i hope in no wasting anyones time posting this. if i am please feel free to flame me.

Ok so here goes. I jumped into the turbo swap scene with my 91 about 3 years ago. I did a ton of research to try to figrue out what i could before i started this. soi bought a jdm motor from a supplier in toronto. brought it home happy cause i had a complete turbo motor in my lap.

So over the next two years i tore it down, paints the outside of it. replaced all the internals with brand new stuff. tried to make it look nice while doing the rebuild correctly. i got hung up cause my ex fiance wanted me to spend time with her. When she left a year ago i got back to it. Got the motor into the car but didnt work more than get the bolt the motor mounts on for now. I spent a little time last spring and summer to get a little done on it but got hung up. I moved it out of my driveway into one of the greenhouses that arent being used to try to get it going.

I will get to the meat of the story now. i decided to remove all of the emissions in the swap. i also decided to take the factory harness and use it to make the turbo harness. i spent a good amount of time tearing the na harness apart, replacing one wire at a time so i was sure not to cross wires and mess anything up. so over the past month i have been able to swap the diff and half shafts. i put the motor parts back together with all the connectors and wires where i thought they went. i seemed to have everything there and hooked back up. but for some reason i can find the connector for the knock sensor and one other sensor on the same side that i cant recall right now. but everything else is there. there also seems to be some coolant seeping into the rear rotor. i dont think this will cause the problem cause there is still compression on this rotor. im hoping that this seepage seals itself once i get it running and it heats up and expands.

i got it all together today besides those couple things. i decided to try turning it over. it did and have compression on all faces of both rotors. after adding some fuel and pumping the fuel pedal while cranking it, it decided to pop and then fire and run. It only ran for about fifteen seconds then died. i unflooded it cause it was cold when it died. i tried again and same thing happened.

im not sure what could be causing this.i have a couple different friends that can help trouble shoot this but non of them have experience with rotaries so i dont know if they actually do the job. it seems to me to be to much of a fuel problem. when the car runs, there is alot of smoke coming out of the exhaust and it smells like fuel not like coolant. i have thought the smoke might be from the coolant leak but it doesnt smell sweet at all, deffinatly smells like fuel.

so if anyone has any suggestions or ideas please give them. and if i am missing any details please ask. i would love to get my car running after almost three years. thanks in advance.

 

"there also seems to be some coolant seeping into the rear rotor. i dont think this will cause the problem cause there is still compression on this rotor. im hoping that this seepage seals itself once i get it running and it heats up and expands. "

I hate to be the one to bring you bad news. But I promise you, the "Seepage" will not seal itself. The only way coolant gets into the compustion chamber is if there is a crack in one of the water jackets. That said, even though you say it doesn't smell like coolant, I'll bet that it's indeed coolant.

 

Or, the coolant seal got pinched.

But do you have your bac hooked up? Do you have the tb set in to spec? What emissions did you remove? If you removed the bac, put it back on there. It seems really idiotic for people to remove it...

If you can, do a pressure test on the coolant system. Pump it to 16psi and let it sit for a bit, it shouldn't move, or depressurize.

 

damn. well whatever the reason for causing the coolant to leak into the chamber, it needs to be pulled apart again. i talked to a friend and he said to take the housing to a place to have it scanned for cracks. i guess ill do that if the seal is in good shape.

another thing that might be a problem is in the seal kit that i bought from rotary aviation came with hylomar sealant for the coolant seals. in assembling the engine i couldnt get the first couple of seals to stay in place which caused me to use the hylomar up before the engine was finished and had to buy some more. i went to napa and asked for anaerobic sealant. they gave me loc-tite 518. i used this sealant on the last two seals on the rear rotor which just so happens to be the rotor that is leaking. do you think this could be part of the reason?