I am gonna go do the final test drive on an AE rx-7



i watched the guy test drive the car the first time i seen it running was from watching from the curb and

i am not sure if it was when he was downshifting and slowing down or accelerating but i seen a small amount of white smoke...is this normal...or was it the engine or turbo....Can i tell if it is the engine by revving the car for a good minute at around 6k RPM....or does this only work on a piston engine. Or can i tell if it was the turbo by checking for play in the turbo by moving it with my hand. Or should i just leave the car alone....



This of course will be my final idicator if i buy the car and if not i will probably go with something else...of course this car was my first choice now...because it seems better...anywho some help thanks.

 

is there any way for you to smell the smoke? You can hold the rpm at 4-5k for 30 seconds or so, then let off and if smoke comes out it's probably to oil control rings. Coolant will smell sweet if that's the problem.

White is usually coolant

Bluish, blackish, sometimes whitish is oil burn

Brownish, sometimes blackish smoke is too much fuel

Oil burn and coolant burn both signal the need for a rebuild in the near future. too much fuel usually means there is a bad injector or something, but it's nothing to worry about because it's not that expensive to fix.

 

So if the car does smoke......it will smoke when i hold it at idle at 4-5K rpms for one minute or so.

 

holding it at 4k-5k for a minute causes smoke? That means the oil control rings are gone. If you buy it you're going to need to rebuild it in the near future.

Just tell him that the engine is basically shot, and bring the price way down. Then buy it and either rebuild it yourself (if you know what you're doing), or send it to a shop and have it rebuilt. You can get rebuilds from $1000 at rotary resurrection.

Of course, if you don't want to bother with a rebuild, then that isn't the car for you.

 

A little bit of smoke from burning oil is normal for rotaries when they are cold, especially TIIs. This could also be a sign that the turbo could use a rebuild. Pull off the TID and check for shaft play.