I am new to this whole rotary motor thing. Here is the story for today.
While I went and picked up my rotary pickup on Friday, I cleaned it out today and it run good. I didn't have any problems with it at all. Well here is what happened today, I let my dads buddy drive my little pickup. None of us have driven a rotary pickup ever so this is 100% new to us. I was going to change the plugs, oil, oil filter, plugs wires, rotor, and cap, sometime this weekend. But my dads buddy and me took off to have a little fun and have him see what those little rotary motors could do. We took it down the street, and turned around. When he turned around he dropped the clutch and did a nice burn out. Then we shot right buy my house and turned around, I said hey lets do one more in front of them out side. So we did one more, it was almost a block long and didn’t hook-up tell he hit 3rd gear. We went back down the street, and turned around and after that it started to run rough, like it didn’t have power at 2500 rpm. We got it home and were thinking maybe a fuel filter. But after he left I went to turn it around so I could look at it some more, it did the same thing, it would idle fine tell you took off. I am worried about the motor; I am thinking maybe I did something to one of the seals.

I have no idea what to do from here right at this point. I changed the spark plugs, thinking maybe I failed them. But that didn't do anything. As of right now I have a 74 rotary pickup that runs fine at idle, but when you go to take off or have it get up there to 2500 rpm, it sounds bad, runs rough. My dad was thinking maybe it was something with the distributor, but I have no idea.


Here is what it’s doing...
Runs fine when idling, not going anywhere, just at a stop. Then after you get it up to 2500rpm it seems like it doesn’t have any power, sounds kind of funny also, has like a low sound to it. If you try to drive it, it wants to die, but you can keep it going and drive it along. Just runs ruff and wants to die when driving it. But it’s fine when it’s idling.


What does a rotary sound like when its messed up, when a seal or something else in the motor is gone?
Does it still idle good when something is wrong in the motor?

 

if it idles the seals are fine

probly the fuel filter

btw if you pop an apex seal it will be hard to start and idle, itll run but have no power at all in any rpm

 

I picked up a new cap, new rotor, new plug wires, and plugs. Turns out, my distributor is from an '83-'85 Rx7. Maybe the motor is from that year, I really don't know. I also bypassed the fuel filter which didn't help any, it still ran wired after all this. We were looking down in the carb while it was running, and it looks like it was just dumping fuel in insted of a nice stream, I am thinking maybe its flooding out the motor when it needs more fuel. Could something like that happen? I was thinking maube I should rebuild the carb. It is a Holley 4bl carb setup, and it has sat for sometime before I got the truck. Is there any way I could tell what year the motor was built?

 

yuh thats a possibility

its it a racing beat holley or just a regular holley

btw there are some 1st gen guys in your area
you should post there since the engines are so similar, maybe you can get some hands on help

 

Anyway I could tell if it’s a racing beat Holley or just a regular Holley? The carb is still on the stock intake from what I can see. It has an adaptor so the Holley can bolt on the stock intake. That is what it looks like to me anyways.

 

i think the racing beat holley sits 90 degrees different than a stock holley so the linkage hooks up correctly, or perhaps so the float bowls are aiming towards the front and back of the car. I can't recall, only seen the picture in the catalog. You'd probably be able to find some sort of tag on the carb that IDs it as Racing Beat as well if it is such.

To be honest, it sounds like a vacuum leak to me. Get a vacuum gauge hooked up on the engine and see what the reading is. It should be about 18 in/hg.

 

A vacuum leak would keep it from idling, but be barely noticeable under power. I'm guessing fuel delivery, myself. Doesn't your REPU have a 4-port 13B? That's what it would have come with. Anyway, I'd make sure you have adequate fuel volume and pressure to the carb first, then start looking at the carb. I was gonna say it sounded like burnt points until you mentioned the electronic distributor.

 

The float bowls on the Holleys for rotarys r left and right of the carb rather than front and rear like one for a piston engine. But come to think of it, even if he had a carb for a piston engine, it would still have to sit with the bowls left and right in order to work properly considering the primaries feed the inner ports and the secondaries feed the outer ports.