Rexpelagi

I have been on this forum for awhile but haven't posted too much. So now I bring a question that you are all probably sick of seeing.

My GXL has a blown apex seal in the stock motor. Joe Bob down in KY (who I bought the car off) decided to try to put an S4 engine in the car and run it off the S5 harness. To no ones surprise it cranked about as well as a brick. So he sold it as 'an electrical problem'.

So I pick it up, and bring it back to my home. I take a look at it and start making assumptions that I am dealing with some seriously amatuer work here. Cut hoses, missing some belts, etc. Well I get everything sorted out and try to start this S4 engine once I fix the wiring, but I find out that the S4 engine has a blown coolant seal (by the ultra scientific method of filling up the radiator and seeing an oil/coolant mix come out the oil feed tube ).

So here is the situation. S5 engine (have original, bad apex seal), harness, ecu, along with S4 engine (bad coolant seals), harness ecu. I think the first thing I will do is compression test the S5 because this guy is obviously a moron and I don't trust his assesment. But, assuming the S5 is indeed blown, what do you guys think?

What I have narrowed it down to so far is as follows:
1) Send the S5 out for a rebuild at rotaryressurection. Get street porting, and call it a day. Once I get it back throw on a RB true dual exhaust and an intake, hope for around 180whp, and be happy.

2) The obvious TII swap. Most likely a JDM engine because of availibiliy, though if I can find a USDM TII S5 engine, I will do that for sure. Now with this JSPEC, I understand the fuel setup is slightly different, and of course the harness is different. One of the online places I found sellls pretty much everything you need underhood wise including the tranny for 1.7k. I would need either a) modified N/A harness or B) a USDM TII harness, along with the rest of the TII drivetrain, and most likely get a USDM TII ecu since I remember seeing some issues with the rear rotor not firing. SEM is also an option, but I am wary of this because I have no experience with SEM, or with hardcore re-wiring. I have done everything else on a car besides those two items, and I am afraid of getting in over my head.

What I see as flaws:
1) The N/A route is maxxed at roughly 200whp. What do I do when I get there?

2) TII from some JDM online company will last anywhere from 0-who knows how many days. With everything included along with some sort of exhaust system, I may not have enough money to handle a rebuild on the 13BT.

I guess what I am looking for is thoughts if you were in the situation, which based on the search is fairly common, but most of the threads I found had no resolution. Rest assured that if I do go with a 13BT, there will be a thread full of pictures and step by step instructions of how I screw up... er... swapped out the engines.

Please don't tell me I should buy a TII. I am in northeastern Ohio and I had to travel 5 hours just to find an FC to begin with, and I can't seem to have any luck locating a TII.

Anyway, Flame on.

Rexpelagi

As a second part to this question, which EMS would be a good choice if I went down that road. I was looking around and the wolf 3D unit looked very user-friendly, however it was also going to require me to sell my body parts to get it. What would be a good middle of the road ems system that does not require all sorts of rewiring, but also isn't overly expensive. 1.5k-2k I would consider expensive, and above I would consider overly expensive.

I apologize for the somewhat nooby questions, but every time I searched the only threads I found contained a lot of sarcastic remarks and no real information. I may have just been searching with the wrong search queue but if someone can toss some info my way it would be greatly appreciated.

$100T2

iTrader: (1)

Honestly, you have a full on basket case. If it was me, I'd go with the V-8 swap. Either that, or find somebody selling a full pull T2 swap (ECU, harness, etc). I only scanned your thread, but from the sounds of it, there's an awful lot of screwed up stuff, requiring you to start over from the beginning.

As far as EMS, there's a group buy going on in the Canadian section, but open to everyone, for Haltechs. I think it's $1100 shipped or something like that.

Rexpelagi

You hit the nail on the head my friend. If possible I don't want to go with a v8, it feels like cheating to me, but it is something I have/am considering. It would really be best to rip everything out and start from scratch which is why I am considering a TII swap.

How hard is something like that to wire up?

ExSr20kidF2

how about a bridge-port s5 n/a? considering it doesnt seem like this car is going to be a daily driver. i'd choose one way and take your time to do it the right way, obv. the previous owner didnt, plus if you go the 13bt route you may have to replace the drivetrain, more work and money...good luck keep us updated.

Aaron

anewconvert

iTrader: (1)

I second Ex's opinion. I have a Aux Bridge S5 NA and if I were to be doing it over gain i would AT LEAST go with a half bridge. However if you go with a half bridge you are probably going to need to do the TII driveline swap anyhow.

Personally if I were you I would do the following:

Part out the car you have now r try to sell it out right.

Take that 4 grand, add the money you making parting/selling your current car.

Go to the for sale section, look for ad titled "TII T70, Haltech, Heavily Modded" and purchase his car since he is asking a ridiculously low $5k.

Part out the FMIc and T70. get an earlier spooling, turbo and convert a stock intercooler to A-W then paint the car gloss black.


But thats just me. ANd if I didnt think i would catch utter hell for selling and buying my 4th car in under a year from my g/f I would do exactly what I just described to you.


BC

Sobr609

iTrader: (2)

b-port t2 swap..with a big *** turbo you have enough for it

Rexpelagi

I have considered that, though I would still need some sort of engine management system. It is going to be somewhat of a daily. As far as driveability, 1.5k idle, no power down low, I really don't care. However it does need to be somewhat reliable.

The problem I see with bridgeporting is that then I am stuck where I am and I can't just up the boost to gain some more power.

Is there somewhere who sells bridgeported motors? That would at least be a nice solution so I don't have to worry about a rebuild. What do you rev to to actually get the power out of it?

Rexpelagi

That is tempting, but the money isn't available yet, not for another month or so, I am just trying to decide on the course of action. Someone was thinking about buying the car for 1.5k. Why I am not sure, but if he calls me back with some sort of offer I will definitely do that.

DREYKO

does it have the s5 ecu or s4?

Rexpelagi

I have both ecu's.

Rexpelagi

Any other thoughts? Do any of you bridgeported N/A guys have dyno sheets?

gxl87turbo

iTrader: (15)

Well, you could always call me and I can give you some pretty good ideas. I dont live too far from you. My number is in my avatar.

bigdaddyp

I say, sell the GXL, put money together and buy a turboII or 10thAE

TehMonkay

iTrader: (-1)

Get a megasquirt and harness it's about $500 or so.

So with the TII, compressions test it and try and lean out any carbon, don't half *** any support systems. You'll be happy with it i'm sure, this is what i'm doing in my base model.

Rexpelagi

I guess what I would be worried about with this approach (and pretty much my only real concern with a TII swap) is how long would your typical JDM engine last, assuming I was unable to locate a TII here?

TehMonkay

iTrader: (-1)

Un-known. If you want to tear it down though atkins has an o-ring and gasket kit and if everything is good you can just reassemble it with that and new apex seals and you'll have a piece of mind without the entire cost of the rebuild.

cdaleracer669

iTrader: (1)

my tii swap with new rebuilt motor/haltech and all the little things ran me about 4k

Rexpelagi

Excluding the haltech where did you source the rest of your parts from?

cdaleracer669

iTrader: (1)

i had a dead tii for a donor. bought an engine from a forum member. bought performance/stock stuff from speedmachine, mazdatrix,ebay, forums members. you can probably piece it together between all these places. PM me if u want more details

Rexpelagi

That is a good idea, I guess I would just be worried about doing it correctly. Probably have to check out some how-tos on here if there are any to see how comlpex it is. I think I should be able to do it though.

cdaleracer669, I will have to keep my eye out for some swap items on here. As far as what I want right away, a running car is the main thing. Since the only performance mods I will likely do are an intake, exhaust, and maybe an FMIC (so I don't have to deal with the stock unit or finding a hood) I am not sure if I will go for a stock ECU or an EMS. I should have a better idea in a few weeks.

I am planning to keep my eyes open for any local TII's for sale, but I won't hold my breath... Though once I got my RX-7 it seemed like they appeared everywhere. 2 S5's, quite a few S4's and apparently there is a Turbo Vert around here too... so maybe there is hope.

cdaleracer669

iTrader: (1)

there is a package in the for sale section now.

Rexpelagi

I just saw that, it is a really good price. It did sound like it was having some issues though, and ideally I would want an S5 setup. Definitely something I will think about though, thanks for pointing that out to me.

Rexpelagi

This is a bump from the dead, and even I barely remembered what I said in these posts. 6 months seem so long ago... Anyway, as I promised I wanted to say what I ended up doing with the car. When I was searching none of the threads had a resolution and I didn't want to leave mine unresolved as well.

So here it is. Now I'm willing to bet I will mostly get flames for this. However, let me give my logic behind it. To start off, I love the rotary engine and the design. I still have both engines sitting in the garage, and fully intend to rebuild one for the learning experience and eventually put either the S4 or S5 engine in something else, maybe an FB. However, getting the stock engine rebuilt seemed like a lot of work for 160hp (I'm sure it would be fun though). A Turbo II swap seemed like a great solution, but the condition of the motor I would be getting would be anyone's guess, especially if I was getting it from a mad tyte importer. On top of all of this was the underlying factor that I really had no clue how much stuff the previous owner messed with, what worked and what didn't, and what was S4 and S5.

I was beginning to look for other cars and just forget about this one until I saw someone on here link torquecentral. The portion of the site relevant to me has now split off into its own forum (I'm sure you see where this is going): www.v8rx7forum.com. I spent a few weeks doing some research on prices and what-not, and found that it would probably just fit in my budget to go with a V8 swap. I wanted to retain the stock hood and also stick with EFI, and based on the budget I went with an LT1 from a 1993 Trans Am.

After months of work I finally got the engine fired up last weekend, and let me tell you, it was quite exciting. I will be sure to post plenty of driving impressions, because I know the typical rotary purists will be up in arms about weight distribution and polar moments. However, I am expecting roughly a 51/49 weight distribution and a total weight without me of around 2800-2900 lbs. The car is almost driveable now (minus exhaust, which it really needs to be considered driveable), and once I get some seat time I will tell you all (or anyone who cares to read) what it feels like. Will there be understeer? Will there be excessive lift-off oversteer? Will the front end be diving around? Time will tell... it may be hard to say what is what considering I'm dealing with stock components with 130k on them. However it is safe to say that I will do my best to accurately portray the car.





Those were pictures from a few weeks ago. I know they will make many of you cringe. Looking back on all the time I've put in up to this point, I probably should have bought a TII, and done smaller mods to it, like an intake, exhaust, suspension, etc. I probably would have been just as happy, but at the same time the project thus far has given me a lot of understanding about cars I just didn't have before. Hopefully everything works out in the next few weeks and I can finally get in the road and over to an exhaust shop to finish it up.

NoDOHC

I like the rotary a lot myself and will keep it, but I have a friend with a fully SCCA spec GXL with a built 302 HO in it that has 51/49 weight distribution and weighed less than 2800 lbs while it still had full interior.

That car is FAST!

Good luck with your project, maybe you can rebuild one of the engines that you have and find a rolling shell to put it in.