I was driving back from san fransisco to LA yesterday. The weather was about 100* f and i guess it was just too hot. I just wasnt paying attention and i let the car overheat until the engine shut off. After it cooled off, the motor wouldnt start up and I got a check engine light so I had to get it towed for the remaining 200 miles or so.

This morning, I changed out the coils with my last motor and the car fired up, it now has a VERY hard start. however, once it starts, it idles fine. The issue is now that i have very little power under 4000 rpm. once it gets past that, its still weeker then before but no where near as bad as it is under 4000 rpm. Also, I cant get the Cell to read on my reader for some reason.

I pulled the ECU to clear the Cell and the car still has trouble starting but idles geart. still no power below 4000 rpm.

Did i blow another motor?

Mazda denied my first motor warranty because I didnt keep the receipts from my DIY oil changes. i bought this motor from a salvage yard with 55k miles on it. Ive since put another 15k on it.

please help!

 

yes

 

yeah... sounds like it's dead.

 

sure sounds like it. i have a spare for sale and can swap too if you wanna get me there

sucks though.. amazing how quick it can go

 

how much you want for it? i can install it myself though

 

now that i have 2 blown motors laying around. im tempted to take them apart to see what can be reused. this motor should have salvagable parts. ive been driving around all day with it. still hit 120 on the freeway.

wierd, the first time i blew my motor, there was a lot of smoke. this time, you cant even tell its blown... until you drop under 4000 rpm that is.

 

In my experience cars driven like yours end up with blown motors or serious problems down the road.

Overheat and drive until its too late = new motor.

Now add a Rotory that is 2x as hot as a piston engine and you have.................................

 

I'd recommend a good gauge pod setup to help prevent this in the future.
sorry, but it sounds like it's blown.

 

Put the two blown motors together and make a 26B

 

I recommend selling your car all together since you insist on treating it like ****...total user error in this case. Have fun.

 

was there a coolant temp warning light or anything? The idiot gauge is useless.

 

nope. no warning what-so-ever...the real issue is why did my car overheat. 100 degree weather doing about 90 mph should be no problems.

how hard is it to rebuild a rotary. ive always wanted to try.

ive found some DIYs but they are all pretaining to rx7 motors. how different is it between the 7 and 8?

 

i agree with everything you just said... except for treating it like **** part. my car was/is pretty much my life.

 

If there was no warning what-so-ever, how did you determine it overheated?

 

dont give up on it yet. this could be a lot of different stuff--the fact is cranks ok and idles ok means a lot.
SInce you can swap out engines, i am sure you have checked the basic stuff---intake valves, sparkplugs, coils, you did change the oil didnt you? etc.
FInd out what made it overheat to begin with. Was there enough coolant, fans working ok etc?
May not be blown. It may , but it may not.
olddragger

 

I imagine this was in reference to " this motor should have salvagable parts. ive been driving around all day with it. still hit 120 on the freeway." The fact that you're doing 120 on a motor in that condition indicates that while your car might be your life, you don't take very good care of your life.

 

I bet between the two motors from the way you describe you could build a new engine...just be careful to not use any parts that may have been warped due to overheating. And the seals, gaskets, etc...will set you back a bit in cost.

 

Why not just check compression and vacuum??

 

That would be too easy............

 

Still want to know how you know it overheated? Define what you meant by overheated.
Are you saying even the idiot temp gauge didn't move from it's normal position?
If not........then how do you really know it overheated and shut down from some other issue like...............fuel pump?

 

Agreed. Since you're still driving it (at 120mph), have some mercy and at least change the oil! Might want to do the decarb procedure to clean out any gummy residues from overheating. Then give it a healthy slug of premix and see if it feels any better.

 

lmfao

 

If your name is "Jim", a Star Trek quote comes to mind.....

 

oil has been changed.

as far as for overheating. the guage was just over half at the time the motor shut off. it usually sits just under half. 10 seconds later, the guage shot up to about 3/4 all the way up. the temp gage then dropped to about half in about 30 seconds. the car fired up but i got a check engine light at that point so i just towed the rest of the 200 or so miles.

 

you may have not gotten to hot--it when to 3/4 the way over because the engine was hot and the coolant wasnt pumping and all was sitting there in the heat.
at a little over 1/2 on the gauge is about 230-240--not good---but not hot enough to blow it if it wasnt ran for a long time at high load.
do the tests
OD