My son bought an RX-7 as a project car, and sadly, we've discovered that much of the car has been kludged by a master. The latest problem...



The car started fine and ran, but it seemed to have extremely little torque being produced. Once the car got in the neighborhood of 4000 rpm, it was better, but still not right. The car would run for about 20 minutes and then stall. Not at a red light, but going 65 (or so...) on the highway. After pulling the car to the shoulder and waiting about 5 minutes, it would start again, but then die in about 2-3 minutes, and repeat the process until it got home.



Now that it's home, it doesn't start.



The fuel pump can be heard, and it's delivering fuel to the motor. I did not check the return line.



When running the codes on the car, we get a 30 and an 8.

• 30 - Solenoid, Split Air Valve
• 08 - Airflow Meter (AFM) - Basic Fuel Injection and fixed timing (Cripple mode)
• or, if we can't read it correctly - 38 - Solenoid, Accelerated Warm-up System (AWS)

A local member of the RX-7 club is going to loan us a different ignitor to see if that is the issue, but I'm at a loss.



We were at least able to get it started before, and now that is even gone.



The car has 93 octane in it.

 

Have you changed the fuel filter?

 

Not yet, but I'm hoping to get it changed this coming Sunday.

 

check the cat if it has one could be broken up and clogging a fuel filter can mimic a clogged cat and vice versa

 

I'm no rotary expert but when things start then die like that on a regular engine it's usually a solid state electrical problem. Example: ignitor like you said...distributor....main relay ignition module. They get too hot and it stops working. May start again after cooling down but eventually won't work at all. Hope that helps.

 

Well, we have an entire exhaust system sitting in the garage waiting for it... My life is never easy enough that a clogged cat would cause this problem, especially when we already own the spare.



Cross your fingers!

 

my teacher said fuel filters and cats are hard to tell what can cause what so i say change the fuel filter and check the cat idk what kind of emission laws you have where you are but if you can run it without the cat just get a test pipe