How about them? lol

Maybe I'm wrong, or maybe I'm not clear. I know it's possible to mess up the housings, and it'll usually take out the turbo(s) as it exits, but what I was trying to say was blowing a seal seems to be a better prob to deal w/ than say, a piston motor w/ less seals, but throwing a rod or blowing a valve, head, etc? Or bad comparison?

 

Do you know what they are?

Yep. Piston engines don't often throw rods unless they're being badly abused. The BMW M3 SMG "over-reving problem" comes to mind...

 

Absolutely not lol. And I think that was painfully obvious, but Jim, I'm sure you get your kicks outta highlighting that Do tell...

I think what we do to our engines def. qualifies as badly abusing them

 

http://www.rotaryengineillustrated.c...nat-sgear.html

 

Thanks...I haven't gotten that far yet on that site It's coming tho..slowly but surely.

So who makes hardened stationary gears? And yea I know your engine should be built to actually have a torque curve that continues up past 8K so it's useful to rev higher, and a scatter shield in the process...but still curious nonetheless who makes them.

 

FYI all FD stationary gears are hardened.

 

K, help me out here...

From the Rotary Engine Illustrated site: "Tooth load on the stationary gear is one of the limiting factors in allowable maximum RPM of a rotary engine. Stock gears begin to deform over 8,000 RPM, but hardened gears are available for higher RPM applications."

So from that, I got the sense that to rev over 8Krpm, you'd need aftermarket harneded gears (harder than stock), plus Jim was alluding to the fact that the stationary gears are a point of weakness in the rotary, prone to mechanical failure. (like 7 posts back).

So are you saying that the FD stationary gears are strong enough to go past 8K rpm w/o a problem, or are they hardened, but just not enough to go past 8K rpm reliably (as the site and Jim are talking about)?

 

ceramic seals help

 

The bottom line the reason the rotary deemed unreliable is because the engine doesnt'give you lot leighway to make mistakes, one stupid mistake or part failure can literally screw up your whole engine. I think if you take care of it properly and do not make mistakes with it, and try your best to ensure your parts are always working properly it can last a very long time.

 

A 350rwhp rx7 is extremely easy to obtain. I have seen may of these that are still going after years of use. You will not have to touch the engine at all to obtain this goal. A stock motor with bolt ons will do just fine. Just bolt up an intake, full exhaust, and a power fc and you will be at your goal with a good dyno tune. YOu can get all this for around $2500. I recomend calling Jason at rx7store.net he will explain more. As far as swapping in a 20B to reach 350rwhp you would have to be out of your mind.

 

find a good workshop and a good tuner. failing to find one in the states, you can always move down under

 

Since when do you have alot of leighway with tuning piston engines? One stupid mistake or part failure can litterally screw up a piston engine up too!

-Alex

 

You can't always blame engine failures on the fact that its a rotary. Alot of the engine failures with rotarys are caused by poor tuning, poor rebuild, and not having the appropriate mods to support the kind of power he/she is making. The miles that you get out of these motors do suck though. Your car literally has to be blessed by God to last much longer than 100,000 miles!

-Alex

 

Alex, I thought piston engines could withstand pinging considerably more than rotaries??

 

Ask some honda guys about how their motors hold up to detionation, haha, or better yet the 3000gt's. I am not sure why everyone complains about life of the 13b-rew, with almost all of the factory turbocharged cars of the same period are just as bad, except maybe the supra. I know friends that owned 300zx twin turbo, and he had to replace the timming belt (haha) and all the head gaskets, valve cover gaskets, and front crank seal at 65,000 miles, due to the heat making them brittle. Add to the fact those nissan 3.0 v6 motors usually only get 75,000-90,000 before being completely worn out. Mitsubishi 3.0 VR-4 is worse yet, twin turbos die more often than the FD, and the motors last at best quoted from a shop who builds them "70,000 miles is really really good". Then there is the subaru WRX, making less hp than a FD and a 2.0 motor, and its usual life span is about 75,000-100,000 with the best of care and maintance. And lastly the DSM crowd, they always claim how they turned over 200,000 miles with turbo, but they neglect to tell you the first 150,000 were driven by a old lady, and now the car is on its very last leg, blowing smoke all over the highway. AND THE COST of a piston engine to rebuild, like built up all the way, is rediculous!! You can rack up 2 grand just in high performance head work, and that is near the cost of a whole new rotary right there. THen forged rods, psitons, total seal rings, ect ect. We always use the factory rotors, housings, eccentrice shaft, side plates, and alot of times factory apex seals to make up to 600 hp. How many piston motors under 2.5 liters can do that??? So the reliablity, I think its because more focus is on the rotary, so every time it blows people are like "DAMN rotary's suck ***!" and yet when piston engines blow (which by sheer numbers of piston motors, is alot more) Nobody says "damn piston egines suck ***" They just say "Oh, that series of mitsu has the weaker rods" So cheer up rotary fellas, for a motor the size and shape such as ours, and makes the sweetest power of all, we dont have much to complain about.

 

The horsepower it's making, within reason, really has very little to do with reliability.

If you overheat a 255 hp rotary, it will loose a coolant seal, just like a 500 hp rotary. Don't over heat it.

If you get detonation in a 255 hp rotary, it will pop and apex seal, 2mm, 3mm, ceramic, unobtanium, they pop, just like in a 500 hp rotary.

The key isn't a HP number for reliability, or to some degree, even the internal build of the motor, it's the support and monitoring systems.

If you have proper oil and water cooling, and a water temp guage, there should be no reason you'd ever overheat the car... you've got plenty of time to shut it off before it reaches the danger zone. my car rarely caps 100C... when it does, i'm watching like a hawk.

If you have a proper, reliable fuel system that opperates in it's own efficiency range, is properly wideband tuned, and don't push boost through the thing that that is beyond your turbo's ability to efficiently produce it and your air cooling systems capacity to cool it to a reasonable temperature, you'll likely have no problem.

After that, your down to a freak occurance... a failure of your fuel system, or not minding the store. Those things CAN happen, but I think the reality is, alot of the "reliability" issues associated with this car, at least in terms of outright failures, are due that, or to running the car in a less than optimal condition.

 

Well after owning my Supra for the last 6 months I can honestly say I think the TT Supra is one of the best (read: most reliable at high performance levels) cars ever built. Mine has 152k miles on the stock engine, turbos, and auto tranny. It just ran a 12.6 @ 112. Yes its going to be expensive to rebuild when it does finally quit purring like a kitten (the engine doesn't even TICK). I REALLY wish there was a way to put one of these in an FD without screwing up the weight distribution. But you are right, 2000.00 for a factory rotary is quite a deal, and I'm sure 350 rwhp with a smaller single would run all day like that.

Patrick Harris

 

go BB single and run low boost. oh, and change your oil.

 

It was just a joke. I was just saying that a stupid mistake can blow a pistom motor also, thats all.

-Alex