Alright - here is my tale of woe – I made the mistake of starting an 82 RX-7 that had been sitting for 10 years. It started and ran until the choke kicked off and then nothing. Read up on what I should have done I realized that I gunked up my carb. Bought a rebuild kit and went to work. Cleaned out the gas tank, purged the line and hooked it up, the carb flooded like crazy. It was then that I found Sterling's article that read in capitols "DON'T MESS WITH THE FLOAT ADJUSTMENTS". It took me three times to get the carb to stop leaking. The car still will not start. Barely a backfire - and that is only after cranking it for a long time. When I pull a plug it is wet so I assume I am getting gas. I am getting spark.

I am a newbie who used to love working on vw's in my youth - I am pretty good at following directions and figuring things out but this has got me stumped. Any help would be appreciated. The only thing I can come up with is that the fuel is not getting the proper amount of air.

 

My favorite routine when you've hopelessly flooded the engine is to :

• Pull the spark plugs, clean them with carb cleaner and let them dry,
• Put rags on the frame rails to catch the junk about to come out when,
• You crank the engine w/o any spark plugs installed to clear the chambers of the nasty gas/oil mix that's in there, then let that dry a bit while you clean up the mess,
• Add anti-seize to the threads of the cleaned spark plugs (or new spark plugs if they even look a bit like they're old...) and then thread them in,
• Hook up the plug wires and then get a friend,
• Open the secondaries with your finger and put a long screwdriver in one barrel, taking care not to nick the butterflies,
• Spraying Gumout's Carb Cleaner down there and in the primaries LIBERALLY and then the tricky part.
• You or your friend will sit in the driver's seat, NO CHOKE, no step on the gas and turn the key while,
• the person who isn't in the car is hanging the can of Gumout Carb Cleaner over the carburetor and spraying a mist down the secondaries...

Once it catches in the slightest, the person in the car has to work the gas pedal to get the revs up (no more than 3000 at first while cold) and the person OUTSIDE has got to yank that screwdriver because the engine is going to want to hit 7600 rpm in rapid fashion...while it's in this "started" condition, the amount of smoke coming from the tailpipe is going to be downright scary....DON'T LET THE ENGINE DIE. The person in the car needs to keep those revs up and the person outside has to help with judicious spraying of carb cleaner down the primary throats now until you've passed the 5 minute window of doing this dance.

After that point, you can start playing with the choke to see if the engine will stay running on just gas. The big question will be whether or not it will stay running that way because it sounds like you've done some serious tinkering with the adjustments on that Nikki and no one here can seriously say they have the solution since they didn't rebuild and tune that carb themselves.

Mario III

 

Have you unflooded the engine? You pulled the plugs, so I am assuming you have. Is your timing off?
The car has been sitting for 10 years? I don't think that is healthy for the seals.

 

Pull the plugs, pull the start fuse (I think), crank. Probably flooded to hell. After properly deflooded, put new plgs in, or clean yours very well.

 

Sounds like it might be flooded. Clean/dry plugs or replace them. Read up on the deflooding proceedure. Once the engine is dried out, put the plugs back in and try again. Also, check to make sure that you have spark on all plugs.

Good luck.

 

Pulled the plugs, deflooded the engine and tried the carb-cleaner trick. Still barely a backfire. Have rechecked for flooding and the plugs are fairly dry. I also found a thread which recommended a little transmission fluid down the primaries to help with compression after flooding. Gas level in both carb sight glasses look good. I am at wits end. I am going away Saturday for a week but have a mechanic friend coming over to take a look the following Saturday. I would love to have it running when he shows up. Thanks for your suggestions any other ideas are appreciated.

 

I was just wondering if you ever figured this problem out? I have the exact same problem. The only difference is my rx7 is a 79. I saw the thread was kind of old so I am guessing you figured it out, just wondered if you could tell me. thanks

 

Okay, a couple of things:

1. For deflooding a carb'd motor. Dump a couple of ounces of Seafoam downt he smaller (primary) barrels of the carb. Then just start it up. Works every time, but keep in mind the Seafoam will "fog" a bit while it burns off.

2. Go to www.sterlingmetalworks.com and read everything!!! There are troubleshooting articles, others on tuning the idle, tuning for performance, and a whole library of other information. If you understand what you are working on, it will be much easier to get it running right.

 

I'm going to follow a different route on helping this guy out since I had the same problem a little while back. Did you adjust the floats at all? How about the mixture pin? If you've messed with either, Find a nikki/holley manual and set the settings on the carb back to factory. I'm not sure what the floats need to be adjusted to but for holley's mixture screw, its all the way in then 3 full rotations out.

After you've made those adjustments, I'm fairly sure the car will start under its own power. From here you just need to adjust the mixture and idle. You can't really do much with the mixture without a A/F gauge.

 

I have not been able to get the car started. I compression checked and think that my seals are shot. I lost my job and have to put working on the car on the back burner for the time being. Good luck.

 

Great info, I have also rebuilt carb, 2 years ago, and I am still tinkering with it.