exploding bypass caps
 

I removed the heater core because it developed a leak and I will be replacing it after a while. But I temporily put bypass caps on the engine heater outlet and radiator. They are cheap made in china non reinforced caps in 5/8 size. I have used these before but never on a rotary engine car. Now the issue I am having is the engine cap keeps blowing out, not off, but the end is just blown out at the seam. It happened once and I figured the thing was possibly deffective, well it just happened again. It happens when in high RPM high throttle high boost only (@ 10 psi). The engine hasn't been overheated, it is an un-rebuilt jspec, but there is nothing to indicate that it has a coolant seal problem. Compression is around 100 per face per rotor. It is a 13b-re btw. Coolant temps allways stay under 200 on the haltech (which is actually more like 190 because the haltech metric sensor reads weird). The radiator cap is a 13 PSI btw.

OK so hardcore guys that remove your heaters. What do you use to cap off the engine outlet to the heater core?

Anyone else run into this before?

Thanks

Keep a short length of hose installed.
Stick a used spark plug in the hole and clamp.


-Ted

yeah, those things are notorious for sucking donkey balls. you can also use a large bolt and clamp that inside the hose.