Syonyk, I agree with your comments about a heat sink and "heat the engine internals up" I admitted that in my initial thread comments. But would you agree that the increase is momentary (less than a parsec? LOL) unless you keep it at redline several seconds?

For what it's worth, I have pushed all 3 '90s. It (they) frequently visits 5 - 6 K especially downshifting around turns/corners. So, they were not babied they actually seemed to enjoy themselves a lot.

 

i've had two rx-7s. one '83 gsl with the 12a and a '84 gsl-se with the 13b.

both of which i redlined repeatedly, every time i drove 'em. i sold the '83 with 181k mi on it after daily driving it for 40k mi. the gsl-se died at 215k mi due to coolant seal failure.

no problems with the apex seals at all.

 

Well, I think the general idea behind "redlining it" isn't to just blip it to 7000+ for half a second, but to actually drive it hard for a while up above 5000.

Interestingly, my "babied for most of it's life" '7 chewed up the rear rotor at 120k miles. People who drive them hard seem to end up with some of the most insane engine life...

-=Russ=-

 

just to keep the fire going......could the engine failure be caused by carbon buildup?.....

 

Absolutely. A carbond chunk large enough could break off and make a nice mess inside.

 

The lower redline on the tach of the auto is for the protection of the auto tranny. After you swap to a 5-speed you can safely rev it to well beyond 8K. It seems a little weird since the buzzer starts howling at you so soon, but just keep your foot down and watch it climb past 8K. If that bothers you too much, you could swap out the cluster for a manual one. I kept my auto cluster and I don't mind listening to the buzzer when I "super-redline" it's kinda fun when a passanger thinks you are about to rip your engine apart by going "so far into the red". Also I like how the little red R comes on when I throw it in reverse

 

ok..im not asking COULD IT....im asking WAS IT....meaning did u take the engine apart and see....

 

personally.....i think that extra layer of carbon increases my compression ratio

 

Kevin Landers should post. He's ripped apart every kind of conditioned engine and probably has some valuable insight to add to this.

I personally rev it up all the time. I have a TII with 130,000 miles with good compression if that means anything. I think the best reason we have for redlining the engine is the life of people's cars that have treated them so. People that drive their rx7's hard generally have high miles before they need a rebuild. Its a odity and it may not make sense, but such is the essense of the car and even moreso, the engine that powers it.

 

Those were my rotors (one on the left is obviously the one that blew).

I don't know how bad they are in terms of other rotors, but in scraping the carbon off, there was a good thick layer in some areas. Likely more than enough to do some damage if it fell off.

This was an engine with 120k miles and the 6th ports totally seized up - it obviously never saw high RPMs.

Anyone have pictures of rotors of similar mileage (or higher) engines driven hard?

-=Russ=-

 

I'd like to support that through personal experience. I bought my first RX in '88 new from a Mazda dealer in Phoenix.
I drove it hard for several years - I'm either standin' on the gas or standin' on the brake. And, yes I heard the redline buzzer regularly. (I'll digress a bit: I *was* scared one time when I stood on it around a corner, hit redline plus a bunch and with the warning buzzer howling, suddenly all the warning lights came on at once and stayed on. turned out I ran it so fast that the alternator belt exploded)

I retired it at 180,000 miles in Dallas when a moron blew through a light and ripped the front end off. Otherwise, it was still going strong. Started every time, used a reasonable amount of gas - never failed or let me down. The only maintainence I did outside the usual was to replace brake pads and rotors several times - for obvious reasons.

After the wreck, I replaced my car with an RX TII with 75,000 miles. I continued my habit of driving the **** out of it, have just passed 185,000 and it still runs like new. Starts every time and outruns any other car I've owned except my original RX.

I've done a few things beyond basic maintainence, but haven't torn into the engine beyond removing the UIM and other stuff on top to replace old rubber and the MOP lines. Oh, and I replaced the spark plugs - first time since I've had it.

My experience says that regular redline in no way shortens the life of the engine.

- k -

 

i really dont think there is a "concrete" answer to this question! yes, rotarys were designed to be "rev happy".. but ive read most years owners manuals, and have never heard them say to rev it to redline! the rx8's owners manual on the other hand does say this! i happen to drive the crap out of mine, and she loves every minute of it! i would agree to drive it hard enough to open up the 6-ports so they dont sieze.... and carbon build up does happen, but i dont think it has to be redlined to remove it!! id say, onece a week, give it a good workout through the gears (maybe while getting on the freeway).. take it to like 6000-6500... and you should be good!

 

I say once a day take it to 8500. In all the gears. Even reverse

 

First off, I very VERY rarely LOL.













This made me LOL ;-)

 

I hope you finished your break in period!
Then you can rev all you want!

 

I just hit 1k miles on my reman. I took out the plugs and there was alot of carbon build up on them not revving over 4k rpm. This is reason enough for me to redline my car every day once it is fully broken in.

 

yeah i redline the **** out of my car. when i got it, it had carbon all over the plugs. but after a couple of months of working on it and not letting it go, and then driving the **** out of her, i find no more carbon.

 

I have the 9k vid for 11 minutes, Also didn't mazda test the rotary engine @ 28,000 rpms for like 4 days straight un-weighted or something like that, and they just gave up because it wouldn't blow?

 

158k on my engine, nothing went wrong with it but it ran unusually great... except for some heat troubles because of the radiator sucking.

But I decided it was a good time to rebuild it, I want a daily driver, not something that might blow up at any minute and require new irons and a rotors...

And the first owner of the car that had it for like 10 years kept VERY good service records of when he took it in for servicing... which isn't very much like a good mechanical person.. so sure enough, I don't think that owner used the throttle at all...

I drove it for about a month... and I drive hard, redlining at least once if not five or six times a day. I also ran it couple of times... which is like 3 minutes straight of keeping the revs always above 5k and either full braking or full acceleration up through the redline... so the buildup that WAS on there was REALLY on there.

--Gary

 

Actually, I do believe the RX8 manual recommends revving to 3K RPM just prior to shutting the car off, not to redline.

edit: and I'm really doubting the 28,000 RPM bit... That'd be pushing beyond the abilities of the ignition system I'd think.

 

so... im safe revving to 8k when i want to scare people? (87SE)

 

rev limiter at ~7600RPMs

 

I don't think he meant with fuel.. I think he meant they hooked it up to a machine that spun it that fast... that's probably what the "no load" meant... I know there is a difference between "no load" and "no ignition" but I also highly doubt a LOT of the systems on the engine functioning at 28k. If they were to do that just to see if it could mechanically turn that fast, I'd be interested in seeing it heh.

--Gary

 

i'd like to see a clutch that wouldn't explode into pieces at 28,000 rpm.

 

I'd be more worried about the flywheel...

that's gonna be giving out around 15k.... at 28k it would be like someone set off a shrapnel bomb.

--Gary