I'm in the middle of a debate, and I was wondering how many boosted 13B's have lasted over 100k miles running at ~400hp all of its life?

Is there anyone running a 400hp 13B rebuild that has lasted over 100k miles?

If so, post up your mods.

Thanks.

 

...bales of hay rolling by...

 

Who cares. A reman is 2k.

 

I've not personally ever heard of that. I've also kind of picked up that its not going to happen.

Its pretty common at 70-80k on a stock car to need a rebuild it seems...

 

100k at 400whp is probably not going to happen. Im not saying that by some crazy act of god it wont. but all the numbers suggest that its not.

My car makes a bit over 400whp, running 17psi on a t61, daily driven and ive got about 10,000 miles on the engine right now. its a rx7store stage 2 block and its not showing any signs of wear yet

 

My car made it over the 100k mark before it needed a rebuild. A friend of mine has an FD with over 100k on the original block and its still running great. Believe it or not if you know what you're doing its possible to make it to the 100k mark and beyond. Modded its a bit more trouble, but I cant imagine it being hard to surpass 70k miles even with a 400whp car, so long as its got a good tune and its maintaned correctly. And not dogged.

 

To hit 400hp you're talking about an increase in boost pressure. And that will put more heat and mechanical stress on critical parts of the motor no matter what you do.

So considering, then, that a stock motor running 10psi is lucky to hit 100k miles, I will say a 400hp block will almost never last that long. I'll bet getting past 50k at that power is lucky.

Dave

 

I would agree, it would be near impossible to have 400rwhp for 100k. Stock motors don't even last that long. Maybe with a ton of highway miles, but thats about it.

 

I dont know how you guys blow these motors up before they hit the 100k mark. Sheesh. They're not that bad. Even with a decent amount of mods you're not putting that much stress on the motor. Do you guys drive the **** out of them? Ive know around 10 FDs localy. All the guys that push their cars everytime they drive them break stuff left and right. All the guys that drive it around like a normal car and get on it every once and a while have dead reliable ones. I daily drive mine without a single problem and Ive got a decent amount of mods. 20k miles in one year and it hasnt let me down once. If you guys are throwing apex seals and killing your motors then there's something wrong.

 

400rwhp and 9.0:1 rotors and 100k should never be used in the same sentence unless it is...

"My 400rwhp 13B-REW didn't last 100k miles using 9.0:1 rotors"

 

or maybe we drive the **** out of our cars?

fwiw, ive never blown a motor. the first in my car was blown with the previous owner. The second my brother stole my car and boosted it without letting it warm up = pop. Im now on the third one with 70,000ish on the chassis.

 

Why on earth would I baby something that was built to run

 

400whp with proper fuel, tuning, and maintenance should be good for 60k. Even if it will keep going it would be smart to rebuild at that point anyways. Maybe not if you really kick the **** out of the car, but alot has to do with how you drive.

 

I dont baby mine everywhere, but god damn, you dont have to floor it leaving every stoplight. All the local RX7 guys think Im lucky. Im not lucky. I just dont rag the **** out of my car like they do. Thats why its so good to me. And its not like I drive like a grandma everywhere. If Im not in a rush I take my time. I dont race everywhere I go. Its not too often I see 8k rpms through multiple gears. I know, I know, it was built to go fast. But if you want to get a good life out of it dont race it everytime you take it out. I guess I dont drive it for the same reason a lot of people here do. I drive it cause it looks good and its what ive always wanted, not because I like to get speeding tickets and go push it to the limits on back roads all the time.


And btw - babying it, for some reason, makes the unreliable rotary....reliable.

 

^^^ word^^^

I've been over the 300 rwhp since 98 and 360 for the past 2 years. Like Gamezilla said, how often are you really going to be pushing 15psi for long periods of time. If the only difference in the life the engine between a stock car at 10psi and a modified car at 15 psi modded to handle it is the 5 psi, nothing else changes ie you hit red line the same number of times, number of times banging through the gears getting on and off the interstate, etc, I don't think you can knock 50K in service life of the engine (that was a damn long run on sentence). You might be talking the total time of what, 2 hours tops at high load high rpms over the coarse of the engines life and I just don't see that time at a higher boost range being enough to shave half of the engines life span. I think it ends up being tuner error, continual playing with the commander and or setup and not retuning for it that pops the engine. Hell even with all the useful info on this forum and the other one, people are still ******* these cars up like the recent guy (not his fault for the previous owners dipshit knowledge of how to set it up) who just bought a street-port motor, intake, exhaust, non-seq turbos on stock ecu. He (previous onwer) is the dipshit who come on here and whines like a school girl about the car running like **** and act surprised when he find out the engine is blown.

Sorry for the rant guys, got sidetracked

Tim

 

Even in Bruce Turrentine's rebuild video he says, and I quote, "I have yet to see one make it past the 100k mark." (refering to the 13b-rew)
It just doesn't happen very often, let alone with 400+ hp at the wheels

 

He must not have seen a lot of rotary engines. Would you like me to go take pics of my friends FD with over 100k on the clock and the original motor?

Im not arguing its hard to do with 400hp, but all these people argue that the rotary engine doesnt last. Its cause you're a dumbass. If it doesnt last to 100k or damn close its human error. Someone fucked up somehow. I've personally never seen a 400+ hp 13brew. I cant see the amount of power increase killing the engine so fast. It might not make it to 100k, but I dont doubt you could easily surpass 60k miles. Seriously, I wonder wtf some of you guys are doing to pop these engines. All the guys I know who threw an apex seal always did it because of stupid ****. Racing at the track too much, leaning it out on poor fuel map, overboosting, spiking, etc. Coolant seal is unavoidable. But the rotary engine should not throw an apex seal. That is always the result of something that wasnt right.

 

Well.... as long as you don't push it to 400 HP all the time I guess it will be fine....
I push the car like 2-3 times a week... not too often and the motor seems happy.... but mine is not 400 HP.... hehehe.

 

Exactly!

 

It's called driving responsibly for a change. Alot of guys on this forum need a lesson on that simple fact.

 

I have seen plenty go past the 100K mark with 370 plus rwhp. The last one to go went at 113,000 and it was driven "spirited". It was a water jack btw.

 

Not sure how long mine will last but my car will hopefully have around 400 rwhp on its higher boost setting. I will be daily driving the car (kind of, don't really need a car everyday since I carpool with a friend) and I am hoping for around 325-350 rwhp for the low boost setting which I will be using most of the time. I am getting the car tuned before and after break in to ensure everything is in good working order and will be running 2 stroke oil from a reservior to the omp. The car is in great mechanical condition now since I pretty much replaced everything in the engine bay. I am thinking it will do well since at the lower boost setting there will be even less stress or around the same amount of stress that is on a stock engine. I guess I will just have to wait and see...

-Rob

 

Driven occasionally hard from time to time I don't think it's possible especially with the stock 3 piece apex seals. Those seals crap out very easily as the mileage goes up because the top piece gets thinner. Now an engine built with 3mm and A/F ratios in the 10's (like stock) will give you some leeway in lean conditions reducing knock.

 

Those 3mm dont help all that much. They're mainly just so you can re-use rotors that have gotten out of spec. And honostly, Ive never heard of a rotary engine having issues because the seal wore all the way down. Usually the coolant or oil seal fail long before that happens.

 

Bit of a rash generalisation there

Engine1: 146 miles in my hands when it let go (67k on the clock) despite having just done well on a compression test. 80mph in 3rd gear under WOT, car completely stock, failure put down to old age. Mazda motor.

Engine2: 11.xk miles let go at around 4k in 3rd gear under WOT, laptop hooked up and everything being datalogged with nothing amiss, suspected apex seal sparkplug colision, ceramics, uprated everything. A specialist rebuilder.

Engine3: 2.xk miles let go at around 120mph in 4th gear (on a 1/4 mile run). Laptop failed to store datalog, so analysis difficult, knock light flashed twice, cause suspected to be overheated coil (one of the few stock parts on the car). A different specialist rebuilder.

If you'd care to explain how I could have prevented the above failures I'm all ears. Car maintained regardless of cost, oil change every 2 months or 2k miles (whatever soonest) and plug change every second oil swap. First 2 came down to bad luck, with the 3rd being partialy self inflicted as I really shouldn't have continued to run the car after losing half the gearbox earlier in the day.

By a strange coincidence after 10+ years of driving boingers I've yet to kill one engine, whether standard or highly modded.