Blown coolant seals = coolant in combustion chamber??
 

Hi.. it's again about that s5 TII that Im trying to buy..
rember that the last time I went there it was weird.. hard to start then it started, but reved REALLY slugish until I acelerated it up to 3000rpm and it fired up like it should... a friend of mine told me that it trew LOTS of white smoke of the back...
so we reached a conclusion, KOed coolant seals..

I still don't understand one thing right.. does the coolant goes in the combustion chamber ? if so, shouldn't it go out trought the exaust with just one complete rotation of the rotors ?? :confused:

*bump*

what's wrong?? bad english ?? :\

My last RX blew a coolant seal. The engine blew shortly after. Combustion blowback through the coolant system. At least that's what both rotary mechanics I asked said.

when the seals blow they usually leak when the engine is cold or during cool down so the coolant that is sitting in the engine burns off when you start it up when it is cold, it takes a while to burn off that coolant that gets into the exhaust system and sticks to the catalytic converter.

White smoke from blown coolant seals is generally only just after start up and the following 20 minutes or so. After that the car would appear to run fairly normal except the cooling system is filling with hot gas and displacing the coolant into the overflow bottle causing it to overflow completely, this makes the car slowly start to overheat.

so if the coolant is at the cats what makes it run so slogish? the resistance of the exhaust ?

And the coolant smells terrible(sort of a stail, burnt, sweet smell). Thats probably easiest way to tell if you've lost a coolant seal. I lost my engine to a coolant seal.
-Andrew

losing compression to the cooling system can make it run sluggish. If the car has a bad coolant seal, i'd give it a 75% chance that it has low compression to go with it.

humm, ok..
but how does it runs ok after I revved it a bit? it stoped behing sluggish.. it had NO POWER at all.. it seemed like an eletric engine..... I full trothled it, and it climbed up the rpm and when it reached around 3000 it fired up like it would normally.. it was alive again!! how is that possible ??? rotaries are sure weird engines.. (but I love them :bigthumb: )

coolant doesn't burn easily with fuel, try running straight coolant in your engine and it will be less likely to run sluggish but will cause more rust in yuor engine causing it to be useless after you are done tearing it up. ;)

Uhm, you're not the brightest bulb in the pack are ya? ;)

Water pools up in teh combustion chamber. Probably more so on one rotor than the other. When you crank the engine, this water gets thrown around. Just like a rotary flooded with fuel loses some compression, the rotor flooded with water loses some compression. IT also gets thrown onto the leading sparkplug for that rotor, maybe even the trailing plug. When the opposing rotor starts up, this one fails to combust, because it's flooded with water, and the plug even has water on it. After a few seconds, you increase the engine's speed, creating heat, friction, adn compression, all of which expel the water...then the rotor picks up and begins firing with the other one.

LOL

humm wait.. the main reason would be water in spark plugs, cause how can there be no compression?? when the rotor rotates it will expel the water from all the chambers right?? (trought the exhaust).. so there will be no water in the combustion chamber anymore.. the engine then runs sluggish cause..... (INSERT LIGHT BULB HERE).. I think it was runing with only one rotor.. that kinda makes sense.. it's probable that only one of the rotors has coolant in it. when I crank it, it rotates and expels the water out trought the exhaust but not before soaking the spark plugs!! so my guess is that it was runing with only one rotor up to 3000rpm, until it evaporated the coolant with the heat generated by friction..
well I think this is it.
and Im now a little more bright :D

:rlaugh:

the same thing happen to my car....then I got a new engine

why didn't U rebuild?

bye the way dont forget to buy a new catalitic converter after ur coolant seal leakes coolant into it, cuz thats the problem if you put the new engine in then it misteriously looses all power, then u take the converter off and run it for a lil bit strait off the header, its kinda cool.maybe not good for the engine but whatever. (it was only a couple minuts to see if it runs fine) and it did

oops i meant water not straight coolant. ;)



and Kevin was saying not ALL of the coolant gets expelled with the rotation of the engine, it will stick to the rotor and walls of the housing and spark plugs, turn up the intensity of that bulb. :)

:p
will do.. (or try :D )

"bye the way dont forget to buy a new catalitic converter after ur coolant seal leakes coolant into it, cuz thats the problem if you put the new engine in then it misteriously looses all power, then u take the converter off and run it for a lil bit strait off the header, its kinda cool.maybe not good for the engine but whatever. (it was only a couple minuts to see if it runs fine) and it did"

I will not use any cats on my car.. so as soon as I repair it, first thing Ill do is straight pipes to the stock Y and mufflers.. also a boost meter to check out if I need a FCD

cats usually fail when people run block seal or radiator sealant through the cooling system then that gets onto the cat and plugs it up. coolant usually burns off with no side affects.

btw, if you do have blown seals and you do run straight coolant you will want to remove the plugs after you run the engine and put some atf or engine oil in the chamber and crank it, the water will rust out internal engine parts relatively quickly compared to the coolant/water mixture.

I putted destilated water in it, the time I went there before it was "flooded".. this last time I filled it with coolant liquid tough

thinking about that... that engine has been stoped for like at least 2 years..... prolly I should do a rebuild anyway. cause it's inside might be kinda messy

if it has had coolant/water sitting in it(the combustion chamber), yes, it will be quite messy..

Damn dude, just buy the friggen car, or leave it alone already...

I have a horror story that started this same way. Soon after I had the 91 engine i bought fit into my 86 It started to smoke and overheat. I didnt have enough money to gte it fixed so it sat for a while. What happen was part of the side housing cracked right next to the coolant seal allowing collant to leak into the rotor housing. When i let the car sit(big mistake) the coolant ate away and pitted my housings. They needed to be replaced anyway since they were worn but this made it an immediate problem.