So I got my first rotary powered car, a 1985 RX-7 GSL-SE, and have been having a blast driving it. It is street ported with a single turbo and has several other upgrades. I was out playing around the abandoned airbase where I live today and really wasn't pushing it that hard when it kinda made a noise and then was acting weird. Ok, for the symptoms:

1. It has a slight clanking that sounds close to the bell housing to me.

2. It lost quite a lot of power and makes kind of a sputtering sound when on the accelerator pedal.

3. It runs quite and smooth at idle.

I checked all vacuum hoses and made sure the MAP sensor didn't come unplugged. I can't find any obvious places that anything is leaking. The engine was fully rebuilt and swapped into it about 25,000 miles ago. If a video is needed to help explain what's going on, I can do that. Thanks in advance for any advice.

 

Here's a video of it running.

 

Sounds like backfiring in the exhaust from unburnt fuel due to apex seal failure. Hopefully i am way off base here though. Doesnt sound good at idle to me either.

 

Well the first day it sounded ok at idle, by the time I limped it to the shop, the noise was apparent throughout the rpm range and at idle. I hope it's not the seals. It does sound like rattling in the exhaust/turbo area. I was thinking it was possible a waste gate issue.

 

Well I feel stupid but luckily it was an easy fix. So I jacked the car up and crawled under it to look things over. I checked the IWG linkage and everything felt good. I was then just looking and feeling for anything that would be causing that rattle and problem... Well turns out all that was wrong was the exhaust cutout's butterfly nuts had rattled loose. I tightened them back up and started it up and it ran just like it did before. I drove it around a little and its back to how it was. So now I can get past the thought of major problems and start working on all the little things it needs.