Right... so I got a call from my dad at the track. Turns out that he wants me to bring the rest of the case of oil tomorrow, as he lost quite a bit when the oil cooler fitting broke. He bypassed the oil cooler though so everything's okay.

Right.

Oh, and I have to bring a new plug for the little overflow tank, as the cap mysteriously popped off. Gee.

Okay. Any bets as to how long an ITA Rex running with no system of cooling the oil is going to last?

 

I remeber reading somewhere that MazdaTrix recommended running the engine for no more than 15min. without a cooler. It provides like 30-40% of engine cooling

 

Yeah, I heard the cooling percentage before, but not the time...

... I think there's a couple half hour races tomorrow.

Oh well... last race of the season we can go to so what the hell... got all winter to rebuild a few of the engines.

 

I have to say, you should have some baked oil with "race driving". I think that mazdatrix recommendation is for 15minutes of "oh ****" bandage to get from point A stranded on highway to point B were the car can be fixed driving very light to were ever that location is so oil doesn't overheat and do some undisired heat treating to the rotors, e-shaft, etc. But thats just me. I assume you guys have lots of rebuilding cash?

 

Well yeah, that's about what I figured for the Mazdatrix reccomendation. And uhm... no, not "lots" of rebuilding cash, but we have four spare 12As, and I've a line on another one plus a tranny.

Okay, admittedly two of those are mine and I'd prefer not to sacrifice 'em to the racing gods. But still... well anyway.


... uhm... eheh. I'm going to say that he's my dad, and he has different viewpoints on things than I. Were it me, I'd save the damn motor... but oh well. I guess he values the chance to go out and race more than the expense of cooking the motor.

 

I forgot to mention, when oil gets REALLY hot, it tends to go into thermal break-down. He would possibly spin all the bearings, and excessive expansion of the rotor/rotor parts would not be all that helpful either. I don't think your dad realizes the gravity of the situation. Pistion engines vs Rotary engines can not be compared when it comes to the importance of oil cooling. Its literally much more critical then that since the rotors are cooled only by oil.

The stance that reading into the 15minute rule and scewing it into 2. half-hour intervals of full throttle driving is not such a bad idea, its a REALLY bad idea.

NOW, if you lived in MN or some other place simialer to were I live, when its -30F on the coldest morning of the year, I would say, exceeding the 15minute rule may work out differently. But not imply full throttle driving either.

 

Yeah, I know...

I've never heard the 15 minute rule before... personally I'm not comfortable with running it at *ALL* without oil cooling.

Going to see what I can do but... well, it's technicially his car, and he's stubborn, y'know? I'd *THINK* he'd know a bit more about the importance of oil cooling than he's seeming to... he had an RX-2 back in the day for quite a few years and even ended up rebuilding the engine once or twice...

I'm willing to bet he's just operating on wishful thinking mode... and I'm even more convinced now that he's going to kill that engine.

 

the cap of the overflow popped off because of the heat, he may be able to offset some of it by running a higher pressure cap (as long as he's not running 18 psi now)

however, all of this is moot, because without the oil cooler, he's not going to be "racing" for very long.

also, when that motor goes, i doubt if any parts will be able to be used in a rebuild. i cooked a motor once, and it was horrible. the oil eventually just vanished, and the antifreeze turned to this orangey, crystallized gooo (keep in mind it was green) ... everything in the engine was f@#ked!!!!

try to talk some sense into him. either fix the oil cooler with some of that rebuild money, or skip the race.

 

Yeah... I'm going to try to, but I'm not optimistic about it... let's say, I give it about as good of odds as the motor has of surviving.

 

15 minute rule is nice, my rule would be NEVER run w/o one!

 

I would call some salvage yards and see if you can pick one up cheap, (oil cooler). no sense in ruining a motor just for the sake of knowing your going to ruin the motor just for 1 race.

 

Unless the purse was like 5 gran and you knew youd win.

 

Well, managed to talk him out of it... which was totally unexpected but good.

And now we've got until next season to sort out all sorts of little things like that... so yay.