Engine number 3 went last week. It had done about 4000 miles of weekend driving , no track or racing, it was a very well set up engine maintained and tuned by Pip in the UK . He told me today that one of the spark plugs are corroded on the end so it’s had a bad connection with the lead and it has made it chip a tip.
The biggest regret I ever made was not putting a V8 in three years ago and getting rid of this F****** W*** setup.
Everything i put on the car is top quality and somthing as simple as this makes it pop, utter crap. LOL i just thought i would share the bad news with you.

 

It's all in the set-up and tune, I've been trouble free for four years (knock on wood). No V8 for me.

 

I was going to say the same thing... tune, tune, tune.

HOwever, the corroded spark plug issue sucks.

I check my plugs every 1000 miles are so, they can tell you a lot about how the engine is working.

 

Are you sure the shop is called Pip, sounds more like they should spell it PIIDB.

 

haha... LOL!

 

Sorry to hear about your engine. What will you do now? Will you be going back to the same shop?

 

Just a word of advice v8 or rotary. stop having HIM tell you what happened and look into maintenance yourself.

Extra maintenance aside for a rotary, A corroded spark plug could happen on any engine.

 

That really sucks about the spark plug.

How old was it?

 

Sorry to hear...

I could never go V8.

 

Plugs had done 1000 miles and the leads 2500 miles. I know its just bad luck and i do maintain the car myself but i must say i dont check the leads every time i use it.

 

It seems like plug wire boots do tend to come loose on this car more than normal. One of my trailing spark plug boots was disconnected last time I checked, and I'm running NGK Power Cables.

 

I certainly understand the V8 setups. But I like the rotary and knocking on wood mine has treated me well.

David

 

Sorry for my ignorance but this doesn't make sense to me. If a spark plug wasn't firing wouldn't you get a rich mixture? Rich=no boom, lean=boom?

 

Exactly what I was thinking. Unless the spark plug physically broke and a part fell into the motor.

A fouled plug will not kill an engine. Yes, it will run crappy and be down on power, but it won't kill the engine. Same with a bad/corroded spark plug wire.

Sorry to hear about your bad luck!

Dale

 

Have you ever replaced you wiring harness? It sound to me like you have a much bigger problem than a spark plug..... a spark plug should not cause a motor to blow.

 

In his first post he said it chipped a tip, so I'm thinking that the tip might've actually come off into the engine? That would definitely be bad news for any engine. Davy, what's the plan now? Rebuild or are you thinking of doing something different?

 

Some shops will make excuses to cover their own mistakes. I see a trend here. What killed the engine the 1st couple times? You gotta start at the beginning. If you have lingering issues, then your just gonna keep blowing engines. For all we know and injector could be clogging. Did you have them cleaned and flow tested? That's not the engines fault if it blows because something else made that happen. I'm not saying that you are but, ignorance has always been the # 1 reason people blow rotary's.

 

Its only just had a single conversion with bosch 1650 inj ect, and the other engines went due to very poor rebuilds and tuning by a crap tuner , so nothing to do with this.
The reason he said its chipped a tip is due to the spark not burning the fuel due to bad contact, and when it went at 70 mph in 3rd gear the heat light came on in the cab.
Pip at WGT didnt build my engine so he has no need to cover his **** over this.
The car still starts and drives fine but its very bad on tickover so i hope not much dammage.

 

Not to be offensive as I am sure you must be sad but what you say above is simply false.

Any and I mean any rotary that is well build, setup and maintained will not blow after 4000 miles simple as that. The fact of the matter is that you were under the impression that it was so but infact it is not the case and this should be highlighted after 3 engines.

I find it particularly amusing and at the same time frustrating when people's first reaction when their engine blows is "shoulda gone with a V8" as if V8's are the most reliable engines in the world; it is a wonder the airline industry isn't littered with SBC's.

Call me stupid but when something I have breaks I don't go blaming a choice I made rather I analyze what is broke to find the cause, research and think to come up with a solution to the problem and then develop and implement a plant for this solution. Seems to me that is the proper way of getting over these types of hurdles.

And if the engine failure was cause by some freak accident like a spark plug tip breaking off well then it would have happened on any engine and you should take it in stride.

 

Dude, it's a sign of respect the more engines you blow. I'm on my fourth. I'm rebuilding a fifth one as a maintainence item.

 

I bought my car with a tickover going on, Don't care still runs like new all I know is when it pops im going to a 2jz and calling it a day.

 

popped engines are sad

 

All you V8 people, if your lead came loose would it blow your engine?.
And Dradon nothing broke off it just had a bad connection. I could understant it if the plug broke off but a bad connection causing your engine to go, thats bad.

 

This does not sound like a spark plug issue....investigating further would be a good idea.

 

Agree with everyone else, a loose lead will not cause engine failure, something physically breaking off into the combustion chamber however, can cause a small problem or two. This engine is like any other, poor building/tuning can cause failure. The real difference is our engines don't handle detonation quiet as well as piston engines, however, piston engines have a lot of moving parts and more things that could potentially go wrong on a assembly and cause issues if the person inexperienced/short cutting...Like previously said, I'd try to find what exactly happened, and fix it, or find a GOOD rotary shop. Best of luck!