Haven't done that yet. Just worked the Seafoam thru the engine and manually rotated it a bunch. Figured its been sitting idle for a while. Been focused last two nights on just getting the grease off.

Plan on hooking up the starter this week. Then we'll do the compression test.

 

kk! I'll try to take some tonight.

 

S5 motors have a knock sensor above the park plugs on both rotors, metal fuel rails opposed to aluminum ones, an electric oil meter pump vs mechanical, the electrical connectors are different, the intake manifold has marginally larger runners, the turbo and turbo manifold are differnt(s5 sits closer to the engine) and IIRC the water pump housings are slightly different

 

i think the water temp sensor nipple is different as well.

 

I read in one of the swap threads that BOVs aren't really necessary unless you like the noise. Yall concur or is there an aftermarket one you recommend?

 

Here are picts of the engine. All we've done to this point is clean it with SimpleGreen and then Oil Eater with an electric powerwasher. Cleaned up nice I think. A bad thing about Oil Eater is it causes aluminum to develop the white crusties. they weren't on the intake before I cleaned it so I'll need to go to Harbor Freight and get some brass brushes to clean it up.













In the following picture you can see the broken motor mount. Yes, the picture is very blurry and you're not going blind! What people typically call a motor mount is the rubber pillow but as you can see the aluminum arm is broken on mine.

 

looks good, but good luck with ur harness and ecu lol

 

Yeah, I'm planning on doing mods to the NA harness and using the 374. Since Mazda electronics are a big crap shoot, we'll roll the dice on that one.

But I have an E-type Jaguar so I'm not afraid! Mazda ain't got nuthin' on Lucas!

 

First Rule of Swap Club - Always test the compression (even using the poor man's method) the day the engine arrives.

Second Rule of Swap Club - See First Rule, Dumbass!

Well, got nuttin', nada, ningun, nothing outta the lead rotor. Not a puff. Not a pop. Not a whoosh. Not a woot. Back rotor seemed good.

So, the kid gets to learn how to rebuild a rotory. It'll be good for him since he says he wants to be a mechanical engineer.

We'll do this in stages then. First, we'll convert to 5-speed over Thanksgiving break and we'll rebuild the TII and install it during Christmas break.

Ah... What a nub. Live and learn I guess.

 

And didnt some of us tell you to stay away from TigerJapanese. I cant believe there still in buisness. They must not rip off the people in Canada.

 

Well, that was after I'd ordered it and it had arrived. Their ebay rating is very good. But scrouging is part of the joy of buying old cars and modding them.

 

Yeah I honestly dont know how or where they are selling all these engines to, I've been in their warehouse and always looking at any of the rotary engines they have....most are no good and are in terrible condition. I only buy from them for parts or cores. Never expect to get a running engine from them lol.

 

doesnt make sense to spent 1200 plus on one of these when its gonna cost twice as much to get it running. might as well have a motor built, or rebuild your own POS motor... ??

 

Well, it's a 90 vert, obviously with a na and auto. Fresh black paint with black interior. Pretty little car. Very unlike the Hyundias and Kias a lot of his friends drive.

Frankly, the na/auto combination is IMO dangerously slow; especially here in TX where people haul ***. So POS drivetrain about covers it. I suspect with 125k on it the little rotary is a little tired. So instead of rebuilding that I thought we'd go with a T2/manual.

The goal here was to upgrade to a T2/manual without spending a ton. The car will never be worth more than $4 or 5k so as you know every $ you put into it is a $ you'll never get back. But it is still a beautiful little car that is different and with a T2/manual should be a blast to drive.

It didn't need to be perfect, just something to serve my 17 year old well thru college so if it didn't have super compression that was ok. Obviously, zero is insufficient. I'm really curious to see what we find when we break it down today. It's odd that the front rotor didn't seem to move any air at all.

btw, your blog is cool.

 

with 125k the rotary is a lil tired?? wtf are you talking about?

i gave a buddy pof mine an s4 with 200k miles on it and i called him recently and he told me "its the best drift car dude. btw its clocked over 220k"


so what the F are you talking about?

 

Yeah no ****. Rotarys will run as long as you take care of them. Im confused I thought this was your car??? And by the way a well built, sorted out turbovert will sell for more than 4-5grand. I wouldnt let mine go for that low??

 

At the end of the day, it doesnt matter what you will let it go for, the only thing that matters is what someone will pay for it.

Here's a TII vert on the forums now for $5k.

Here's another guy selling a TII vert and asking $7500. Been sitting on the forums for almost a month. Has lots of cool parts like Haltech on it too. the myspace page seems flaky as all hell but the picture that finally came up shows a very nice car.

So $3k for a decent (not Maaco) paint job (it's a 16 year old car after all), $1k in engine swap that you dont have to buy the $1.1k seal/gasket kit) and another K in wheels in tires and even without normal mods like suspension, Haltechs or interior fixes and you're upside down; if the car was free. I think it's foolish to look at a 7 as an investment. You gotta do it because you love the car and enjoy working on it, not because you think you're gonna make money on it. YMMV

Actually, I bought it for my now 17 year old for his 16th birthday. But there were 3 or 4 owners per CarFax in AZ, CA and OR before we got it. So who knows how well they maintained it and what their driving habits or commutes looked. That's 16 years of unknowns so any statement that it can't be tired is just naive in the extreme.

Here's what is in the FC FAQ IceMark posted a couple of years ago...

How long does a rotary engine run? Do I need to rebuild my engine?
Most 13Bs can last over 150-200K miles, while most 13BT engines usually last 125-175K miles, but remember that regular proper maintenance for the engines entire life is required for higher lifespan.

And here's RotoryRessurection's sense of typical engine life:

89-91 nonturbo 13b: 100-150k miles

The link will take you to RR's site so if anyone wants to argue with him or IceMark feel free. Those guys live this so I tend to believe them. Our car had 122k miles on it with unknown maintenance and unknown driving habits so I don't know how anyone else can claim it can't be tired given they are completely ignorant of its history.

One of the things that RotorResurrection seems to emphasize is the problem of carbon build up. I'm thinking that for an auto this is an even bigger problem because autos don't typically rev hard enough or at least it aint as fun as to rev it up as with a stick and I've seen several articles on how higher revs reduce carbon build up. And if that owner in CA was a little ol' lady in Pasadena she probably spent a lot of time putzing along at low RPM in LA rush hour. RR has an interesting write-up on the water-powered carbon remove procedure here. I've also found similar write-ups using SeaFoam instead of water.

 

Well not to thread jack or anything but the first one is pretty much crap from what I can see OH and the second one whats up with the n/a intake manifold???? Mine is a sorted out, well built maching by someone who has been doing it since the r100's?? You can tell a mickey mouse swap to a good one and both of those examples came from Disney land.

 

I would get the type a rebuild kit from atkins and their apex seals, and just make sure all the seals housings and rotors are in spec. replace anything else needed.

 

The engine is disassembled and it looks pristine inside. No seal shards, the housings are all pretty and shiny, beautiful chrome with no imperfections at all.

The front rotor was just suffering from epic carbon lock. The carbon is so thick it is flaking off in the rotor indents in huge chunks. The side and two of the apex seals wont come out so they are soaking overnight in SeaFoam.

I'm speculating that the rear rotor had probably suffered the same fate but our timing when we were pouring in the sea foam thru the plug holes just biased us in the back rotor by a lot. Sea Foam was spraying out the rear holes but not the front when we tried to do the compression test. And when we disassembled the engine there was a lot in the rear but not the front.

I guess instead of the lil' ol' lady from Pasadena it was a lil' ol' geisha from Hiroshima driving it. She couldnt rev it apparently.

Tomorrow, measure to make sure everything is in spec and off we go!

Woot!

 

I dunno what idiot told you that, but that's downright dangerous to your turbo's health.
I'm partial to the GReddy units myself.


-Ted

 

Bet your son is learning alot. Doing my first turbo build right now. Oh so much fun.

 

Most cleaners are "caustic".
That white stuff is ALUMINUM OXIDE.
Yes, that's what happens when aluminum "rusts".

Seriously though, your original questions are answered 99% already.
A proper search or just going through the archives would've gave you all the answers you needed.
This is a typical experience with going about such a swap.

Sorry to hear your bad luck with the engine though...
I wouldn't worry about the apex seal as much as the SIDE SEALS.
If the side seals stick, there's a 50/50 chance they won't come out - dead rotor.


-Ted

 

Actually, I read it here on the forum.

 

Yeah, I think he is. He raced quartermidgets and did a lot of that work on his Hondas and Decos. And then when he was racing 600 micro sprint cars he assembled the car (we had a professional engine builder for the R6) and did all the suspension zeroing and setup.

I think this kind of thing is important since I dont want him to be one of those guys who's wife has to hire someone to hang pictures. Or to be like one of his friends who was trying to help and was having trouble figuring out why the back end of the ratchet handle wouldn't go over a nut...