Blown rebuilds. Who's fault? - 1
 

Ok, so did you blow them (and not sexually ;) ) because you did something you were'nt suppsed to do or because the engine blew, torn apart, inspected, and found to be a builder's deffect.

The only bad thing is most people dont know when its really thier fault or not. A simple boost leak can destroy a engine. I blew one up when one of my stock bov's went bad and started leaking. The turbos turn more rpms to make up for the leak and it over speeds them. This causes the compressor wheel to get out of its efficiency range and super heat the air. My air temps went thru the roof in a single 4th gear pull.

Its situations like that where if I didnt have a PFC and didnt have a way to look back and see what my ait's were I would have never figured it out and would have blamed it on something else.

BTW - The stock bov was leaking cause I had a exhaust manifold leak and the bov was right over that area and got real hot. That cause the bov to warp inside and not seal.

STEPHEN

It's a good point, but that still technically would have fallen on your side of the blame, even if it was something you were unable to control.

It's good to gauge the amount of blowups people have with their engines. For example, I have personally never even heard of someone blowing up a Pettit motor, and you know there are tons of them around, and I even live in the same state as they do.

I just want one general (or 2 in this case) thread with everyone giving opinions about their rebuild and the experience they had with the rebuilder.

Oh yea I know that, my point wasnt really about who's fault it was. I was just using that as an example of how most people really dont know 100% why thier engine blew and most of those people will either blame it on the rotary engine in general or that it was built bad.

From what I've seen 85% of the people that blow an engine have no idea what the REAL cause was. They just guess and speculate

I just dont want to see this turn into a vendor trash fest and make people feel insecure about engines they've bought based on "experts" that really dont know what they're talking about.

If anyone says it was teh builders fault I'd like for them to list the exact reasoning behind this and exactly what happened inside the engine to make it go bad.

Some examples I know of were about Hayes. I think it was Jim that tells a story of getting a Hayes rebuild that coolant seals leaked before the engine was ever cranked. Thats the kind of info I'd like to hear
STEPHEN

You need to include Pineapple on here so I my three pieces of junk can count.

Jack

Nevermind, a motor has to run and drive to blow. Mine don't count since they never left the garage.

also include rx7store

Aren't they just Pineapple motors? :confused:

add magnusmotorsports to the list :D

Mazda reman, blew on a freakin cold day due to some tuning I had done on a warmer day and the fact that my AIT sensor was still under the manifold so it didn't react to the colder temps quick enough and ran lean. 2 seals chipped on the front rotor.

Rebuilt it myself (the best way) and now that damn sensor is in the elbow where everyone should move theirs.

Not to get off topic but, I'm curious to know how high the intake temps actually got? Also what kind of IC were you running at the time? Oh how many miles on that engine before it blew?

This is one the main reasons I bought "Pro series" Nordskog digital AIT gauge because they have a safety feature that will allow you to pre-program a set intake temp and if the temps go over that setting, the gauge activates it's warning feature.

What.was.the.experience.withl.Gotham.?

I have 40,000 hard, if not abusive, miles on my PFS rebuild ported motor and it still pushes me down the track pretty damn well.

I am surprised that so many folks have troubles with a rebuild. Some builders must not give a damn.

33k on reman. coolant seal gave, but looks like there could have been other issues (ie. lack of oil to rotors, maybe even electrolosis)

Mechanic: "Looks like you blew a seal."

Penguin: "Nah, Its just ice cream."

huh?

:D

What about Rotary Performance?

I understand that this poll is to simply find out if users have had a problem with there engine, but wouldnt a poll be a bit bias towards shops that put out a larger volume?

I think you should have a column that asks are you completely satisfied with your purchase from a particular shop as well, to show that not everybody here blows engines as frequently as other people that just go from shop to shop saying a particular shops engines suck, and the next shops engines sucks and so on.

Just a point of concern for those that will read the polls in the future.

Notice how between the two polls, 13 out of 21 blame the rebuilder :rolleyes:

PFS here...my fault.
Can't afford a new PFS ported motor though...

They do rebuilds also.

I blew my Mazda reman when the fan relays went bad and my cooling fans stopped ..... in stand still traffic during a nice hot TX summer.