I just bought a 82 rx7 with 73000 miles on it and it made the 8 hour drive back home without a problem (it was a very nice warm day on the drive back) . I tried to start the car today and it was cold and raining outside. The car will idle and a some faint whitish blue smoke blows out of the car. And if I try to rev the motor in nuetral it will die. I checked the coolant and its a low; the oil level is fine. I'm not sure what's wrong? I'm worried it might need a rebuild. Please help with any advice. If I need to be clearer about anything please let me know what and ill clarify the best I can thanks.

 

White smoke usually = coolant/water

Blue smoke usually = oil


If the coolant's low, fill it up, and then try starting the car and taking the radiator cap off. If you get a bunch of air bubbling out, the coolant seal may be gone in which case you may be looking at a rebuild (although I seem to recall someone on the forum having luck with a radiator stop-leak).


However, since you said it seemed to be fine last time you drove it (and I'm assuming it didn't overheat on your drive home which is what usually destroys the seal), it's possible that being rainy/damp outside, it's simply a matter of the moisture wreaking havoc with your ignition system. For example, there could be a spark crossfiring - might still work enough to keep the engine going at idle but as soon as the RPM's go up, the crossfire means stuff sparking at a very wrong time and it dies. Make sure the spark plug wires are spread out from one another. If you can get the car idling when it's dark out, open the hood and look for sparks arcing - that's another tell-tale sign. If that's the problem, simply starting it on a dry day will probably work until you get the wires (and possibly cap/rotor) replaced.

Anyway, best of luck!

 

Try new cap/rotor/spark plugs and give her a go. Probably moisture in the ignition system.

If you keep losing coolant, or keep having issues with white smoke, then check out this thread here:

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



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I replaced the distrubutor cap rotor plugs and wires. The engine starts up better but it has a slight hesitation going from idle to reving but will then drive fine. I filled up the radiator cap and now that I isn't cold and wet there isn't any smoke coming out of the exhaust so everything seems fine there. so all thats left to do is change the oil but besides that im not sure what would cause the hesitaion

 

fuel filter slightly dirty, a pice of trash on the fuel lines, carb jets being a bit dirty, very tiny vacuum leak, it could be different things for mine i think it is a slightly dirty fuel filter, it's been about 2 years since it was last replaced i think :P

 

Mine does something similar. Itll smoke a little when its cold but once it warms up it disappears.

Does it die after revving with the choke on?

 

every car smokes when its cold outside, until the exhaust warms up, from condensation all the water inside the exhaust is being vaporized

 

Yeah I probably should have mentioned that haha

 

Mine has been doing something very similar. When completely warm there is no issue at all. When cold it dies when giving it any gas at all. Even after a good warm up time it hesitates when going from idle to acceleration. Sometimes it will die at every stoplight unless I have run it to the redline at some point on the drive. Once it has redlined once it never gives me any problems. I am certainly not one to complain about have to drive hard, but still puzzling. Any thoughts?

 

You shouldnt redline your car when its cold. Does it die with the choke on? Cause thats what its for, cold running

 

I wait until it is fully warmed before running to the redline. It idles fine when the choke is pulled. In fact in order to keep it from dying I will manually hold the choke out at red lights. Once I have been out on the highway and wound it up once, it never tries to die again. The engine just seems to run better overall when it is hot. In cool weather even when fully warmed up, it seems to have less power. Since it sat for years before I had it I thought it may have been just a matter of running it for a while. But now that I have been driving it for 6 months I am not sure what it is. Vaccuum leak?

 

Could be nothing more than a carb tuning issue. Spend some time over at Sterling's site, he's got great writeups on tuning the idle and eliminating issues like those you're describing. If all else fails, you can ask him questions on his forum (bymc). Sterling is our resident carb expert, and modifies them for racing etc. He's put together quite the library of information.

www.sterlingmetalworks.com

www.sterlingmetalworks.com\bymc (forum)



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