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Right RX7, we can finally confirm how and who's to blame for the engine popping miles after the rebuild.

We diagnosed water seal failure due to it instantly pressuring even from cold and blowing coolant everywhere but on tear down all the water seals were good,

The outer seals were pinched but that wouldn't have put coolant into the combustion chamber.

Upon closer inspection the housing had cracked in the spark plug recess causing a massive failure,

What does this mean? This means more money and parts and hopefully pretty soon a running rx7


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Well here we go again











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Well I have had the Christmas period off work and got the start of year rush out of the way so spent the early parts of this week cleaning the unit of non paying cars and moved the shitmobile back up there,
Will make a start on the tear down next week I think,  he'll with the engine out I may be able to tidy up some of the wiring and start installing the haltech digital dash,
Mostly plug and play when the lead comes back in stock but stuff like indicators and light status need to be wired in manually

Yes it is a incredibly low mileage build but I know the engine builder and however likely a pinch would be I don't think that is the case,
The only reason I say this is when it went to the ecu and mapping specialists I walked in on them trying to breed the system by revving with a Coke bottle on the filler with no bleed valve on the rad, and just monitoring temps via a rad probe.

With the system air locked and not flowing I'm guessing what little coolant was in the engine at that point boiled the seals.

So when it did come to actual driving they just shit themselves with the pressure

Lesson learned don't trust "specialists" do it yourself, not an option for me right now so don't know what I'm going to do

Engines dead, pressurising the system instantly, water seals have gone. Now I'm (censored)ed

Took the car on the road today and it was doing just fine getting up to temp and dropping down accordingly but suddenly started getting hot,
After some looking around it turns out the engine is getting hot and starts pushing the coolant into the expansion tank but not drawing it back in so it's pushing all my coolant out and introducing air locks.

I can't understand why it is doing this now it should surely pull the coolant back when it starts cooling back down

right then,,,,,
been a while i know but new job and all that, oh and christmas.

i never managed to get to the bottom of the car not starting or charging or anything so sent it off to rotortorque for craig to deal with.

within 3 days he had done what i asked and more so top bombing there fella.

car is now taxed and mot'd so i can start breaking the engine in but first i need to solve a few issues.

firstly one of my split rims has suddenly decided to leak air so i have to rip that apart and trace it all.

also i fitted the quantum suspension with a few buddies and it just doesnt seem right, no top mount or anything just a bushing and bolt and washer array so im searching for a local specialist to give it a once over and then do a full set up.

i have ordered some more toys from haltech so hopefully they will ship in in the new year.

my main issue for this week is my distinct lack of wiper action.
they were always slow but then they progressed to the juddering, stopping and letting the smoke out department. so time for a investigatory rebuild there, if that fails i am going to look into doing some kind of modern system retrofit.
the mechanicals of this is easy enough just mate a spline matched motor with power and your away but matching it to the stalk feed and gearing could be tricky,,, anyone done this?

i know things like wiper mechanisms and motors in early japanese cars were borrowed off other manufacturers is this the case with this one?

i would also like to investigate further my lighting options, hid / projector is well out of my budget so im going to experiment with high output LED i think.
anyone have any experience on these motors with such wizardry

hope you are all well, what you guys up too?

as my favourite youtuber would say keep your dick in a vice! laters

sooooooo
went back today and just before stripping the coils out etc i thought i would give it one more try,,,,fired first time and ran on both housings,.
let it warm up checked all electrics was running sweet turned it off started again with a bit of a struggle so let it run up and revved for a bit battery was charging at 14.2 so all tickedy boo and then turned off tried to start again bit of effort and nothing battery had drained right down,


i have inspected everything and although not ideal it is all good, the only thing that seemed odd was the following which i think is a symptom of a faulty diode in the alternator

when the engine and ignition is full off the fuse box and alternator are still registering 13.2v which i think is the alternator still trying to charge and could potentially be a parasitic drain on the battery i would expect to see battery voltage only of maybe 12.2-12.6 under those conditions,

could this be my problem

right update on todays cluster (censored) of a day

starter motor replaced, lets just say the one i had was not what i was expecting but were good now.

bolted it up battery connected booster battery at the front and my fresh rebuilt engine starter plugs inserted and after a while it would fire and cut out

kept going and eventually it would hold on one rotor and then you try to throttle it and it cut out.

eventually i got it running very lumpy, eyes bleeding rich and smoky and throttle actually responding engine side every now and then eventually any input on the throttle made it cut out

got a video of it running at that point.....


so my mate turned up and we inserted some fresh bur9p plugs in booster connected again and tried again.....

nothing

no matter what we tried we could not get it too start.

here are some stand out points from the day and what we are presuming our next steps should be but at this moment in time i am angry and broke and am taking a step away for a short while before i do something stupid


-- battery in the boot, battery shows 12.00000 whatever its over 12, starter shows the same as does the fuse live etc etc so power is not dropping on standing

turn over the engine once and the battery just drains and it does this with whatever battery i put on it. turn it over and it just kills it dead.

we think this may be a ground issue or even wiring but it worked before?


--all the plugs when pulled were very sooty yes but all dry apart from one front rotor bottom plug....

its not water definitely pre-mix / oil / fuel

we are thinking this is the lumpy running explained here, maybe the engine fires on the 3 good plugs/ coils and then soaking the one plug in fuel that isnt working..

sooooooooo

when i calm down a bit im going to pull the coils out and make sure firstly they have been wired right because lets face it anything is possible,

then i will check the leads are running to the right plugs as i doubt the lads checked down south

i will also have to replace the magnecor leads because apparently these ones do not suit the LS coils i am running..


after that i am lost and have no (censored)ing clue what to do other than burn the shit out of it with any mortal enemies i may have, claim on the insurance buy a camper van and become one of those low and slow type people that spends all there money on making engine bays shiny and smooth and the actual shiny body of the car all rusted and stickery



the painfull business of a non running roTARY

https://youtu.be/M-a10h2f_Is

well i think we burnt the brand new starter out as we connected a booster pack to the main fuse in and had the race battery in the back and it turned with minimum effort once and then just clicked just like a dead battery but with 2 connected.

i think the combination of severely flooded / oiled up engine, fouled plugs and poor voltage has just thought all together to piss me off.

hopefully will get a new starter or recon this one tomorow, got some brand new 9s to go in and a fully charged snap on battery booster if that dont start it nothing will

sick to death of this bastard car,
today was meant to be the start up and check i still have a working engine day but yet again every possible problem introduced its ugly head,

any advice on the following will be muchly appreciated because i am one step away from strapping on a hot water bottle and dancing on the roof of a flaming rx7


so batteries all charged up and the silly little odyssey thing swapped out with a proper battery we turned it over,
but the starter was labouring and probably turning at quarter speed.

now i know i have relocated the battery but i have a very good earth with 70mm cable less than 8"

and my positive is also 70mm with a 300amp in line fuse all the way to the front, i thought the bigger the cable the less resistance etc but according to some i may be doing more harm than good with a cable of that size.

sooooooo

knowing we had a weak point we got the booster pack direct to bod and the positive main fuse point and gave it a whirl and after ages and ages we come to the conclusion that the plugs are fouled after sitting for so long and potentially flooded.

plugs out dry plugs in we try again and it wants to go its just not getting there. you can here the one rotor start to fire and then it just bogs out and just as we was getting to the point where it could start at any minute the booster pack died.

so yet again another day with no running, a suspect starter motor, a wiring system that doesn't want to wire a race battery that cant battery and yet another set of potentially fouled up plugs.


on a lighter note i have nearly finished the noise protection in the boot, not nearly as intense as when i used to build installs but should knock a bit of exhaust drone out,

one layer of 6mm silent coat followed by a 3mm acoustic membrane

awesome membrane, extremely mouldable and stickier than a bunny boiler on heat





all installed, you can see said wiring,fuse, and lack of working going on right here

well lets just say its amazing the car actually ran and got home, anything they could (censored) up they (censored)ed up and then pissed on after to make sure,

DPO signal wires wired to the wrong inputs, (dpo for boost sensor was wired to idle control valve lol) throttle position sensor had not been calibrated, you name it they (censored)ed it up

so after a hour or so of rewiring (which is all they had to do really) we started getting signals that looked vaguely right.

went to try a turn over without fuelling and the batteries dead, it had turned the car maybe twice so i am guessing i have a severe drain going on somewhere here or the batteries standing capacity is shit i dont know.

after a charge and such we plugged everything in and went to start it and wroooo wrooooo wrooo yep engines flooded or plugs are fouled.
(censored)

so battery is on charge overnight and will be trying again at the next opportunity. if the full battery does not work we have some traditional style starter plugs and spacers to make them fit and hopefully a clean plug set will kick this turd up the front bum and make it run again.

and then its simply a case of hoping they haven't bust the seals up and hoping the electric water pump has the gonads to push some coolant round.

when i run it on a bleed cycle earlier i couldn't even see flow or feel it but i am hoping that is simply because the battery is flatter than a witches tit

may also be an idea to fit the exhaust again as well otherwise a few farm lingering beasts may get a shock (and the cows)

ONWARDS................

definately paint, flakey and thick, looks like they had some real tough base coat of primer or poly a single coat of colour and then to many coats of laquer and none of it bonded to the primer so just peels off, its only on the doors like this and andything vertical so i am going over the whole car now with a DA

soooooooooo this is how my paint came off the doors!!!




pretty sure that is not meant to happen,

brought a DA sander and told the girlfriend to bring out one of the dents on the wing with it, i turned round and half my car was on the floor. so looks like i will be sanding and high build primer the whole car before paint  / plastidip

started piecing together the power in the boot, mounting the battery is a bit of a ball ache as there is no flat surface and my side by side with water meth bottle plan failed due to the rear seat supports being a ridiculous angle. so mounted the battery on the back panel. i have mounted a couple of breakers along side this and utilised one of the original earth points.

my big main fuse will sit in the spare wheel well with a lot of other things once sorted. will sir just proud of my false floor and carpet but still plenty hidden. should be a fairly tidy and secure install once im done




had to cut up a bus bar to make a terminal riser to stop anything arcing on the battery frame

for ease of access and to stop any rubbing i cut some clearance gaps etc will line it with rubber when i have time



and with the carpet,, will be a lot flatter when i have my spare wheel cover skinned in carbon and layed in there




few bits missing now to make it roadworthy again but all coming together slowly