Thar She Blows!!!!!!!!

[NOPSTNS]

yeppers! its done.

i went to the mazda dealer where i used to work to get the opinion from my mentor Joe and he agreed with me, the engine is messed up. may or may not be apex seals bc it runs too good, idles too smooth and revs too high without any drama or power loss......

on my way home tho....the CEl started flashin and then it went solid, i was passin some dude on route 1 and the engine was reviin up to about 7k and then the revs started to accel only slightly.....felt like i was runnin on just the trailin plugs....then it got to 8500 and just stopped goin higher.....


then i heard bad noises, like a bunch of rocks just got poured into a blender and then.....the revs died and i put it in neutral and held the clutch downa nd the engine stopped.


i pulled over and went to crank it....nothing.

i sat at the side of route 1 and about 30 seconds later smoke started BILLOWING out the exhaust. shes dead.

called mazda roadside, they had it towed. goodbye to my dearest RoXanne....

its goin to my work (reedman toll mazda) tomorrow mornin and i will be ordering an engine!


yay!


maybe b4 i install it i can find a shop who does porting? i should do some homework on renesis porting b4 i get my hopes up tho....



Periferal port? with ITBs?

yay or nay>?

[Vypurr]

Woot! Congratulations Frank! I don't usually say this to people who have just blown up their car, but I think in your case it's a blessing! That car has had a hard life!

[whitezenki]

then i heard bad noises, like a bunch of rocks just got poured into a blender and then.....the revs died and i put it in neutral and held the clutch downa nd the engine stopped.

That must have sucked. Possibly the worst noise ever.

Good that your taking it so well, sorry to hear though.

[evomike]

Just build a badass 13b and do the swap from what I've heard its way better, or just do a stock jdm swap,honestly its what I'd do

[TROLL]

warranty? do you have to put it back to stock to have it checked out? if you're paying for an engine might as well try to get a better one, but if not then cool...

[doug]

Hopefully you'll treat your new motor better?

[TROLL]

are you asssssuming he didnt treat this one well? "better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt"

[antman0408]

Welcome to the club.

[doug]

are you asssssuming he didnt treat this one well? "better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt"

Yes I'm assuming that.

But anyway, back on topic, how many miles did the motor have??

[ozthunder]

I wouldn't assume that, the reliability of wankels- especially the older, which this is not- is the equivalent of a senior citizens bowels.

[NOPSTNS]

senior citizens bowels? ew man! haha. i never had any issues with the engine, changed the oil every 2k, it never flooded, changed the plugs at 20k, changed the belts 3x, really the sucker ran great until about 3 days ago.

nah i was good on the maintenance and all but this issue had nothing to do with reliability. i sucked in water and it killed it, that will happen to any engine.

im 90% sure its gonna be warranty, my cars warranty is 5 yr 60k for powertrain and since i am the rotary tech i think ill be ok. im gonna have my friend call techline and tell them what happend and the guys at techline always ask "is it modified" and then u say no and then they ask a bunch of aQs and then they send u an engine. its not a big prolbem where they will want pics of the endinge or anything like that. and since the engien is seized i cant warm it up and give them a compression result.

since im gonna get an engine for warranty i dont kno how desperate i am to get some other engine and swap it. IF its not warranty and i need to get ane ngine on my own dollar, itll be another story. but if this ones free....i cant argue....

i still believe this engine is one of th strongest and most reliable engines in current production. say what u want about rx8s but ive done things in this car that would make any other car crawl into the corner and die...there are certain things i wont be doing to this new engine that i did to the last, but im chalking it up to being naive....like when i would downshift into a lower gear at redline of the higher one!

i have about 31,500 on this engine imo i didnt think itd die from water.....its seen 11,000 rpm more than 10 times.

[ozthunder]

But isn't hydrolock more instant?

[Ender81]

I'm confused in the first half of your paragraph you say you treated it great in the second half you say you beat it lol. +1 on the hydrolock question, I've seen that first hand and it's usually instant, what happened that water got into the engine?

[TTsupra911]

congrats Frank, good to hear there's no doubt anymore on whats wrong. Ahh the advantages of being a Mazda tech

[doug]

i still believe this engine is one of th strongest and most reliable engines in current production. say what u want about rx8s but ive done things in this car that would make any other car crawl into the corner and die...there are certain things i wont be doing to this new engine that i did to the last, but im chalking it up to being naive....like when i would downshift into a lower gear at redline of the higher one!

Right, I agree. I didn't realize you hydrolocked it. Didn't see that said anywhere.

[amp]

nopstns... put in the new motor mazda sends ya..
keep the old one and modify it to your liking... this gives you plenty of time to do it right...
if yer gonna scrap it... ill take it off your hands...

[PaleDSM]

How long does the warranty process take from filing to receiving the actual replacement motor?

[sleepersatty99]

that sucks dude. but i do know how you felt when you heard the rocks in the blender and seen the smoke. but good luck with then new motor.

[Snoozie]

I guess having to order a new engine means even more mooching food at meets huh?

[TROLL]

i think hydrolocking happens instantly where it will cause a bearing to spin (or a rod to bend, or whatever). the engine wont stop running right then and there but its fate will be sealed and it probably wont be running much longer.

[doug]

i think hydrolocking happens instantly where it will cause a bearing to spin (or a rod to bend, or whatever). the engine wont stop running right then and there but its fate will be sealed and it probably wont be running much longer.

It really all depends on how much water gets injested.

[su_maverick]

You have to remember that a rotary motor is completely different that that of a piston.

If you got massive amounts of water past the TB and it got into the housing then it would more than likely blow out a seal during the compression cycle. This would be an almost instantaneous thing as the water would get into both the front and rear rotor. The car would bog almost immediately and die out since you would be missing two whole compression cycles on 2, if not 4, rotor faces.

If you get a little water past the TB then you just bog a little and get a steam cleaned engine.

I don’t quite understand what happened to your engine though. It sounds like a massive catastrophe went on inside of your housings. I have seen 13B-REWs run on just one rotor or a blown apex seal. The Renesis might be different because of the ports though.

Sorry to hear about your engine. If they dont cover it, get a NA 20B.

[driftingrx5.7]

lol i don't think 13bs can get hydro lock there is no spun bearings or bent rods...lol but i can see an apex seal getting stuck or a side seal getting stuck! welcome to the club man. welcome to the club. i had 3 13bs when the last one lasted me 21k and i didn't on it and i only raced ONCE! at the track that was it! and it blew on me on a day i needed the car! that is why i am driftingrx5.7 now!

[NOPSTNS]

drifting rx5.7 i can understand ur frustration but this has not hurt my love for rotaries at all, it wasnt a failure of the seals or anything stereotypical, i sucked in water and it slowly died, imo thats got nothing to do with rotary or mazda or anything like that, all engines hate water. o well!

and they do have bearings and that is what i think took a crapola....read on


so i had it towed to reedman where i work today and my manager said im not allowed to change the engine, he said techs arent allowed to work on their own cars. so **** him im sending it to the only other guy in the world i trust it to, Joe G from faulkner mazda. he trained me when i was young and innocent and taught me evrything i know. theres no one else i trust more than him.

hes been working on rotary engines for 30 years, im sure he can handle, ANOTHER, rotary swap. they are wicked easy and hes a great tech. not the fastest but he gets it done PROPERLY, which is more than what i can say about 90% of the techs out there.


i think hydrolocking happens instantly where it will cause a bearing to spin (or a rod to bend, or whatever). the engine wont stop running right then and there but its fate will be sealed and it probably wont be running much longer.



yep. i think the rotor bearing for rotor 2 got ruined or seomthing. water went into the rotor housing, tried to get compressed, the apex seals held compression so something else had to give.

susie the engine is warrantied so its free! but yeah ill be mooching anyway.


paledsm ...the day the car comes in the tech does what little diag is left, and then calls techline, gives them the specs, MAYBE they will give a few more things to check, but in general, the engine is ordered that day and it normally comes within a few days. the rx8 engine i did 2 weeks ago came in 2 days.

amp id love to keep the old engine so i can tear it down and see what went wrong but they use it as a core. they take it back, see what went bad, and replace whatever is needed and resell it as a reman. i cant keep it, sadly.


ender, when i said i treated it great and then i said i beat the **** out of it, thats what u do.

high rpm abuse is REQUIRED in rotary engine to keep them running properly. i would go on with reasons but ud get bored, ill spare u. i changed the oil a lot and keep the level full all the time, changed the plugs and belts and blah blah blah. i kept awesome maintenance of it and kept all the receipts too.

the high rpm abuse is needed to keep the plugs clean and engine free from carbon.....


google "carbon lock"

[doug]

Of course.. I usually burn the carbon off my motor at times when it needs it.

[NOPSTNS]

yeah and its even worse in rotaries where they inject oil into the rotor housings. if u dont wind them up and get that sucker hot ull neevr cook out that junk and later on ull have a poor idle and bad acceleration and CELs and all kinds of probs. over time u could actually foul up the plugs so bad ull have a hard time getting it to start.....and then it WONT start at all. i have a "DE-flood" to do tomorrow morning for that very reason.

also, high rpm abuse injects way more oil than light load conditions so it helps to lube the apex/corner/side seals way better than pussy footin it....

[NOPSTNS]

double post? damn it


update...

got my rental car today, while i was there i talked to my buddy joe about the engien and he said he called techline....

"i spoke with a guy named brendan, apparently he knows u, said u called about a car u were doin a fuel line recall on, a 93 rx7...."


i was like o crap he prolly hates me i called him 4 times over that beast.

"he spoke highly of u, and really liked the way u handled that rx7, he said hes gonna ship us an engine for ya"

i was like hell yeah brendan, imma call that guy and say thanks!


engine should be here friday. maybe ill come to the thursday meet in my rental. its a mazda3, damn this suckers good on gas!

i went 30 miles and the needle barely moved! in the rx8 id be at 3/4 tank by now!

im goin to mazda school next week, hopefully the car isnt done so i can rock the lil 4 banger to school to save on gas!


hooray for a detuned 4 cyl!

[ozthunder]

lol..at least you didn't get a Durango. I HATE this thing.

[driftingrx5.7]

well at least you can have it done. is it covered? and do they know what happened with the water?

[S.Milone]

13b-rew or 20b N/a now

[NOPSTNS]

drifitng rx5.7 its covered under warranty. the tech , my buddy joe, didnt tell them it was modified, and i didnt tell joe i hydrolocked it, and since the guy on techline knew me personally, it was a no brainer, the enigne should be here tomorrow

13b-rew or 20b N/a now

i will NEVER put a 13b rew in it, thats so dumb.

when i swap it its gettin a 20b, NA, peripheral ports, and individual throttle bodies.


but since this engine is FREEEEEEEEEEEE, ill let them put in the ol 13b msp.


shawn, when i kill this new engine, ill get the 20b and do it just how i want it, but since this is under warranty (and the next one wont be) im gonna let them put ina free engine.




sorry to disappoint, but when i found out they were gonna cover it i had to jump on the chance to get it done for free.

they even gave me a loaner car to drive around in until they finish!

high five!

[S.Milone]

Buy the 20b ASAP and start building then. With renisis rotors for the high compression.

[__owens__]

welcome to the club . . .

[Zeropistonz]

shawn, when i kill this new engine


And people wonder why these motors have a bad rep. For the sake of the rest of us, I hope you dont get your hands on a 20b.

[NOPSTNS]

And people wonder why these motors have a bad rep. For the sake of the rest of us, I hope you dont get your hands on a 20b.

aw, come on man im pessimistic.

i plan on havin the 8 a very long time and i just view the world in a negative way, thats all.

i kno its possible for them to last a long ass time, im just being a negative nancy :wiggle:

[Zeropistonz]

wow, that was a fast reply!

aw, come on man im pessimistic.
^ comes with owning a rotary and all the negativity you hear from others i guess

I picked up an rx8 as my daily driver not so long ago. I love it. Its def not the fastest car around but it doesn't need to be. Keep it in the 7k's and in the backroads and its as thrilling as sprinting down the highway with a 500hp monster :banana:

Good luck to you eitherway. Glad you got a new engine for yourself, I know how tricky warranty can be as I work in a dealer as well :thumbup:

[su_maverick]

wow, that was a fast reply!


^ comes with owning a rotary and all the negativity you hear from others i guess

I picked up an rx8 as my daily driver not so long ago. I love it. Its def not the fastest car around but it doesn't need to be. Keep it in the 7k's and in the backroads and its as thrilling as sprinting down the highway with a 500hp monster :banana:

Good luck to you eitherway. Glad you got a new engine for yourself, I know how tricky warranty can be as I work in a dealer as well :thumbup:

Yeah, I think his comment was based on the fact that since we dont exactly drive in ways that promote engine longevity, we will all need a new motor in the future. Hell, I moved to a V8 for reliability and I am already planning on what I will do when I finally pop something on the LS1.

[NOPSTNS]

i got the car back today...heres what actually happened to the engine...

I prolly didnt hydrolock it. joe said when he pulled the exhaust manifold off the block a bunch of coolant poured out the exhaust ports and out of the exhaust manifold.

he ppulled off the intake manifold and found a HUGE crack (about 3 inches in length) in the rear secondary intake port. the crack was a 45 degree angle going across the secondary port and it was right where it bolted onto the intake gasket. i pulled the IM out from the parts dept and we took a deeper look at it and its a very old crack, its very dirty. when he removed the bolts for the gasket a piece of the intake manifold CAME OFF. right where the crack was, the intake seperated in two.

judging by how old the crack was we deduced that the rear rotor was sucking in UNmetered air thru this crack and running leaner than the front rotor. now, the renesis engine is the leanest running rotary to date so when u take the leabnest rotary....then lean it some more...its a recipe for disaster. and it struck.

we think the rear rotor ran lean, but not a huge amount for immediate failure but enuff to cause slow damage. i remember running a dynoi at rt tuning a few months back and it taking a huge crap after 7k.....this may have been why....

i am somewhat sure the rear rotor went lean enuff to cause coolant to enter the engine and lock up. it may have been a side seal, im not sure, maybe the rubber o rings on the rotor housings between the coolant routes cracked and gave way internally and dumped coolant in.

either way...somehow coolant got into the rear rotor and locked that sucker up bad.

i got a new engine and a new intake manifold and was sent on my way....more info on my return trip to faulkner tomorrow...i have a long crank at startup and i think the CAT's fried....

[PaleDSM]

So what do you think may have caused the crack in the first place?

[NOPSTNS]

i think the intake gasket was overtorqued from the factory and cracked it.

its no coincidence the crack is right where a bolt is

[Zeropistonz]

UIM or LIM?

[NOPSTNS]

the lower.

im goin back tonight me and joe gotta replace the knock sensor and we r gonna try cranking the engine with the cat removed to see if the cat is clogged. we will peak down in and see what she looks like. its cranking WAY long before it finally starts and i think theres a restriction in the exhaust. if i remove the whole exhaust and she fires right up i kno the prob is the cat. ill pull the O2 sensors and see whats what.

about 2 gallons of coolant entered into the exhaust so i think that did some damage!

[NOPSTNS]

THE FINAL UPDATE.

it is complete. i kept gettin that damn p0328 knock sensor code and the car would crank for 4-5 seconds b4 starting and it was makin me sad. i put a new starter in it and called techline about the CEL and my boy henry said hes seen a guy do an rx8 engine and somehow spill coolant onto a terminal to the pcm.....that terminal controlled the wiring for the knock sensor and like 20 other things but he kept gettin the knock code.

i pulled the connector...and there it was, coolant, the smallest drop of coolant ever, but coolant nonetheless. i cleaned the terminals and reinstalled it and the code hasnt been back since. and the starter fixed the logn crank, sucker fires up faster than if u tried startup with brake clean!

anyway, its all done, im at 600 miles on the new engine and its officially broken in but im gonna keep drivin easy on it for a lil bit then gradually bring the revs up....

so here the final total....

Tow to faulkner....80
engine....4500
intake manifold.....1200
starter.....300
plugs....200
knock sensor.....300

labor....13ish hours at 90 ish per hour. call it 1,000
dont forget my free rental at 30 a day for 7 days....
it all came to around 8 grand.


AND I DIDNT PAY A CENT!


awesome!

next week we all shall be hearing the sweet sound of 9500 rpm once more...