scrapp

iTrader: (1)

I feel awkward making this post because its the typical "read FAQ" question... I have read excessively.... I'm just looking for some up to date real opinions to my scenario.



Short and sweet:
I have an 89 GTUs with 12k original miles.
I'm talking, as in this car has been hiding in a storage its entire life, and I decided to take it out.
It will NOT be a garage queen anymore (save for the storage inside a garage), but I want to maintain it almost TOO meticulously. More or less its gonna be a street car with some racing. I just want to drive it... and see if I can still get 200k or something crazy out of it. This is a long term goal. This is my car. If the motor pops, it gets a new one... but I want to prolong the "original-ness" (unless someone wants to make an offer for it, hehe. I've been hearing the crazy offers from people, but yet to see the cash to make me part with it.)


MOVING ON TO THE QUESTION:

My "mechanic" told me to use Mobil1 15w50 (We live in Houston.) His reasoning is that the tolerances on rotarys is loose, even new, and its also able to handle the heat well. His only rule was to "MAKE SURE TO WARM THE CAR UP WELL BEYOND WARMED UP BEFORE YOU DRIVE IT HARD" (This man has a turbo FC that is built to excessiveness and is more or less ONLY a race car... even though we have totally different applications, I just said ok and did it.)

Well my experienced/educated car friend (IE: not rx7s) is on my case for using such a thick oil in a "new" car.

Should I keep doing what Im doing, or make life simple and just switch to something like castrol gtx 10w30 and move on with life? Its more or less just a street car, am I being too excessive?

/question





I drive the car pretty hard. I don't destroy it, but I can't stop driving fast, its too fun. More often than not Im finding redline. Don't get me wrong, I let it warm up, I drive it easy, and when the time comes, I start to romp on it, mixed with some easy driving. Its also been getting a lot of highway driving. When its time to put away, I cool it down before parking. Somedays if it feels too hot, or Im not in the mood, I granny drive it like a motherF.
I have no idea what to expect from this car. Had it for two years, I bought at 9/10k miles and Ive just been slowly working at it to see what it does.


starts great
idles great
runs great
redlines great
turns great
stops great

It just drives. and thats all Im asking for.

This year has been my voyage christening. I've started driving this car quite often (especially since my POS beater daily driver is getting a major overhaul on it.) At this point I play "chess" with what and where I need to go cause no AC is just plain sucking *****, and I'm tired of driving just for that reason. I want my daily back!!!!



Thanks Club.

FelixIsGod29X

iTrader: (50)

IF everything is fine then just keep running the recommended oil. I use castrol gtx 10w30 as well.

RotaryEvolution

iTrader: (30)

move on and use conventional castrol 10W40, save the cash spent on the mobil for the inevitable engine rebuild.

i highly doubt the engine will make it to 200k now, because it has been sitting in a garage for 20 years. this is like expecting 20 year old tires to last the same amount of time as brand new ones with brand new rubber. the relation is that the coolant seals in these engines are rubber also, and rubber has a shelf life and 20-25 years seems to be the coolant seals upper end lifespan.

scrapp

iTrader: (1)

Yea... I don't mean to be negative, but I keep telling people I have a feeling the motor won't last long, even though I really really really want it to. (no one wants to lose a motor.) But being that it sat, AND that its a rotary... I just feel like Im not gonna get very far on it... but I WANT to try.
my only choice would be to let it sit in storage for the rest of its life... but I just don't see why... Why cage the horse meant to be wild?

I guess I'll be lucky to see 60k? or more like 5-10k more miles? I'll just swap to the castrol in a few miles

Evil Aviator

OK, first thing, racing will DESTROY your car.

Secondly, Mobil One is no longer real synthetic oil. In the past they used Group IV base stock, but now they use Group III base stock, which is just a glorified version of regular mineral oil. Sure, it's better than regular Group IIa oil, but it pales in comparison to real Group IV and/or Group V based synthetic oil such as Idemitsu, Red Line, Royal Purple, Amsoil, etc.

If you are serious about paying mega bucks for the best oil, then use one of the Group IV or V based synthetics listed above, remove the OMP, and use Idemistu pre-mix oil in the gas tank.

If you just want a good oil for street and autocross use, then Castrol GTX works great.

The recommended oil viscosity is listed in the factory service manual, owner's manual, and I think it is also on a sticker in the engine bay.

GregW

I have seen my personal piston engine cars to 200k 300k and one over 500k. They all ran cheap dino oil and cheap fram filters.

You DO NOT need expensive or special oil to make a car go that far. Its just maininance, and fluid changes.

On a rotary, even at 200k you will not see much wear in places the oil pan oil lubes. We dont have an "oil ring" we have oil drippers(injectors), that is where the most wear will be seen, side plates and housings. Dont forget Apex, side, corner, oil rings, that are not directly lubed with oil pan oil.

scrapp

iTrader: (1)

Yes, you are right, Im not denying it, racing will toast it quick. Does the occasional autoX or track course once a month or so count? Is this the same for redlining on the street? I would say yes... but whats the variable of damage compared to being a true track car? Are you saying I should putt this car around instead?

This is making me feel better... I most likely will go with the Castrol.


Thanks Greg for your input, I appreciate it. Maybe I need to just bite the bullet and learn some premixing knowledge. I do have two years until emissions is exempt...

j9fd3s

iTrader: (3)

Idemitsu, in conjunction with Mazda did a study of oils in the rotary, in short if you're racing you want to run at least a 40 weight, and 50 is what they chose to run Le mans with.

actual wheel to wheel road racing is hard on the car, it WILL get hit, so road racing a really nice car is a bad idea.

auto x isn't wheel to wheel, and you can have a really nice car, there are exceptions but the worst thing to hit is a cone...

if you're just doing a track day, or time trials its not wheel to wheel, so contact is pretty rare, although there is always the guy who flips, or hits a wall or something. they always tell you which corners eat cars, you just have to listen...

Evil Aviator

Autocross is a little hard on the car, but not too bad. Track courses are really hard, and will almost for sure result in car body damage. Track courses will also require you to have a complete separate set of brake pads and rotors that you will need to swap out for street/track.

The worst blown engine I have ever seen was due to the owner accelerating slowly on a regular basis. The engine needs to rev past 3800rpm in order to fire the secondary fuel injectors, and if they do not fire often then they get clogged up and the engine will then start to run lean under acceleration, eventually leading to catastrophic failure. Redlining the engine does nothing but increase engine wear, but you do want to drive the engine in the higher rpms on a regular basis in order to keep everything working properly.

Oh, and your mechanic is right about warming up the engine before hard driving. The iron and aluminum housings expand at different rates, so you want them to warm up slowly. You can crank up your engine in the morning and immediately drive the car, but make sure the engine is up to normal temperature before you accelerate up a hill, up a freeway on-ramp, or otherwise place a large load on the engine.

RotaryEvolution

iTrader: (30)

think of the engine in relation to a lamborghini(yes i know, different ballpark but stay with me). there is a point where the engine needs to breathe to continue to function properly, this means letting the engine stretch it's legs every once in a while, if you have the engine trotting around lugging it under 4k ALL the time then carbon will build up, ports will stick and things will gum up.

keeping that in mind also keep in mind that high RPMs cause more wear, so extended periods of high RPM use will wear the internals and eventually cause lower compression and power. the benefit is even with lower compression these engines dynamically seal better with higher RPMs so power loss in the upper range will always be marginal.

scrapp

iTrader: (1)

j9fd3s, Evil Aviator, and Karack: Thank you for all this help. I was not expecting my life/decisions for the car to be changed all of a sudden in one day. Granted this is all knowledge I already had, but I don't get that often to throw around rx7 technical information with other owners, I usually only get to search the forum/debate and question with myself. Its nice to hear from others.

As stated, when I was talking about the track, I meant the occasional track day. If I want a track car, I'll go find another one thats beat up. But you know what, I feel like I might give up on doing that much tracking. Best bet is probably just leave it a street car... it might be low mileage... but this motor is probably a lot more fragile than that.

Im gonna do my best to stay off redline, but will for sure continue to keep over 4k, and switch to Castrol 10w40.


Thanks again!

RotaryEvolution

iTrader: (30)

and make sure you start by flushing the coolant and adding it fresh.

nycgps

iTrader: (4)

Except 0w40(for sure) and 15w50(rumor)



To OP : DAMN! 13K ! SHITZ! probably the lowest mile FC in the states ?

Evil Aviator

Personally, I would only autocross a really nice car like that. I have seen very few wrecks in autocross. You can buy a $500 piece of crap RX-7 and make it into a track car, and you don't even need to pay for license plates and insurance if you have access to a trailer. Also, you can rent race cars for track events.

Hmm, not sure if I should post this on the internet. Ah, what the heck... Several years ago I remember one guy who autocrossed a really nice brand new Mustang. I was amazed how he could beat the **** out of it every month and still have it look so nice, and it seemed like he never had to buy new brakes or tires. In fact, it was in such great shape that it almost looked like one of those Avis rentals.

There is a rumor that the Mobil One oil made for the European market has Group IV base stock, but I don't trust Mobil and there are plenty of other more honest, up-front, and reliable brands to choose from.

scrapp

iTrader: (1)

You must stalk me, When I picked up the car it received a MAJOR tuneup two years ago... Sometime soon Im about to replace the coolant. I have an aluminum radiator sitting in the house waiting to be put in. Safety measure against the stock plastic one... I plan to keep all the OEM junk if ever replace up in the garage attic... Just incase.

I've heard a few people say that... If I didn't touch it, it would have stayed at 9k, and would have REALLLY been the lowest. I found a 88 vert on ebay JUST yesterday at 14k... He is about to beat me if I keep driving mine.
Some people have told me to sell it back to Mazda... I doubt mazda would want it... Im sure they would laugh at me and ask me to DONATE it. Plus... its not as pristine as you would think... few knicks, dents, scratches.... Its not a museum piece by any means, but I"ll try.



I like the way you think lol!!!!

scott01hickey

i used valvoline 20w50 on my 88 vert and i continue to use it on my 88 TII. i have never had any issues, and this is the oil weight that both of these cars called for under the hood in temps over the freezing point.

rx7freak13v

great find on an amazingly low mile fc. if you are interested, i have heard many times that mazda will buy back a low fc's.

as far as oil is concerned,yea we're supposed to run 20/50 weight oil in anything over freezing temps. i use castrol gtx 20/50. have been using it for years. actually, i can't think of a time that i didn't use it.

when my new engine is built though, i plan to use either redline oil or royal purple. i want redline but the closest distributor is about 45 miles away from me. might not be that bad though lol. but royal purple is available everywhere near me so we'll see, but thats a purpose built race engine....that will see street use also lol. so only the best oil. but for any of the daily drivers, or or rotary's that aren't beeing reved over 9k i would keep my money with castrol gtx 20/50 (i live in florida. it only reaches freezing temps about a total of 3 weeks spread across the entire year when cold fronts come in lol. anyhow, hope my words can help or at least be controversial lol. some say thinner oil but mazda said 20/50 so i dunno. no problems yet though

ps: by what the interweb has told me, do not use synthetic oil with the factory oil metering pump.

REAmemiya_fan

I used to go with royal purple synthetic in my first FC with the OMP still on and everything. You should see how carbon caked that engine is. Now I just use Castrol 10w40 with the OMP attached. As others have said (and this is a totally different debate) it is better for the engine to ditch the OMP completely and run a synthetic in the pan, with Idemitsu in the gas.

Derekcat

iTrader: (8)

Ugh... Fram filters... Stay far, far away... Spyder has personally seen multiple RX-7s that were killed by FAILED Fram filters.

We DO have oil rings, 8 in fact.
And the apex seals are more or less, directly lubricated with oil pan oil via the injectors in the housings.

If you want the best oil.. It seems to be Royal Purple, it's tested with rotaries [one of their higher ups has an FD I believe] and it's real synthetic oil. But the truth: you would be very hard pressed to find the difference between that and Castrol GTX. Unless you do the full drivetrain change and test it on a Dyno.

http://www.racingbeat.com/mazda/perf...etic-oils.html


PS... Give me your car.....

nycgps

iTrader: (4)

0w40 is the formula, u cannot make 0 weight oil without synthetic base stock.

to be honest i would trust Mobil more than BP, after all it was BP that start using group III as synthetic in the states, Mobil fought for it in court and lost.

i only use Mobil 0w40 or red line 20w50 now for my rotary, for the rest of my car, i use whatever on sale, including mobil1 5w30

if u look at royal purple uoa, their oil falls fast after about 1k miles, its not the worst but its not as good as they claim to be

rotarygod

iTrader: (1)

It's nice to see a mint 2nd gen here in Houston. I have always just used 20W50 in mine. I've played around with other weights trying everything I could but have just gone back to good old 20W50. On a newly rebuilt engine I run synthetic and have generally used Royal Purple. UOA's and Bob is the Oil guy can disagree all they want. I've had nothing but good experience with it on every engine I've ever used it on and still believe it to be better than any conventional. Most people don't have a clue what they are looking at when interpreting UOA's anyways. They see a change in number and assume it's an issue with no clue on what a normal number should be. On older engines I run either Castrol or my favorite conventional oil Havoline. I only use Wix oil filters. I wouldn't use Fram filters as a paper weight. I personally wouldn't run Idemitsu in anything other than a pure race engine. The high levels of Moly are fine for an engine that is run hard but will fall out of suspension on an engine that isn't. It was never designed for a street engine though.

nycgps

iTrader: (4)

not saying rp is bad, just not as omg kind of good as they claim themselves to be, i used to use it, but now i move to red line or eneos, because I like ester based stock better.

i had a few fram filters and i only use it for break in, well i think its OK to run it for 50-100 miles ... nothing more lol

for regular use i have mobil1, stock Mazda, k&n, wix, pulorate gold, which ever is cheaper except for stock Mazda, which i always keep 1/2 dozen in my garage just in case.

scrapp

iTrader: (1)

I like opinions... Good stuff

Clubuser

Contacted my POC @ Exxon and this was the reply to above:
"... our Mobil 1 formulation has not changed. It is still a group IV PAO."

Evil Aviator

Would you please have him update his company's website? His answer contradicts their official policy of non-disclosure, and it would be nice to have an explanation at to why their "synthetic" oil tests mostly as mineral oil on a gas chromatograph analysis.

For now, here is their official company response to the following questions:
http://www.mobiloil.com/USA-English/...Base_Oils.aspx

Question:
Have Group 3 Base Oils Been Substituted for Better PAO Base Oils?
Why does Mobil 1 refuse to specify as to the base oil used in their synthetic products. I remember the Mobil 1 oils in the past proudly proclaimed that it was a PAO based oil. We all know the newer group 3 hydrocracked base oils are much cheaper to use than PAO based oils and are less stable in high temps. It would seem to me that if Mobil 1 still uses the better PAO base oils as their primary base oil, you would want to clarify it among those who are switching to other oils because of the ongoing internet talk that says Mobil has substituted group 3 oils for the better PAO oils. Any comments that would clarify the issue?
-- Wayne Swicegood, Asheboro, NC

Answer:
As we're sure you can understand, ExxonMobil does not discuss formulations publicly,as this information is proprietary. We would rather focus on the advanced technology and proven performance that our engine oils and other products offer to our customers. Mobil 1 is the world’s leading synthetic motor oil and the one chosen by more original equipment manufacturers around the world as factory fill. We want those facts to speak for us so our customers feel confident they are getting a high quality, high performance product that provides ultimate protection to their vehicles.

Question:
Response to Claims that Products Contain 'Mostly Mineral Oil'
I've seen claims of gas chromatograph analysis of Mobil 1 Extended Performance 5W-30 SM dated 10-06 that state it is "mostly mineral oil". Realizing that you cannot divulge your exact formulations, what do you say to the critics that claim you are using a high percentage of hydro processed mineral oil in Mobil 1 instead of the more expensive PAO or polyester base stocks?
-- Jeff Willett, St. Peters, MO

Answer:
Just like other companies, we do not discuss our product formulations for obvious proprietary reasons. Mobil 1 Extended Performance is formulated using a combination of high performance fluids including PAO, along with a proprietary system of performance additives. But in the end, it is also about performance. Mobil 1 is used by more Original Equipment Manufacturers than any other oil as factory fill in their vehicles. Also take note of the kind of testing we put our product through, including the Las Vegas field testing we recently completed. The Mobil 1 technology is also tested each weekend on the race track. In fact, more than 50 percent of all NASCAR teams use Mobil 1