1500 mile update!

no compression on rear rotor, was running 6psi with the proper streetport ignition map

:mad:

Wow, does that mean you have to ship it back again?

yes indeed, and i plan to fly out to accompany the motor during the teardown

pics of the removal/strip down will be posted tomorrow, i'm not cracking the block open, i will let them do that, but pics will be posted of that as well, expect a full followup :)

i was babying the @#^ out of the motor, watching my knock/boost/mixtures, running the right ignition map

i'm so @#$^)(!#^

now I am second guessing my decision to send my motor to pineapple. I was planning on sending it in couple of weeks, but these are some serious problems that people are having, and I am a college student who can't afford to waste all of my time and money on my engine if it doesn't work. What other reputable shops are out there that people are using?

ah shit, i pick up my car on monday, pineapple streetport. not a good thing to hear about right now. i know lots of ppl have gotten extremely good motors from pineapple, and a few rx7 shops that send him their motors. i'm not sure how some ppl can get bulletproof motors and others pieces of crap motors from the same guy. good thing he offers a warranty....

Pineapple has done many rebuilds for my shop and we have not had one problem with their motors. I have one in my car with no problems.

Is it possible that some of the shops doing the install have no clue what their doing?

93BlackFD, what are the circumstances behind your motor going? How much boost were you running? Do you use a Power FC?

Jason

i use a powerFC, i was running RP ignition maps for a street ported motor, boost controller off (about 8psi)

i did the install, everything myself....i am not questioning my work one bit, the few problems i had (bad banjo seals on turbo coolant lines, bad tranny seals front/rear input/output shaft leaking, and a leaky injector that i fixed) were among the few glitches to the install

i was driving down the road, off boost, 4th gear engine braking and loss of power, i pull over, inspect, no crank, put in 4th gear and push the car to make sure the motor isn't seized, it isn't...won't crank, find a main fuse blown

tow it home, fix the fuse, inspect everything, test the started, check all connections, crank.....brap brap brap brap, sounded like crap, pulling 3 on the vaccum and dying if i let off throttle

compresion check front half, 90,90,90, compression check rear half, 25,25,25

pineapple is being extremely cooperative and naturally their first instinct is to protect the integrity of their rebuild and try to figure out what i might have done wrong...i sent them my timing maps, i'm cooperating with them, we'll see how this turns out...i'm cleaning the garage right now and motor will be pulled soon...let's hope the turbines are O K

oh yes, and jason i've sent you my timing maps recently to check over, i'm sure you'll see that they're O K

Something isn't right if it blew that fuse. Fuses just don't blow for no reason.

sure they do, when you try to start the car and the flywheel won't turn, it will blow a fuse...happened the last time my motor blew (exhaust sleeve collapsed and got sucked back into the motor)

Yea, I'd be concerned about the fuse. Also is it possible that the injector problem did some damage...like maybe slightly crack a seal that just took some time to get worse?

STEPHEN

injector problem caused overly rich idle, backfiring, popping, etc

so far i see nothing out of the ordinary, oil injectors are fine, fuel rail no leaks

turbos will be pulled soon, engine/tranny is out of car, new record, 2hrs15mins :)

He probably noticed the leaking injector when he started it up for the first time and didn't even drive it like that since they run like shit with that problem.

Also, injecting no oil into the engine for 1500 miles does not cause that....

If you really did everything right and this happened that's very shitty. I don't see how you can completely blow multiple seals while not in boost and by simply downshifting at an appropriate speed into 4th.

I'd think that even a reman or the most poorly built motor wouldn't break this fast if you didn't break it in properly or something. It sounds like they forgot something in the engine??

Let us know what happens when you guys tear down the motor. Rob is really on the spot there if your motor doesn't have everything in it that you payed for.

Good luck I hope you guys can work this out well and quick!

yeah, so here's the scoop, tore the motor down, ran it over by hand, visually inspected all apex seals, they look good, identical wear on the front/rear rotor housings, no broken apex seals, turbines are in tact and unharmed, oil injectors blow one way

worst i've seen is that there was more fuel in the rear chamber than the front, but that makes sense since we ran the motor for about 25seconds on the front half only

here's what worries me----

when i was breaking in the motor, i kept getting people telling me that i was puffing clouds of smoke and that i owed them a car wash, etc, etc

but i started watching my rear view mirror and i noticed it was white and it only happened in certain RPM ranges (let's say 3k rpms to 2400rpms) when i was off throttle engine braking....i haven't noticed it lately (that was around 500miles on the motor)

so now i'm reading up on what this could be, it could be that they ported into the oil seal track? i don't know, it's all speculation at this point until we open it up and really double check everything, i'm just thankful that the seals seem in tact, the last thing i want is a destroyed rotor housing/rotor/turbos

so things are pretty good so far, considering......

hopefully something on the irons failed and that's caused this problem....is that possible??

could the eccentric shaft be messed up? i'm starting to get desperate for answers....

so i tried a suggested theory, rotated the motor and touched the apex seals with my fingers, the front ones provide a lot of resistance and rebound when you take the pressure off with your finger

the rears however, you push them in and they don't bounce back out, it's like the seal springs are dead

anyone with a lot of engine building experience care to chime in?

I heard of this problem with the new 2 piece apex seal that Mazda was going with instead of the old 2 piece seal in the rotary tech section of the forum.

This switch to the new apex seal started in May or June 2003 (same time as the release of the Rx8 which uses this new seal).

I think it was Judge Ito who said that on the dyno, a car was putting down 500 hp until it slowly lost compression due to the apex seal not sealing.

It only happens to cars over a certain boost pressure and power level.

May be this is the cause of your problem?

Oh yeah, I debated about going to Pineapple but went instead with Malloy as they are 15 minutes from me. Plus I'm not runnng over 14 psi anyway so any problem, I can get a replacement within 2 -3 days.

i'm running 3mm seals, i *assume* they're one piece....

i'm just glad that the rotor/rotor housing/seals appear to be in tact :bowdown:

damn im thinking of buying a blown motor rx7 and i was going to buy a motor to replace it and after seeing all these horror stories im kinda getting scared and thinking that i should research and do it myself. but i dunno im only 17 and it could be a little too much for me

BTW, my Malloy started fine, no leaks,

Vaccum at 850 rpm is 17-18 in. Hg of with only 100 miles on the clock.

Getting alot of back firing at idle but may be it's b/c I bypassed the coolant hose to the TB so the car is trying to run in cold mode.

What are the symptoms of a leaky injector? My injectors were new with less than 30K on them when I installed in the Malloy motor. Never took them out of hte fuel rail or LIM either so the o-rings are not damaged during the R and R of the engine.

malloy reman?

i'm not wanting a reman, they make crap for power, i wanted a full race motor, with all the oil/coolant mods and a crazy port job

before all of this, my motor pulled 10mmHg of vaccum which is exactly what it should being a large street port :D

well pineappleracing.com's FAQ says:

"Also, we use a special 2-piece 3mm seal that, when it does fail, tends not to cause subsequent damage to rotors and housings. "

Your motor did not pull 10mmHg and still be in optimal condition. That is way to low. I would say it should be around 350mmHg for a large street port. A lot of guys are putting down some serious power are running Mazda remans. Off the top of my head, I can think of ErnieT. I would guess he's putting down way more power that you even with your full race motor. A lot of people don't understand that they don't need to spend in upwards of 4 to 6 thousand dollars on an engine for "race" when you can do the same with spending only 2 thousand and get a good warranty without having to ship your engine off. Its all a matter of tuning and how big your turbo is.

okay, well according to my engine builder that was good vaccum for the motor- so i trust him

i didn't want a reman, this is my choice ;-) i believe you and i'm sure plenty of people are happy with their remans, my car had a reman when i bought it...it blew after 10k, after disassembly, i was NOT satisfied with the quality of the parts they considered "reuseable"

but okay-

Will pineapple honor their warranty after someone who doesn't work for them opens the engine up and inspects it? (Thought you said you were waiting for Rob to do that.) I wouldn't trust you from Adam if I were Rob for teardown inspection. ( Maybe you were at Rob's and I missed that part.) As a mechanic I can tell you that when a engine blows the teardown process is one of the most important parts of finding out what went wrong. You can not expect him to give you a good diagnoses if you did not let him tear the engine down. After all, you let him build it, let him take it apart and fix it. I know that if anything happens to my Atkins rebuild that if i open the block at all!....Warranty is VOID!! ......On a side note just having a map for the streetport doesn't mean it's running correctly. NO 2 engines are ever alike!! Just my 2 cents. I trust Rob will do the right thing for you. I have talked and dealt with him in the past and all went well! Good luck and let us know the final results.