Rotal

I know it is kind of stupid but I know that detonation is deadly to rotary I always though that you get one and your engine most likely needs rebuild. The reason I'm asking because I got 2 of them yesterday (at least I think those were detonations). The first one was quite loud like the someone hit the engine with a big hammer ( I was racing at around 6000 rpm)and when it happened tachometer went to 0 rpm and would stay there but the engine was still running so I drove little bit more shut the car off and turned back on and I got tachometer back working but now you will drive and tachometer will shut off and engine light comes on. So question #1: did I really have detonation or maybe coil blue (I know that bad coil will cause the tachometer to go to 0 and my ECU returns error 01, I think, which for 1990 is coil trailing side, that what all those sites on ecru readout saying, supposedly). I'm not sure if it was the type of sound as I described above because the first thing popped in my mind sh#t Detonation and I just bought the car few hours ago. Second question is: If it is detonation how many of them can my car sustain.

Some more info: the car runs the same, as before, at least I cannot fill the difference except maybe the idle is little more rough but I only had car for 1 day. I was not perfect at the start. I have another Turbo 2 but 87 and it is way faster then this one it is little bit upgraded : mushroom intake, aluminum flywheel , and “upgraded” Exhaust ( upgrade is in quotes because when I was putting flywheel in the lip of the first catalytic converter came off so there was not way to attach the main cat to it so it just hang on the wire there and there is a big gap between them), but still it is way to big of the performance difference I think. And 1990 turbo 2 supposed to have ~18 hp and ~18 ft/lb more right of stock. Also if I try not to engage turbo the car fills like there is not enough fuel gets mixed, you accelerate to some speed with pedal pressed to some degree and if you keep pedal pressed at that position the car will accelerate to that speed and then start hesitating and will slow down. But if you use turbo car will behave normally

FC Drifter

general rule is the less detonation the better. but a friend of mine detonated his a few times really hard and it still lives to this day. my advice is to get a compression check if you wanna see if it did any damge. not a at home kind though, a real one on a real comp checker from like mazda or something.

BlackRx7

Damn you just bought it and your racing it, its your car so you can do what you want, but you failed to mention the mods of the 90 TII......if it was stock very unlikly you detenated.........

Rotal

It is stock but there is one more thing I forgot to mention also I pulled up error code 17 of the ECU which is supposedly problem with Feedback system for O2 sensor. And I heard that if you run lean it could cause detonation.
Yeah I’m stupid I know but here in Utah I was looking for this car for 2 years strait every single local newspaper every single Sunday and I could not find a single Turbo 2 89 or newer so I was exited when I got it I could not hold myself and on top of that I test drove it pretty hard before I bought it and it did not have the tachometer problem nor detonation. Second time I heard what I think/though detonation was when I was downshifting and it was exactly the same sound (not as loud though) and all same symptoms: tach at 0 and engine light came on but it was only at around 2000-2500 rpm. Also as I mentioned before that the tach will shut off but it will shut off only when I switch the gears.

rotarygod

iTrader: (1)

It might take one or ten detonations. You can never tell.

BlackRx7

Damn it I think I jinxed my self, i guess the rotary gods where angry at me? But this morning after I got a full tank of Chevron Super with techron, and as I was getting on the free way I saw fellow Rx7, so I downshifted and slamed it to get next to him, but as I hit 6.5 or 7grand wham, brick wall didn't sound pretty at all the boost gauge read like -28 vac, as the rpms dropped helplessly, it recovered at about 2grand and I kept driving othern than the fact I almost had to change my under ware!.....on a Diffnote, have you put gas in it? do all the regular maintenece, spark plugs, oil, coolent, and use PREMIUM DUDE, PREEEEEEMIIIUUUM DUUUUUDE!

(from the simpsons, snake is yelling at homer, hehe)

Scott 89t2

it sounds like your trailing coil is screwed / not working. the tach get it's reading off the trailing coil. but the engine will run good off only the leading.

KiyoKix

There's no specific amount of dets that the engine can take, it's the size/nature of the det that determines whether or not it's over...

OC_

Its like this, how many bullets can you take? You could possabily take a whole bunch, but all it takes is one good one to due you in...

kleach18

BlackRx7 it sounds like your problem is fuel cut, or did it do the same as Rotal.

kleach

HENRX7

i thought rotary engine has 9 lives

BlackRx7

Well thats would prolly be true but I have an FCD........

Rotal

Well I found one problem with my RX, which solved my hesitation and tach going to 0(well at least I think it did solve it I only drove it only once). So today I got up and first thing you always do with just bought car is tune up. I went to store and got the spark plugs got back home and started to unscrew the sparkplugs first one to go was second rotor trailing it was trailing type sparkplug. Second one was trailing for front rotor and guess what: sparkplug was leading type. So I unscrewed all rest of them and it was that front rotor had leading sparkplugs and rear had trailing. Apparently the previous owner thought that front rotor is leading rotor and rear rotor is trailing, what a dumb ***. This second time I’m getting second gen RX7and both times sparkplugs were messed up. So I put the new spark plugs in correct places and now car behaves like it supposed to, except that it is much, much slower then my 87 turbo. And I don't get error code 1 nor 17 of the ECU. So all problems are solved. Except performance of my 87 vs. my 90.

And about gas I fill up with 93 octane which is higher then what usually premium is in our state.

KiyoKix

I don't think it gets any plainer than what HENRX7 said (damn, and I thought I made it clear)...