clean

Well the rear rotor is doing that, the front plugs are dry, the back is all wet.

Denny

If everything was running all right, then suddenly...Uhhhhh! Sounds to me like a plugged fuel filter, fuel line, fuel pump....Where your fuel line meets your carb after the split, when you undo the line there is a small wire filter, one on each line to the carb. Get some brake/parts cleaner and shoot them both real good. Replace your fuel filter, disconnect your fuel line at the firewall and blast some cormpressed air through the line up through it.

Remember what Bruce Springsteen says....
"Just tuned my carburator, did a clean and check,
With her line blown out she's runnin' like a turbo-jet....."

Denny, from the 'ol corncrib....

Felix Wankel

How old are the spark plugs?

MIKE-P-28

iTrader: (1)

Uhhh on my compression guage, I just black taped it, so it would stay...It had a push button.. Dont laugh at me, but if you use a digital camera you can play it back in slow mo and see everything. Your looking for 3 steady bounces, all of which should stay with 5% of the lowest one. Anything lower is a seal problem...


Trust me

And by the way when I lost an apex in my 12A, i was sitting at idle at a stop light. Felt a grinding noise, and I knew what it was So I knew damage was already done, so I just held the gas down, smoked on every1 and got the SOB home. Last time I blew a 12A I was doing doughnuts at 7,000

clean

They're only about 2 or 3 months old, in fact I've probably only put around 500 - 1000 km on them, and they are the NGK ones. I still have the ones I took out, I might put one or two of the old ones back in the rear rotor to see if that's the problem. I'm also going to change my filter like Denny suggested. Hopefully One of these two attempts will make a difference.

One of the biggest problems I face right now is that I injured my hands, and I'm not supposed to do any of this kind of thing. So if I do much of anything on the car, I have to wait for my fiance to come over, and see if she'll do it for me. We both like working on the RX-7, so it's not too big of a deal. It just means I have to wait to fix the car.

Clean

Winnipeg85GSL

Guys i might have a problem just like this one.

Today i was driving in 3rd at about 80 km/h so around 5K and my engine stalled. Later i was driving home and the car started surging alot and died again. Later on still on the way home it was surging and there felt like there was no power . Is this the same thing?????

stinkfist

Ok, it sounds like you have lost an apex seal. If you want to find out the easy way do this.
1) Take you distributor cap off, leave the wires on it and disconect them from the coils and plugs. Lay it on the ground. (don't sep on it)
2) take your leading (bottom) plug out of your rear rotor.
3) Have your fiance sit in the car and crank it over with the key.
4) listen

If you hear a loud SPFFFT! SPFFFT! SPFFFT! then that= good
If you hear a loud SPFFFT! blup. blup. then that = BAD

You WILL be able to tell if the engine is blown or not by listening.

I have lost several engines and they all have the symptoms you describe.

Good luck,
Mike

clean

Hey Winnipeg, I think your problem is a little different then mine. With me, I was driving along and just lost power, no surging or anything, just no power. It wouldn't surprise me if I was putting out around 10 hp.

clean

Hey Stinky Fisted Mike,
I think I'll try that. I still haven't had a chance to change the fuel filter yet, but when I have some time, I'm going to get to it, and if the fuel filter doesn't fix my problem, I'll check out the rotors like you suggested. I'm still hoping for a cheap fix. I REALLY hope it's not a seal. I was hoping to rebuild the engine next summer, but unfortunately it might end up as a winter project. Oh well.

Shawn

P.S. It's REALLY difficult to get anything done right now, I'm getting married on the 23rd and there's SO much to do. So many little decisions to make, so many things to take care of. I wish we had of eloped.. :p

Felix Wankel

Do what Mike said first. Just pull the spark plugs out and take the negative wires off the coils to save a little effort. Listen for the sounds he described. It will take less time than changing the fuel filter. The reason just your rear rotor plugs are wet is probably because there is no compression on the rear rotor to sustain combustion. If it were an ignition problem, either the top (trailing) or bottom (leading) plug in BOTH rotors would foul. Two plugs fouled in the same rotor housing isn't usually a good thing. Sorry

Felix Wankel

BTW, is it smoking any? If its smoking heavily, the rear rotor is trashed....

clean

Okay, I'll pull the plugs and listen to each rotor. As for the smoking, it's not smoking at all. I'm probably getting a little on startup but I've always had that. If it's not smoking, does that mean it's definately not the rotor?

Clean

Northern 7

iTrader: (3)

With the wet plugs, this sounds like an ignition problem to me and you may be running on one rotor. Any problems with your tack? I'd check the trailing coil and ignitor and as someone posted earlier, check for spark - if the plugs are wet, you most likely are not getting any (or it's very weak). One last thing - check the fuse for the fuel pump (if you lost your dome light, you most likely lost the fuel pump as well) - Hope this is your problem and not a seal

Some one also mentioned surging - not sure if it was you but check your mixture - a lean mixture will cause surging and if you have been fiddling with that screw, this could be the cause (I don't think it would have anything to do with the wet plugs though)

Good Luck

clean

Hey Northern,
I sure hope it's my ignition. I still haven't been able to do anything on it. It's driving me nuts! Hopefully tomorrow or Saturday! As for the tack, it's pretty steady, well.. it bounces a slight bit, but with the clug clug clug of the engine. My fuel pump is working. I really hope when I get to this that it's something simple like a fuel filter or a fouled plug. AAAAHHH!!! I want to get working on this, and get it taken care of!!!!!!
I have been fiddling with the idle mixture. I know, I'm not supposed to, but I just can't help myself! :p My car wasn't actually surging, I wish.. at least then I would have had some power, if only for a few seconds, it just has no power.

Clean

Northern 7

iTrader: (3)

Clean

If your tack is bouncing, even if only a little, it could be trailing coil or ignitor - both can cause this and will impact spark. I fried a coil once and your problems were much like mine were - little power and a rough engine

SilverRocket

The mixture adjust screw only affects idle - nothing else. It has nothing to do with your mixture when you're accelerating, etc.

I hope you get your problem solved. You should definitely listen to your compression, like everyone's recommended. It's easy and you'll know in 2 minutes whether you motor is good or not.

Personally I don't think you have blown a seal, if I were you I would't lose all hope. If the motor still starts and idles (higher than normal did you say?) I'd say you're alright. There's a lot of stuff that can make your car run like **** without having blown a motor.

I had a scare like this a few months back - turns out my secondaries were stuck open, took 2 seconds to fix hehe. Mind you, I didn't have the brutal loss of power that you do. I was running so rich though, that I used a whole tank of gas in 150 kilometers.

Good luck man!!

clean

Well, if it's a coil, I know a place around here I could get a coil pretty cheap. My tack isn't really bouncing though, it's just moving with the engine, the engine's going clug clug clug and the tack is moving with it, it's only jumping around 1-200 rpm. Would that be the coil?

clean

Hey thanks, I'm going to check the compression, maybe I can get to it tonight.. I hope.. I'm also going to change the fuel filter, I already bought one, it was cheap, and it certainly won't hurt to change it. I REALLY hope it's something simple like a fouled plug, or even a coil. Hey, come to think of it, if it was the coil, wouldn't both leading plugs or both trailing plugs not be working? I thought one coil was the leading coil, and the other the trailing coil. It's actually the leading and trailing plugs from my rear rotor that are all wet, but the ones from the front seem fine. hmm.. I wish I knew more about my car.

Felix Wankel

Most of the time a trailing ignition problem will usually cause tach failure.

He said the tach was steady, only bouncing with the eninge starting, which is normal.

stinkfist

Correct. And if your trailing coil or ignitor where bad you would have NO tach.

You could have already known the condition of your motor in the time it took you to write these post. Seriously, It will take less than 5 minutes. It will take less time than it will take to put in that fuel filter that you don't need if your engine is blown.
The ONLY ignition problem that could cause this would be if the rear rotor plugs where fouled so bad that they where not fireing at all. In order for this to happen your carb would have to be dumping a lot of fuel into the rear rotor. And if this was the case your car would have been running like **** way before this happened.

An engine can and will idle with a blown apex seal. One of mine did. This usually will only happen when everything else is working very well i.e. carb and ignition.

BTW It's T-A-C-H Short for tachometer.

good luck,
Mike

Felix Wankel

At last! someone with sense!

clean

Okay, I finally got some time to work on the car. My father-in-law came over and we took a look at a bunch of things. First, the fuel filter has been changed. I think I changed in this summer, I've done so much on the car, it's hard to remember, but just looking at the condition of it, and the lack of dirt and everything, it's been changed recently, so either I or my fiance changed it. The timing seems good, I checked the Leading plug on the rear rotor, and it's giving off a spark. We did some other things, including checking the compression by listening to the rotor with the plug out and finally, when my father-in-law started pulling the wires off the distributer one at a time, it didn't make much, if any, difference at all. We were left with one wire on the distributer, the Leading wire to the front rotor, and the car was running the same as always. He then put all of them back on, and pulled the L1 wire off, and the car died. I'm running off of one plug, which is wierd, 'cause I am getting a spark from L2. Any ideas? What's causing this?

Clean

stinkfist

And how did the rotor sound? Did you get strong even pulses? If your not sure, did you do the same to the front rotor to compare?
It still sounds to me that there is no compression in the rear rotor.
All your engine needs to run is spark, air, and fuel. You tested your spark. It's working.
Your getting fuel and air because it will run.

The only thing I can think of to check is the shutter valve in the manifold. I've never had one of these go bad but I hear they do it a lot. I could see this causing simalar problems to yours but I doubt it would be as severe. Anybody had this problem feel free to chime in.
You can go here to learn more. http://www.mazdatrix.com/faq/shutter.htm

Let us know how the engine sounds.

Thanks felix. Your no slouch yourself

Mike

clean

Hey,
Before I forget, the compression sounded good, but I didn't check it with the other rotor, I'll have to do that soon. As for the shutter valve.. well.. I just read through the procedure, and that's not something I want to do. Most of it sounds fine, it's just those two annoying carb base nuts. There the kind of things that make me frustrated. Although, if that's my problem, I really don't have much choice now do I? Well, I check it out tomorrow, I'll do the little test that they say to do. Part of me is hoping that this is it, so I can know what the problem is and deal with it, the other part is saying, "NO! Please let it be something simpler!"

Anyway, bear with me guys, this is a difficult one to figure out!

Clean

clean

Oh, hey, here's something I don't think I mentioned, when my father-in-law and I were playing with the car today, he thought I might have the Leading and trailing coil wires mixed up. He switched them, and the car ran just about the same. A little worse, but not much. What's with that?