Hey guys, i was driving home the other day, not punching it at all, just normal driving, going 70 km/ph and then all of a sudden, TING TING TING, and the engine dies. I pull over, and it takes like 7 cranks with he AC fan on all the way etc, to crank the engine over. I was only able to go around 40 km/ph home. Where my baby lies, looking beautiful, but un-drivable.

i was going to park it for the winter anyways, so its not a HUGE deal. But i was wondering. should i just buy a seal kit, and try to do this myself. Me not knowing anything about rebuilding engines. I know quite a bit about the rotary. But nothing to the extent of rebuilding one.

Or should i send the engine in to my rotary shop, where he can get er' all up and running for me.

Another thing, where can i find a nice tear down manual of the car?

also why would have thins happened, it was a RHD import, and 90 000 KM on it. I did regular oil changes every 3 000 km. No synthetic, and let it warm up and cool down as it should be done.

I had Air intake
DP
MP
PFC

Thanks for any info!!

-Mark

 

Do a compression check before you pull the motor. Could be an electrical or fuel problem.

 

Most stories I hear about people blowing a seal mentions that they were not 'pushing' the car. Whether you want to admit you punched it just a little before it blew is another story. I admit I was punching mine when I blew it on a night I'd rather forget.

I had similar experience, as soon as I blew mine I heard a TING then rattling of metal then the car pretty lost power and died. Also this happened at night so my dash lights dimmed out suddenly as well. It was hard to crank over and sounded like an old World War 1 plane cause it was running off one rotor.

There is a hell of a lot of work involved in just getting the engine out and stripping it to the short block in order to start working on fixing the seals, housings, etc. IMO its not worth it as you don't want to go through this same experience a short time down the track because you didn't do the rebuild properly. At least getting it repaired from a reputable workshop they take care of all these hassles.

Unfortunately I think most owners go through the 'WHY?' stage as soon as their motors goes. I did the same thing thinking that I had treated the car well and maintained her properly but I guess when its times to go then thats it. Look forward to the afterlife when you get it rebuilt.

 

why did you drive the car home?!?

you really risk doing a lot of internal damage to the housings.

when i thought my motor lost an apex seal, i had the car towed home to be safe.

 

there are several DVDs out there about how to rebuild a rotary engine yourself. Atkins Rotary DVD is decent and I purchased it when I was contemplating doing it myself.... that being said.. I'm glad someone else did it. It really came down to 2 factors: 1. space to work on the car. 2. i didn't trust my knowledge enough in determining what parts i could and couldn't resuse.

You can buy the seal kits from rotaryaviation.com or atkinsrotary. I used the RA seals due to the familiarity of my builder.

 

Sorry to here about your engine. infortunately its part of owning one of these cars.
u can rebuid it yourself if u want.. but u will more then likely be doin it a couple more times after that until u get it right.
but if u want to learn how thats really the only way

hmm is this the Mark that bought my old intake.

-Cory

 

If you want to really learn, do it yourself. It will save shitloads of money as well. Another option is if you know someone who rebuilds them, ask them if you can pay them a little cash to watch over you as you build it to learn. Thats the way I learned to rebuild them.

 

Haha, yea Cory its me man,. Im all the way in flippen Edmonton with the car right now too. Really sucks. But i was going to park it anyways, so its alright.

Thanks for the info on everything, i know a couple guys, who know how to rebuild them, ill see if there willing to come over and watch over me here and there if i try to do this endeavor myself. Im still contemplating it though.

I may go single right now too, i was going to go single when the engine popped, but didn't think it would be this soon. So im just kinda doing some numbers to see how much it would cost. Any recommendations you guys can shoot them up.

-Mark

 

so just some questions.....

should i go 3' Apex seals?

And is a single turbo application all done up correctly going to last 100k km - 150k km if the car is kept well from the start.

 

i'm gettin my motor rebuilt by kevin @ rotary resurrection. he said he's always ran 3mm Mazda seals (not atkins) in his personal cars, so that's what i went with...

he's got the motor right now so i hope to get it back within a few weeks.