So heres my story...

For the 2 months that Ive owned this 88 S4 convertible, it has made no power. No power over 4000 rpms, and no response past half throttle. Anything less than 4k and half throttle, it felt like i thought it should, I just couldnt pass any school buses...
I bought it as a fix it up and sell it to make a little money, so I wasnt that concerned yet about the power. I was considering testing the fuel injectors, looking at the cat, and trying the ATF treatment this weekend since I had some time.
Ive been driving the car pretty regularly for the last 2 months to and from work. Last night my girlfriend was having car problems, so I sprayed the interior of the Mazda with some Febreeze and let her drive it. I drove her car 20 miles back to her house, and she followed in my RX7. I said good night, hopped on the freeway to go home, and WOW! I could use 5th gear, and WHOA! it would maintain 65mph uphill! It now revs smoothly all the way to redline. It feels like a 130,000 mile, 13 year old, 140hp, 3000lb car should feel. Its not fast, but its a fun cruiser.

But seriously, im guessing an Apex seal or 6 worked themselves free or something? Should I baby the car for awhile? Or use the new found power so it doesnt get sticky again. With my 71 Datsun, when it starts running nice like this, it means its about to blow up. Suggestions?

 

lol...good stuff. I think it was the febreeze.

 

definatly the fabreeze

 

Compression?

 

Never got around to checking the compression. I have a piston engine tester, but not a rotary one. When I changed the plugs and wires when I got the car. I spun the motor with the starter, and I heard strong whooshes. I will try to get a reading with the piston tester this weekend, that was on my list to do anyway.

 

Almost no one has a rotary compression tester except mazda. Just use the piston one and hold down the button while someone cranks it. As for the power, who knows. If you had a stuck apex seal, i think you would have known it.

 

Maybe your 5th 6th ports werent opening, could you rev past 4K RPM at all or was it like hitting the revlimiter?

 

lucky bastard - my ex g/f (reasons other than this) drove my 90 n/a a few summers ago and blew the front rotor....HOW THE ****??? ive blown rears and seen rears blown, but a front rotor? she mustve nagged the car more than me....

 

just curious, did you ever change the fuel filter?

 

I don't know if apex seals would just re-seat themselves...

Sounds to me like your 5/6 ports weren't opening, your TPS might have been skewed, or your AFM might be out of calibration????

The computer uses those inputs, among others (coolant temp, intake air temp, etc.) to send a signal to it's outputs. Outputs would be the fuel injectors and ignition system.

Glad to hear she's back to normal though!!

PS: I let my girlfriend drive my car one day, to work, cause she needed new brakes on her car...so she called on yours truly. Anyway, she told me that everywhere she went guys on bikes, at gas stations and even truck drivers were giving her thumbs up and ****. She also said some guy in a Maxima yelled something about rx7club at her, lol.

 

BklynRX7 -I did change the fuel filter when I did plugs and wires. Along with oil, tranny, diff, and coolant.

bcool -I did check the 5th and 6th ports using the "grease the rod" method. One opened the other did not, I wired them both open to see if that helped. The car would rev past 4k, but it was VERY VERY slow and unwilling to rev. And it was like hitting the rev limiter around 6k, just would not rev past 6.

spot_skater -I have not tried adjusting the TPS or checked any sensors. I may try to look into those this weekend as well.

Question is, should I leave well enough alone or continue troubleshooting? Should I drive it easy like I have been, drive it hard, drive it normal?

 

Apex seals WILL reseat themselves!! Usually after only a mile or so, though.

 

My friend let his then girlfriend use his I think 2001 Focus as her daily driver for awhile. Now they are quite very much broken up and he just had to have $600 of body work done on the car, and thats $600 of body work from a good friend at a phat discount.

 

I let my girlfriend drive my car once . We didn't get out of the drive way and the down-pipe to the turbo broke off. rrrrrrrrrrr never again.

But glad to here that your cats back in order.

 

I dont let my girl drive my car at all. I dont let anyone except my friend. After a few times driving my rex. He now hates driving it because the gas is so touchy I guess he can't handle the power.

 

my sister told me she wanted to use my car to learn how to drive stick... I think it was a good 15 to 20 mins before the laughter subsided and i could stand up again.

 

You probably have a stored check code.

Pull the code & it should point you to the problem.

 

if you cant rev freely past 6k it may be your VDI. look it up in the FSM.

 

each spray of febreeze is good for 5hp..... *goes outside and empties bottles into rx7*

 

My girlfriend wants to use my car to learn stick, I told her I'd only let her do it in the snow.

 

I never let my girlfriend drive my car. My wife doesn't have a good sense of humor...

 

I do need to check the codes. I suppose I should make that a priority this weekend.

Some background on my girlfriend...

I see a lot of posts about never letting your girl drive. Mine is a very good driver, for a girl . She autocrosses and does track days with me. She generally competes in the girl only classes, but shes usually on or near the top in whatever we are running that day. She makes a great tire warmer

And at the local Dave and Busters, she will kick just about anyone's butt on the Ferrari F355 Challenge game. Its fun to watch her slink up to one of the pods, look around at her competition, beat the snot out of them and watch them walk away in shame.

 

That's exactly what I was thinking. His symptoms were exactly identical to that of the ECU seeing a problem or hiccup and throwing the car in "limp mode."

 

^^^ Either that or the Aux ports...

 

you know i have to spray the febreeze in my also . before she gets in,and while she is in . she tells me that it stinks like tires. cousre anything that has to do with a car that i'm working on smells like tires from what she says

anyway i had kinda the same problem . but i did a fuel rail and injection cleaning that cost me about $100.00 but it works and now that i work there i get it for free. anyway i'd say just get on it a lil from time to time, get some of that carb build up out of there. and still run codes cause the car wont lie and tell you you whats up. just my 0.02 cents on the deal

o yeah my wife tried,TRIED may i had to drive my 1st fc . well lets just say after a lot of laughing at here cause she though you had to go though the gears get to 5th and then drop it done to 1st again .lets just say she gave up after i laughed at here and told here to pull over before she blew my tranny . and you should see her at the arcade she'll shift 1,2,3,4 then go back to 1 again its funny . then she get mad when she loses