Kind of a general inquiry. My beloved '85 SE with 137k miles blows a little smoke on start-up and eats about a quart of oil a month. Overall runs pretty good for an old girl and looks great, and I am willing to put some money into her to keep her maintained (brakes, shocks, struts, etc). Engine problems though are a big deal and I am not mechanically inclined to deal with it. I am very torn on investing in a new car or putting money into the old one. The question is, once you start to see smoke on start-up and some oil consumption, how long until the engine completely breaks down...can I get 10/20/30k more miles on it or can the engine blow up at any moment? What can be done to fix the problem (new seals, engine rebuilt, etc) and what does something like that cost? I am just trying to decide if it's worth it to continue with this car or move on. Any thoughts are appreciated!

 

My 85 SE blows smoke every time i start it if its sat a lil bit. I always thought because its not white and its blue that id rather be burning oil than coolant. unless its white i wouldnt panic unless its a major seal failure. Kinda comforts me to know the oils getting there. o ya I have 150k on mine and my comp is great and I can still smoke stangs all day!

 

i will be rebuilding mine soon tho.

 

Depends on how you look at it. The car isn't dead when the engine gives out, just needs heart surgery. Think of it as a perfect time to put a streetport motor in there. When mine goes, I'm going to rebuild/streetport it myself, although it hardly burns any oil at all

 

I'd say your fine... It's pretty common. 1 qt a month is about right. Do you know the rx-7s squirt oil in the engines to help lube and cool? So they will consume alot more oil than a standard piston motor. If my car sits for a few days it will smoke on first startup. Not a big deal. Only 85k on it....

Is the car ever hard to start?

If your really worried just take it into a shop that knows rotarys and have them do a compression check. Don't take it into a joeshmoe chevy/ford mechanic though. You should have 6 numbers.
Go here for more info...
https://www.rx7club.com/1st-gen-archive-71/engine-compression-test-using-piston-engine-tester-597883/

 

A little blue smoke on startup is perfectly normal for a 180,000+ mile rotary engine. And all rotaries (except the ones set up for premix) have an oil metering pump just below the water pump. That little booger slowly pumps oil from your engine to your intake to lube your apex seals, else your engine would destroy itself in just a few miles. The fact that its using a little oil is a good thing, and you should check it regularly. You may just have some accelerated wear on your oil retention gasket. Looking at the design of the rotary engine, your crankcase is in the middle of the engine, with combustion chamber all around. When she sits for a while, some of that oil drains down past the oil seal. So on older engines, a little smoke on startup is normal, and should be ignored. Also, due to the oil metering pump sending oil to be burned, make sure you never, ever run synthetic oil unless you pull the omp and premix your gas. Synthetic does not burn well, and could be the cause of the smoke if it never did it before. Well maintained, i would almost be surprised if a rotary didnt see the 300,000 mile mark. So change that oil and get some sleep.

P.S. Also go shell out twenty bucks for an OMP rebuild kit, and pull the omp off, clean it and rebuild--aside from fixing any leaks there, it will be very, very good preventive maintenance to keep your apex seals lubed. But I still wouldnt worry unless she smokes even when the engine is fully warmed up.

 

got 208,000 on mine and she smokes on start-up has for awhile know that i think about it

 

No problem starting, just the once a year flooded engine joy.

 

haha yeah, and a joy it is! And then you buy a car from some idiot that messed up the carb trying to "fix" a rough idle caused by that humongous vacuum leak...

 

Your oil control rings are probably getting a bit worn. Not a big deal, and the motor can last forever in that condition. Mine starting doing that at 180,000 miles and I had a lot of success using Lucas Heavy Duty Oil Stabilizer. Just replace one quart of oil with the Lucas and you should see a lot less smoke and oil loss.

This is really just an oil seal that is leaking a bit, and not a sign of a failing motor. Try the Lucas and see if it helps. Good luck..

Also, make sure that the oil level is not too high. That's what caused my rings to fail in the first place, the Haynes manual gave me bad info and I overfilled the system during an oil change.


(All of the above information is based on the assumption that the smoke smells like oil, and not fuel or coolant).
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