What up guy's, My name is Ely & I just purchased a clean *** 84 GSL SE from an original owner. The car is in exellent condition with only 85k on the motor. Now here is my question I'm originaly from East LA & have only lived here in AZ about 6 years & I just sold my 10 second HONDA to purchase this GSL SE. I want to prove to all the HONDA guy's out here that I can do a similar set up with this GSL SE than my Honda but have alot less traction problems & be faster due to RWD. Now what I mean by similar set up is to boost a this stock motor & see how far it can take me. On my honda my stock motor took me to 10.7 @ 142Mph with a 2.4 60 ft. consistily with no problems at all on a 1.8 GSR block on 15 lbs. of boost. Now what kind of manifold would I need to boost this stock FB & how many lbs's of boost do you guy's recomend & what engine management. I have read alot of post here & could not find anything on this type of set up. Everyone usually put a T2 motor on my frame. Any help would be greatly apreciated.

 

Well first of all welcome to the rotary world. You will not find anything on turboing a Se motor that I know of.
A TII motor either from the 86-88 or the 89-92 era is the turbo motors. And to make a 10 second rx7 engine is going to take some $$$$ to do it right and make it last. You need to do alot of reading up on this before you get started.

There are many threads on turboing the 13b S4 or S5 engine as we call them.

 

Thank's for the info & I'm very suprise to hear that it would probably cost more to make a 10 sec. rotary motor than a honda motor. Also I figure it probably will be more expensive to go 10's N/A?.

 

10's N/A would almost require a periphrial port ($$$$$$$$$$$$) with lots of other mods, but it can be done.
10's with boost is easier, but still require lots of $. Boosting an N/A engine should start with a rebuild. Boosting it to the level needed for a 10 sec car, the rebuild becomes a priority. Porting will be needed, might as well rebuild while it's apart.

 

Well this is the thing I'm a big fan of high compresion turbo & this is why I want to boost an NA motor. The way I see it it's all in the tunning!!!!

 

More expensive than a Honda engine, oh yeah. I'm shooting for near 400 hp when I do my TII swap and parts alone will be near 4k, not counting the engine and tranny I have to start with. Spend some time in the 2nd gen section as that engine will be your best choice to start with.

Welcome to the forum and the Darkside. In my sig line is a link to the online FSMs, and other rotary related materials. Good luck with your project.

Btw, high compression, boost and apex seals is a risky combination. If you want to go that route, invest 1k in a set of ceramic apex seals for those tuning mistakes.

 

So no one has ever tried boosting a stock 84 gsl se 13b before?

 

The SE engine is a decent choice to add boost, since it uses the wider 3mm apex seals. The 86-up engine use a 2mm apex seal, and many people have their rotors milled to accept the 3mm seals, especially when adding lots of boost.
Still, you will likely need to do some porting to acheive the power you are looking to obtain. Adding mega-boost can overcome the intake ports ability to flow, but it will not do much for the exhaust ports.
One drawback to the SE FI system, is it only uses 2 injectors, while the 86up FI systems all employed 4 injectors. I don't think you can get large enough injectors to feed the engine's needs with only a pair.

 

Well can I upgrade the FI system to the newer one & also I won't be needing that much power. My 88 civic hatch only put out 400 whp & 360 Tq but the car weight around 1800 lbs., So I will be doing the power to weight ratio.

 

Yeah, the block is basically the same from the SE to the later motors, but the later motors are designed to be turbo, come with turbos already (but if you want to run 10s you'll need to upgrade it), have an EFI system designed for turbo, have better flowing intake/exhaust and easier to port, more people have built them for big power, and most importantly there are still people making real performance upgrades for the T2 whereas there are few for the GSL-SE. Bottom line is that it is cheaper and easier to install the T2 motor and transmission than it is to upgrade the stock motor, that is why everyone does it.

Added: If you like high compression there are a few points to keep in mind. Compression is 9.4 on the GSL-SE and 9.0 on the S5 turbo so you are not losing that much. Also rotary engines are very susceptible to damage from detonation so you don't really want to mix high compression with high boost. Finally if you want you can put high compression rotors in the turbo engine and get the best of both worlds but you need to be super careful about your tuning.

 

Thank you all for all the info I'm getting!!!!!, Keep it coming. Oh yeah one more thing does anyone know of a repuatible rotary shop here in Arizona.

 

Well no mater what motor I ever boost I only run my boosted motors on C16 & that is the only fuel that I've ever tuned any of my boosted motors with.