Exitist7

Yes I would like to hear these as well

ghost1000

iTrader: (1)

It seems Mazda intentionally flawed every rx7 ever built. The engine has reliability potential far beyond the way it was sold. The car could of set a new standards in preformance and reliability. Instead they built it to break and be repaired.

For example, it would be nice if they could engineer and FD door handle that's strong enough to pull a door shut. But it cost $300 so it must be a qaulity part. I can go on and on with low cost improvements that can be made. Look at how few factory rx7s are on this site.

Cookboy

iTrader: (10)

The '85 12a cars have no discernible flaws. They just keep going.

don3vor

iTrader: (1)

Ghost all cars have flaws man, nothing on earth is perfect. You find something you like regardless of the issues IF you feel you can deal and you stick with it and you deal . I have like many an rx7 and enjoy and appreciate the fact that its here, tangible and that no other manufacturer mind you with rights to the motor has attempted the wankel motor .

Sent from my V8000_USA_Cricket using IB AutoGroup

clokker

iTrader: (2)

Back to Debating 101 for you.
If you're going to assert that Mazda intentionally compromised the reliability of the rotary engine, you don't get to use the doorhandles as proof.

ghost1000

iTrader: (1)

I agree with this. I miss my first gen a lot. Had to sell it in my divorce. The only flaw was the steering rack. The first gen is so simple and good.
And the turbo ll rx7 was a great car. It was engineered for abuse.

Dak

When I bought my car the leading plug wires were attached to the trailing plugs and vice versa. Ran ok. No damage or anything.

Yes. Go to Yotatech and look at posts on the 3.0 3vz-e engine. Refered to as the 3.slow. Probably the worst engine they made IMO. Recall for blown head gaskets. When I rebuilt mine at approx 170,000 it had already had the recall done and had two different brands of gaskets on it leading me to believe one had blown since the recall work since recall was supposed to replace both. Made it maybe 20,000 miles and blew another one. Valve covers always leak no matter which gaskets you use.

Dak

I don't think Mazda intentionally flawed the rx7 or made it to break. Look to the racing world. People in the ITS class run an entire season on a rotary without a rebuild from what I understand vs. their piston counterparts that require multiple rebuilds during that time. This is mostly 2nd gen n/a rx7's. TII's aren't allowed nor porting. I've heard of people pulling motors out of the junkyard and running a whole season before tearing it down. It seems the 1st and 2nd gen cars were pretty decent for reliability. it's the 3rd gen and the Rx8 that had all the problems. I know 2nd gens have some issues now and again but they are all over 20 years old now and probably get beat on on a regular basis. And the newest FD is now14 years old.

Dak

Someone riddle me this.If one had bought an RX8 new in '04 and pre-mixed from day one how would it have lasted? Reason I ask is I heard part of the reason for the early failure on these models was the amouont of oil injected was not as much as in the past becase of trying to meet emission standards. One of the fixes for these early cars was a ecu reflash that injected more oil. So if one had been pre-mixed would the engine have fared better for longevitey?

ghost1000

iTrader: (1)

I'm one of the guys who uses junk yard engines. I'm running a $200 craigs list motor now because i bought a car with a bad engine.

Most of the problems are with the intake and engine management. Rx8 coils and OMP, Wiring rats nests, Lack of air circulating the engine. Also what's up with the 3pc apex seals. And I can't prove its better but my car runs great without trailing, passes emissionsand Its safer under boost.

The rotary handles hi Hp better than any piston engine but it has to stay cool. Any problem with sensors wiring, coils fouled plugs and things start to go wrong. Mazda never addresed this. Rx8 is proof.

I wish I could have a one on one talk with Mazda engineers. Would save me a lot of time doing my own R&D.

I'm all about development and learning what works. I try all new ideas on my car with no fear. Every day my car gets better and better. I learned everything I know from a mechanical engineer and a very fast Puerto Recon.

Aaron Cake

iTrader: (1)

It just seems that you're unaware that vehicles are not magically wished into existence. It takes teams of engineers to design a vehicle and there are always things overlooked. And when you consider that the rotary teams within Mazda have a fraction of the resources the mainstream engine teams do, it's pretty impressive they were able to turn out a commercially viable product.

I'm unsure how the FD door handles apply to the reliability of the engine, but it's worth pointing out that it's doubtful Mazda built those handles in house. They were likely subcontracted and the first few batches were substandard, not discovered until the cars were on the road. And then we must consider that the newest FD sold in North America is 20 years old.

Broken door handles are an issue with ALL plastic handled vehicles. Especially in areas that see snow.

You may be able to go on and on with low cost improvements which can be made, but a dollar here, and dollar there on EVERY car and suddenly the FD is even more overpriced than it was.

Find a car without a flaw. Didn't Ford just recall a bunch more Escapes? Again? Because of some silly issue?

Shutter valve.

Are we referring to the FC here or the RX-8?

Because I can't recall seeing any FC "intake" problems aside from aux ports needing to be cleaned 20 years after the car was sold.

RX-8 coils are fairly terrible. But then so were the coils originally sold on the GM 3800 V6.

Metering oil pumps almost never fail. It's the lines which tend to crack, again after 20+ years on the road.

Lack of air? You keep going into that but if we're talking about the FC, SA, FB, RX-8 this doesn't apply. The only issue I can see is with the FD and it's ridiculous setup, but it's not fair to make that comparison as this is the FC forum and the FD is quite likely the most unreliable car ever built by anyone.

No, you can't prove your car runs better without trailing because it most certainly doesn't, and it most certainly is NOT safer. Trailing ignition and how it works are well covered in the Mazda SAE papers and the mystery surrounding trailing ignition was solved 50 years ago. Lack of trailing is NOT safer under boost. Please don't spread misinformation.

Now, those 3 piece apex seals: there is an example of where Mazda totally screwed the pooch. They were designed based on better sealing, providing higher fuel economy and lower emissions. But the downside, which the engineers did not see, were the fact that 150K into the life of the engine, the seal was worn out and had a terrible failure mode.

Any engine with problems with sensors, wiring, coils or fouled plugs is going to go wrong. And exactly how can a manufacturer address these failures? They build in fail safe modes into the ECU as best they can (so actually, they have addressed them) but what do you want? A parts truck following you as you drive in case something breaks?

The oldest FCs are knocking on 30 years old!

An ignition coil failed on my Honda Insight several years ago such that the engine was running on two cylinders. Obviously Honda then by your logic should have included 3 redundant coils on each cylinder so that a failure will not affect operation of the vehicle. Oops, except all 3 coils failed so maybe they should use 17 coils per cylinder.

I would love, absolutely love to overhear this conversation. As long as I retain the rights to post it to YouTube.

I think you'd present all of your wonderful ideas, and then the engineer would say something like "Well sir, that may be fine when you are building a car in your driveway, but consider we need to build a million of them, on an automated production line, they need to be reliable for the warranty period and fit within a price segment.".

Then I suggest you start by reading up on all that wonderful research Mazda has posted via SAE papers.

ghost1000

iTrader: (1)

I wasn't talking about the air box for intake air. I was talking about how the the clutter around the intake that traps heat in the housings. The rx8 was mazdas best opportunity to address this. The car is big with lots of space. But the air flow around the motor that helps with cooling looks very limited.

ghost1000

iTrader: (1)

As for trailing being safe. imagine a stock FD that has arching wires being driven hard on a back road. The arch causes a misfire/crossfire and the motor is toast. Keep in mind the average person doesn't keep up on preventive maintenance. You can't do that with a rotary.

ghost1000

iTrader: (1)

My theory is to use leading only with multi spark discharge. You eliminate the need for trailing by simply firing the same plug twice, and you also eliminate the hole in the rotor housing that that causes compression loss an poor emissions. I did an like this experiment with a my first gen. If you drop trailing and add an msd the car runs great. Imagine if the electronics were properly timed for max performance instead of just firing for 20degrees.

I'm sure Mazda will keep drilling holes and adding spark plugs.

ghost1000

iTrader: (1)

And while most of what I say is in theory I'm actually trying to save and improve the rotary while most of you are afraid of new ideas.

clokker

iTrader: (2)

Could you point to an engine bay that IS "optimized for airflow" in your opinion?

I think you underestimate- or just don't understand- the physics of airflow and the realities of car design.

Airflow...
Any strategy for airflow through the chassis is dependent on vehicle speed. Any vents, intakes, diffusers, etc. will only work when the air velocity acting on them is sufficient.
Below that threshold, they are Pep Boys baubles.
If our cars operated solely above 60mph, there are all sorts of strategies that could be brought to bear and you could have killer airflow around the engine.
Most of those approaches would kill the car at idle or low speed though, so pick your poison.

Car design...
Keep in mind that Mazda did not build just your car.
The engineers had to work with the fact that the car might be right OR left hand drive and be fitted with a variety of options that you may not have (or be required in your market).
Much of the dead or poorly utilized space in the bay is a result of the wide variety of configurations that must be accommodated to sell in a global market.
Just look in a fully optioned FC engine bay (AC, PS, cruise, turbo, ABS, etc.) and you'll find there are still unused mount points scattered all over the place. This is not random, nor capricious...they had to be there for some reason.
And because "something" might have to be there, that space is permanently off limits to the designers.

When I assembled my FC last year, I reveled in the freedom I had to rearrange the bay to my liking but that process gave me a great appreciation for the constraints the factory engineers worked within.

j9fd3s

iTrader: (3)

i was talking to a friend of mine about the Rx8's and we sort of went over the service history of the 4 cars in the group. one car is an early 04, with 90k miles on it now, and it had all the updates as they became available, but other than that and a thermostat, its been completely trouble free. so its got 90k on the original coils…

friend #2, bought an 09 new, i think its got around 60k on it, and the only work besides normal maintenance has been a transmission rebuild under warranty to fix it from popping out of 4th.

friend #3, had a white 05 and then a white 09, and he's never had to do anything more than a coil, and the normal maintenance stuff.

so i think we're actually saying that the Rx8 is incredibly reliable. i've posted what my dad has spent in repair costs….

for my own personal Rx8's i've LOOKED for broken ones, and i've had 3. one had 96k on it, engine was tired, but it was under warranty. #2 had an engine that was diagnosed bad by a shop, but 4 coils and a 60K service later, it was running fine.

#3 is a dog, but all i've had to do was a clutch and coils… well and i've had the interior in the sink for a good scrubbing (it comes out in 20minutes)

except that they aren't. do some reading, NSU and Mazda have both published SAE papers with each redesign of the engine, plus there are a few books.

case in point, you complain about Mazda's having 2 spark plugs per rotor. NSU only used 1, and they mention the reason in the SAE paper, and its cost. the R100 paper has several combustion chamber pressure graphs with leading, trailing and both leading and trailing. the evidence is pretty clear which ignition setup offers better performance.

diabolical1

iTrader: (3)

truth time now ... and i understand that you may take this to be much more inflammatory than i actually intend it to be, but i feel like i need to say it, so here goes.

look, these cryptic and, at times, seemingly condescending little tidbits and quips may be good for holding an audience in suspense, but there comes a time when everyone's patience runs out and the audience WILL turn on you.

time and time again you've referred to these great ideas you're having and so far ... nothing. how are you asserting that MOST of us are afraid of new ideas now? just a quick recap of a few of the people that have posted in this thread, i count several people (not including myself) that i know for a FACT are NOT afraid of new ideas; and for the record, i'm not either.

some facts that need to be made clear:

1. unless you're the lost, closeted Koch brother, YOU are neither going to save nor improve the rotary as we know it. i'm also willing to bet that you're not going to develop one anytime soon either.

2. while you're free to make whatever assertions and arguments you want to, it's in your better interest to at least show some thought process to support your credibility. providing door handles as proof for a flawed engine ... hmmm ... i'm thinking not very credible.

i'm more than willing to listen and hopefully even participate in any serious discussions you want to have about your ideas and/or gripes with the Rx-7/Rx-8 as seriously flawed machines, but bring an argument to the table first.

Dak

What I think you are forgetting is this is not an air cooled engine. This additional airflow isn't going to gain as much as you think. The outside surfaces aren't designed with heat transfer in mind. The main way to improve engine cooling is a better radiator or better airflow across it, or bigger oil cooler/s. Now if you are talking about underhood temperature and it's effect on vacuum lines and wiring or heat soak into the intake raising intake air temps, that would make more sense.

Dak

I still think this is what killed my rebuild. Used factory 3pc. seals in it(this was in 1998). Locked up last spring at 147,xxx miles. When measured they were all at or below the minimun in the fsm.(Shoulda premixed more?) Seems Mazda has saw the error and switched back to 2pc. seals. To make myself feel better I say those were not easy miles. Saw at least 5000rpms every time driven with full throttle pulls to redline on a regular basis. Pretty clean on the carbon on teardown though.

nycgps

iTrader: (4)

it's so funny you don't seem to know much about rx8, yet u keep blah-ing about how rx8 this and that.

and what 3 pc apex seal? u do know that mazda stopped making it yrs ago ?

*facepalm*

nycgps

iTrader: (4)

yea, they stopped the 3 pc bs just bcuz of the top pc wear out, falls out of the slot and rape the engine (in ur case, it's stuck)

but they repeat the same bs with rx8, it's a 2 pc design but they also made the apex seal slot 1/2 size shorter ... to save weight. but biggest issue with 13B-msp is not apex, it's side seal spring. and they updated that around 2009

i think mazda already did their best to balance between cost and reliability. not perfect, but not bad for a small company like mazda and the only company that actually put effort into making this engine run.

RotaryEvolution

iTrader: (30)

the problem with the rotary engine is once they had figured out the issues present in a certain configuration they had already moved onto another engine design which had new flaws.

instead they could have fixed the flaws before moving on. the renesis for example fixed the broken iron issue but then introduced lubrication issues and side seal wear beyond what they had previously known about. the main issue with the renesis is it had to meet strict emissions standards so the new design HAD to be implemented or the rotary was done.

the RE/REW were the best rotary engines and probably will continue to be, considering the future is rather bleak.

and multi spark discharge cooks plugs at a phenomenal rate, not exactly a reliability modification.