This may be a stupid question but what type of plugs did you use?



Can you turn the motor counterclockwise by hand, Maybe half a turn then it locks up again?

chuck

dealer, victoria british, mazdatrix

thanks for the sources, Rob X-7 :-)



I put NKG plugs in. Two leading and two trailing. Had the parts house mark them for me as to which was which. Even had the shop put them in for me after they lifted it up and put on the new fuel filter. It drove home fine afterwards... was running MUCH more smoothly. As far as turning it... no... I can't get it to budge by hand... but I haven't pulled the plugs again either, so I bet I've got compression working against me. After I renoved the starter, I even got a large screwdriver (tire tool with a flathead end) and levered it against the casing to try and move the flywheel. No budge. But I do weigh 125 lbs dripping wet so... I'm not the most powerful guy.

the plugs are actually marked, if you used BUR7eq and BUR9eq one of them are marked with a T or a L, I cant remember which one is marked but only one is marked not both of them, it tells you if its a trailing or a leading plug, the coils are marked as well, T1,T2 and L1,L2



trailing is the top set of plugs, leading is the bottom, 1 being towards the front of the car and 2 being toward the rear.



T1 T2

L1 L2

I turn my engine over by pulling the upper part of the powersteering belt, works every time. The rotary is not hard to crank by hand, as opposed to piston engines

It could be carbon locked. The exact symptoms you describe happened to mine. A small chunk of carbon buildup drops down from the intake area & gets wedged between the rotor & housing making the motor impossible to turn. Some Mazda dealers actually had a tool that fit into the starter housing to turn the motor backwards. There's a great write-up at the atkinsrotary.com site dealing with carbon lock. Their instructions worked for me, however, it takes a lot of patience. Follow the instructions exactly. A big MISTAKE I made was trying to crank the motor in a clockwise direction by the bolt on the main pulley. If it's carbon locked it will just make it worse. Try turning it backwards.

Well... everyone seems to have been right. Bad starter indeed. Now the only problem I have is... apparently it's flooded. No suprise there. But just pulling the EGI fuse, holding down the accelerator, and cranking it over dosen't seem to be clearing it. Looks like plug pulling time for me. But after all morning under the thing putting the starter on... I'm taking an hour or two break. Then I'm taking back my RX-7 :-)