran for a whole year on blown coolant seals! provided it looked like spy hunter every time i turned it on in the morning.

 

i wish mine would have lasted a long time to bad it only made it a week now shes in the garage all torn apart poor poor 7 hopefully she gets more road worthy once i fix her up!!!

 

This is the method I used, after installing a new (used) motor only to find out that the coolant seals were bad. Billowing clouds of white smoke just idling in the driveway. I figured I had nothing to lose. 7,000 miles later she's still doing fine, and we're getting ready to take her to the DDGR rally in North Carolina in a few weeks (12 hours each way). So far, this method has worked well for me:

https://www.rx7club.com/1st-gen-archive-71/engine-coolant-seal-repair-maybe-750774/



.

 

Thanks to everyone who posted with a response, this all helps so much. I've been trying to figure out what the problem could be all winter and I'm going to try everything and let yous know the results. Thanks alot!

 

im sad now i should have tried some aluminum stop leak i thought about it but im to stupid now my cars sitn in the garage brilliant me!

 

I replaced the fuel injectors and pulled the spark plugs and the EGI fuse and cranked it a few times then put it back and the car started right up. I wish I would've known thats all I really needed to do, haha. The thing has been sitting all winter. Thanks for whoever helped me! Now I'm replacing the clutch and it's back on the road. : )