Okay I must have pissed off the Rex Gods because they are screwing with me.. I have two RX7’s that I drive, one is a 1986 nothing special and the other is a 1988 which I just dropped a 1995 13B-REW engine into….



Well the 1986 was giving me lighting issues (no tail lights) so I decided that I would take the 1988 to work with me, breaking the cherry… Before I felt though I thought to myself.. “Self I better take her for a spin around the block a few times”.. So I did..



Well the RMP’s dropped bellow 600 and stalled on every stop.. I needed to adjust the throttle cable which I did.. opps RPMS are now at 3000.. I look at my temp gauge and she’s sitting at ¼ not bad so I finally get her to hover at 1000 RMP’s and get in.. Temps still good just bellow half but considering I was just sitting there with her running to too bad.. So I take her out for a second test drive and I get ½ a block when all of a sudden the Temp Jumps (and I do mean jump) to almost full.. Crap I pull her back into the drive way shut it off and PUFF.. I’ve got smoke lots of smoke.. And Flames….



I popped the hood and there’s Rad fluid everywhere and a few scattered flames from where the hood covering touched the manifold.. CRAP APEX Seal.. Still don’t know what let loose, all the lines look fine.. Haven’t tried to start her or look and see what kind of damage has been done.. CRAP…

Prey to the gods that she's Okay..

 

Well a busted apex seal won't throw coolant all over your engine bay. The flames and such suck though. I'm assuming the flames were simply from the very hot engnie bay catching the underhood on fire, and that it was not fuel related?



Just check all your lines, do a poor mans compression test to verify your apex seals are there.... what else has been done to the motor? turbo, radiator, etc?? did you leave the stock REW twins on...??

 

Hey One320B,



I'm worried that the APEX seal might have snapped do to the heat..



I'm not sure where all the coolent came from all the lines look okay.. I think that the upper rad hose might not be snug enough and under the pressure fluid sprayed past.. and when I say there was fluid everywhere I mean everywhere..

 

That's possible...if you have lose rad hose, it would cause blowby ...but it's possible the lower intake manifold gasket went allowing coolant to blowby past the orings there.



Whats the deal the engine...is it rebuilt? all original? what has been done if anything...



pull the spark plugs in the rear rotor, and pull the egi fuse, crank it over and make sure you hear three distinct "whoosh" sounds...then do the front rotor (it's easier to hear if you do one at a time)....this will at least tell you if you chucked a seal.



have you started the car back up since this happened?

 

Yeah I started her up... Started right away no strange sounds.. I was going to do a compression test but haven't had the time this happened yesterday.



Engine's original, running non-seq turbos...

 

Sorry clarification the engine is not the original for the car came from Japan a Cosmo 13B-REW but it's basically stock, swapped a few parts from a 95 RX blow enging that I have. Had to remove the compressor no room and the second air intake pipe was in the way...

 

Yea, so aside from the modifications necessary for the swap, the motor was basically untouched internally..not rebuilt, etc.





If you used a JDM engine, I have my doubts on it..just because I've had shitty luck w/ the JDM engines.



If it started up, runs...and isn't spraying coolant while sitting and after getting to normal temps, then you'll just need to double check all your lines...even if it isn't apparent which one blew the coolant, just double check them. Look for coolant leaking around the lower intake manifold gasket....



Are you running a stock ecu and harness setup?

 

Yeah Stock ECU and harness, but I have the Cosmo internals..

 

I don't think it's the motor, I think its a heater line, rad line, turbo coolant line, etc...but the block is probably ok.

 

yeah fire wont hurt the engine, just all the plastic stuff on top of it