I'm sure that many of you have been through this already. My brother bought a '94 a year and a half ago while he was in Iraq. Turns out that he really got taken advantage of. After getting the car home (barely due to the problems) I figured out that the OMP was bad and that the ECM was also bad (as well as a bunch of bad vacuum hoses and a couple solnoids). I replaced the bad things and got the car running right. Once it was actually running, I could hear a bit of a skip at an idle, that would clear up as the rpm's increased. I'd also get a puff of white smoke when the engine was first started, and after driving it ~20 miles the low coolant light/buzzer would come on, not to mention it appeared to have been pushing coolant out the overflow. I take it that the o-rings have gone bad, and the skip may indicate that there is a bad apex seal. The engine is out of the car and we have to decide what to do next. Engine rebuild kits are ~$1500 that I have seen, and I have only ever rebuit piston engines. My brother found Bonzai Racing and they have quoted ~$1500 to rebuild the engine for us. Has anyone ever used these guys, is thier price too good to believe? Also, the engine harness is shot, any advice on where to get a replacement? I think that the end result is going to be to get the car running and then he's going to sell it. With that in mind, any advice on what extra steps we sould take or avoid?

Thanks,
Greg

 

If you are planning on selling it, here's my suggestion:

1. Take to Kevin down at Rotary Resurrection: http://www.rotaryresurrection.com/

2. A new wiring harness will run you about $800. You can PM "Fritz Flynn" to see if he has a good used one around.

 

Im not sure that banzai let you know but Im sure that $1500 is just for a basic rebuild if you need to replace any rotors or rotor housing because of scaring it will be alot more. Sorry about getting screwed over I had the exact same thing happen to me.

 

Definitely send your engine to RotaryResurrection.com, Kevin will take care of it in a very timely manner, save you a ton of money and headache and then you can get the car back on the road.

 

We always let everyone know that is the base rebuild cost assuming the rotors and housings are useable. No it not "too good to be true" that is our base price and there are hundreds of customers right on this forum with our engines. Search our name correctly and you will find them -"Banzai"

 

Yes, I am new to rotary engines, but I'm not anywhere near new to rebuilds and custom work. I do know that any problems found once the engine is apart will cost extra and that the quote was the base price.

I do appriciate the feed back.

Since we are going to sell the car after it's all back together, I want to make sure that the next owner doesn't get a bad deal. But I don't want to over due the rebuild since I imagine that the next owner will have thier own ideas of what to do to the car. Everything else on the car is totally stock. But, are there things that are pretty much standard that we could do to make the car more appealing to a potential buyer?

Thanks

 

The best thing you can do is have a shop do a good rebuild (i.e. don't try to do it yourself). The next buyer is going to want to know a proven shop did the rebuild. You could replace all the components around the engine, but that gets very expensive. Just get a proper rebuild, clean the injectors, replace the fuel pulsation damper and you'll be set.