Hello,

I am new to Atlanta and my first question is, dose anyone have a mechanic recommendation that has experience with RX7s?

The 93 RX7 I have inherited seems to be fairly reliable as far as the car's reputation goes, however it seems to eat batteries. Currently however its out of commission.

Some of the (potential) symptoms

• IMHIO (I my humble inexperienced opinion) there is a significant amount of corrosion on the positive battery terminal, I cleaned with with bakingsoda + water a couple of months ago
• The last time the battery died and the car would not start I jumped it and took it out for a 40min drive and it has held it has worked for the 2 months or so. This seems to indicate that the battery was taking a charge, and being charged somewhat
• Now the car will not turn over on its own power, but starts happily when jumped
• When started the car seems to behave fine, there is nothing unusual during the engine's warm-up.
• Once I start driving the RPMs drop more then usual when I start to engage the clutch, then the 4W ABS, the check engine light, and the odometer display start flashing, they are not constant.
• When the above occurs and I disengage the transmission everything returns to its happy-go-lucky state in a few seconds.
• This behavior is repeatable.
• When the car is parked and the engine is revved up to 3k the same issues do not crop up.

Thanks for any shop recommendations and potential solutions.

Brian

 

ok, its a little tough because i think you may have more then just a simple problem

but for starters and to eliminate some of the basics lets run through a couple simple things

first have the charging system checked...either by a shop or if you want to do it yourself grab a digital volt meter or dvom, place the 2 probs on each corresponding terminals of the battery and flip it to volts dc with the car off

should read about 12 volts, now start the car, did it sound like it was struggling?
once on check the voltage again, with no electrical accessories on it should read somewere close if not 14 volts..if so your alternators definetly doing something...BUT that doesnt mean its good

load up the system, turn on your rear defog, headlights, heat on blast, radio on..how much did the volts drop? they really shouldnt dropless then about 12.5-13 volts any less and the alternator isnt pumping out enough amps to keep up with the system

the other thing, however is it seems like you may just have a grounding issue, check to make sure all your grounds are clean and attached

check the one on the passenger side that connects the engine to the firewall, check the main one under the battery on the drivers side that attaches to the frame rail

let us no and well go from there

 

Thanks for the response. The alternator was my first suspect as well (guess I'm not as ignorant as I thought ).

The first thing I checked was the battery connections and they appeared to be fine, but when I checked again the other day the bus bars were only at 8V vs the 12v directly to the terminals.

I took off the battery terminal connections and threw em in some baking soda water, then put them back on and the car starts happily now.

While I was at it I checked the alternator's output in the manner you suggested, it runs about 14.5v when the car is under no-additional-load, and around 14 when the heater(isn't really working), defroster, radio, and lights are on.

Sooooo this is a problem I should have figured out on my own the first day it happened.