Ben & crew, the folowing information is copied from
http://members.ij.net/mrmazda/
Read it all before you do anything.
Why won't my rotary engine start? What can I do to start it? 2002/09/27
A typical story goes something like the following:
It started just fine when I moved it out of the garage to wash it. Ever since I finished washing it, it just refuses to fire. I didn't get any water on the engine.
This isn't good for any engine, but you found the rotary engine achilles heel. You are playing Russian Roulette by starting a cold rotary Mazda engine and not allowing it to warm up completely before turning it off. If you do this often enough, eventually it will happen. It might even carbon lock. Just don't do it. If you must start it cold without letting it warm up completely, let it run at least two minutes. The longer the better.
One: If this happens to you and yours isn't an automatic, one solution is to push start the car.
Caution - Do NOT attempt to pull start your car. Upon starting, your car may lurch. This can quickly eliminate the space between the vehicles, or cause your car to run over the tow cable, damaging either or both vehicles.
Pushing spins the engine faster than the starter can. As long as you haven't done something else to prevent starting, this works quickly and rather easily. A hill also works well if available. When using either of these methods, do not use first gear. Let out the clutch after reaching a speed of at least 10 MPH, preferably more. Reverse will work if the downslope is facing the wrong way, but beware of the considerable additional danger. Using reverse on a hill should be your last resort.
Two: If yours is '88.5 or newer, simply holding your foot all the way to the floor while cranking may get it started. Cranking this way is supposed to disable the fuel injection and may get you on your way.
If yours is a GSL-SE, keep you foot entirely off the go-pedal, and try a burst of repeated extremely short start attempts, extremely short meaning roughly two seconds or less, followed by a pause of 4-5 seconds in between, and burst meaning 4-10 tries before a longer pause of up to one minute if it does not start. This procedure is ideally suited also to hot restarts when the engine balks instead of starting instantly.
Three: If you have time, simply waiting until later to try can sometimes do the trick. Sometimes several minutes is more than enough. Sometimes a few hours, overnight, or a couple days may be required. Often, no amount of waiting will help.
Four: Lacking time to wait, purging the engine of excess fuel is the next thing to do. With a fuel injected model, you can generally accomplish this by disabling the fuel pump and ignition, easily done by pulling the "engine" fuse or disconnecting the tach lead from the trailing coil, and cranking the engine 20-30 seconds. This process is more effective if you remove the spark plugs first. If you are due for new spark plugs, now is the time to change them. If reusing the old ones, dry them of any excess fuel or oil before reinstalling. If you want to preserve engine compartment cleanliness, stuff some rags in the vicinity of the plug holes to catch the excess fuel. This also serves as a safety function, reducing the possibility of an unwanted fire should an errant spark find the surplus fuel. With a carbureted car, disabling the fuel pump doesn't shut off the fuel supply, so the spark plugs must be removed to purge excess fuel. You can prevent the carb from receiving fuel by either disbling the fuel pump, or, because carbs use a low pressure fuel supply, pinching the fuel line to the carb with vice grips. Flooding is quite uncommon with carbureted engines, and skipping to method Four is generally easier and prudent when they have a hard start problem.
Five: If pushing isn't an option, and Two through Four above didn't work either, getting additional lubricant into the combustion chambers is required. First, make sure the battery is fully charged and the battery terminals are clean. Full cranking power is crucial in this circumstance. If your rotary is carbureted, just pour a small amount, a half ounce or less, of light oil or ATF down each carb throat. Because ATF is lighter viscosity than crankcase oil, it takes less time for the smoke to clear after you start it. If yours is fuel injected, the task is more difficult. Usually, removing the air duct from the throttle body and squirting the oil past the throttle blades is the easiest. You can inject the oil through the spark plug holes, but if you try to use the trailing (upper) plug holes, you have to get the oil to go through the 3mm hole that the spark normally sneaks through, so even though the leading plugs are lower down, they are easier to get oil through. On some models, there are unused intake manifold vacuum ports to which you can easily connect your oil pumper with a short piece of hose.
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Have Fun
David Dewhurst
CenDiv Milwaukee Region
Spec-7 #14
. We have checked for spark at all four wires, all are sparking.
