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Smokin RX7

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anton26

New Member
-Smoke
-Breaks up in revs
-poor idle
-needs shifter bushings

So I have a 1987 TII bought it last fall and played with it for two days before I had to store it for winter. Now its getting nice finally and that means time to bring the new toy back to my garage. Before I tear into taking the turbo out, what other possible things could make my car smoke pretty bad. If I remember correctly it was white smoke. Ill be running it today or at least by this weekend and Ill update

Thanks for any advice or opinions :)
 
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niterydr

Legendary Status!
Apex seals?
Oil injection pump?

Do a compression test to determine the health of the motor. How are the plugs? How many miles on it? How are the injectors? How are the rest of the ignition components? How does the coolant look? How is the oil?
 
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anton26

New Member
There was coolant in the radiator but not the res. The oil was at the correct level and isnt that dirty. The oil filter looks fairly recent. The coolant res looked a little gooey so I try and flush the whole system out when I can. I'll get the plugs out and check those out today. The injectors might take me a little longer, I have a repair book but its not specific for the RX7 so thats kind of annoying. Anyone have a place to get a specific book for my car or someone want to trade/sell a repair book?
 
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FunK73

New Member
You probably popped a coolant jacket in the intermediate plate. Not an apex seal like everyone always assumes cause they don't know rotaries =P
 
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FunK73

New Member
Grappler also knows FCs as he's been fighting with his for months now. If its white smoke and it dissipates quickly, its steam from burning coolant. Then its just a matter of figuring out where its coming from. Could be a cracked housing, or a popped coolant seal.

Just out of curiosity what all did you do to prepare it for winter storage? It would be really stupid if it was just bad gas or something.
 
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niterydr

Legendary Status!
1) The difference between white smoke and light blue smoke is a trained eye and lighting.

2) If the oil appears fine, I would start looking at the coolant system. While my rotary I owned never had coolant issues, FunK73 seems to be all over that one.
 
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niterydr

Legendary Status!
FunK73 said:
You probably popped a coolant jacket in the intermediate plate. Not an apex seal like everyone always assumes cause they don't know rotaries =P
Click to expand...
How common is the coolant jacket failure and what is the cause of that failure?
 
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FunK73

New Member
Fairly common. The Teflon that ties the inner seal together deteriorates if it dries out with age, storage, etc. Over heating can also aid in the failure. James popped a coolant seal as well on his FC last year.

Its easier to judge how quickly the smoke goes away than the color I agree, thus why he should check how fast it goes away, or give it a smell test. But yeah if theres no metal shavings or anything in the oil, it shouldnt be blown.
 
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niterydr

Legendary Status!
FunK73 said:
Fairly common. The Teflon that ties the inner seal together deteriorates if it dries out with age, storage, etc. Over heating can also aid in the failure. James popped a coolant seal as well on his FC last year.

Its easier to judge how quickly the smoke goes away than the color I agree, thus why he should check how fast it goes away, or give it a smell test. But yeah if theres no metal shavings or anything in the oil, it shouldnt be blown.
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Gross! Sounds like some diagnostic is in order to pin point which way he OP needs to go with the fix.
 
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FunK73

New Member
They are cheap James, but remember what we told you? As long as you're in there, you might as well rebuild it too. That is as long as the motor is salvageable.
 
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FunK73

New Member
could be a oil control ring on one of your rotors than more than likely. Do you still run the omp set up? Could try flow testing that. Maybe its stuck wide open for some reason or something
 
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anton26

New Member
FunK73 said:
could be a oil control ring on one of your rotors than more than likely. Do you still run the omp set up? Could try flow testing that. Maybe its stuck wide open for some reason or something
Click to expand...
Explain this for the newbie please
 
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anton26

New Member
Ok bringing this back, I took the turbo out to investigate my car, it only took about 3 hours... it is a ht18s-2s turbo. It has that on the casting on the coldside. Sooo does this belong in my 1987 TII?? I bought the car and I knew it had an exhaust but I am under it looking around and it has a 3 in down pipe to a mid muffler that splits into duals that looked about 2 in each... So now that I see the turbo is newer(I assume) and the shaft had minimal play up and down and no play in and out, I am planning on pulling the motor to investigate further for the smoking problem
 
Grappler

Grappler

Member
Thats a stock hitachi turbo for the TII. How much do you consider to be "minimal shaftplay" ?

With a decently large exhaust you should see if you have a fuel cut defender/modified ecu.

Otherwise you may have problems with boost creep anything over 8.7 PSI ecu will cut fuel to the rear rotor in an effort to minimize boost spikes.

Other thing is if the shaftplay is too bad you might have a turbo thats leaking past the seals in the turbo and going into your exhaust another source for smoke.
 
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anton26

New Member
I really want to get this thing going so if anyone is near NE Minneapolis and knows rotaries I would like some help. Otherwise I'm starting to get the engine ready to pull out and I'll look inside of it for more surprises. I have done engine swaps before but never a rotary ...
 
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