As some of you know my FD ownership experience has been little short of a disaster for approaching 4 years, with my car chewing threw engines at a ridiculous rate - more than 3 for each set of tyres

As a result it has come time to say goodbye to rotary ownership so the car is up for sale as a whole, or if it doesn't sell in the next couple of weeks I will be breaking it for parts.

As a mark of respect for the vehicle I ran it at Ten Of The Best last weekend, despite it having warped apex seals. Being about 150rwhp down it could only muster a 12.4@115mph and 159mph (over a standing mile). I really should have done a lot better on the handling track, but just didn't get to grips with driving through cones, none the less here is a video of my first run on the little track (briefly put me first in RWD).

Bye bye car

 

car looked strong for a warped seal....seems like you guys need better support over in Scotland.

 

what? 3 engines for a set of tires? they better have been treadwear rated at 5,000-A

as with any break-up one has to take sides. i'm on the car's side. it wasn't the engines, it was you!

 

Sorry to hear that, it sounds good though!!

 

Wow. 3 engines per set of meats. Very strange.

 

I'll take responsibility for 2 of them, the other 4 though are somewhat outwith my hands. I don't know how I could blame myself for a set of Iannetti's letting go at 4.5k rpm at 0.8bar running 11.3:1 at the time, or the current set of seals warping after less than 10minutes on track running 10-10.5:1 at 1.3bar. You get the idea (if not then it was probably my fault stock diffs wouldn't last 6 months once it was running >400rwhp).
I've had loads of converstaions along the lines of: you should fit water injection, have had it on for the last 5 engines, you should run a swirl pot, have had that on for the last few engines, you should run an EWP, have had that for the last few engines, it must be your air temps, they're a solid 20degrees with the Rotary Extreme Monster VMIC, water temps then, around 50-60 degrees, ignition breakup, nope have run an MSD for years, don't know then (and they eventually give up).

Sure if I drove exclusively on the street and seldom used any boost the engines would last a lot longer, but IMHO there is no point in owning a performance car if you're not going to use it on track.

 

was teh car setup for track use? there are alot of guys on the board who track there cars....but they havent been through that many engines. Turbo cars are a bitch to setup for track and if you dont do it right, you run into the same problems you have.

 

way too rich...and that could be looked at as too much boost for a 1.3L on a road course.

 

Yes, hence the swirl pot, electric water pump, vmic, 109 race fuel. I too know loads of FD owners who use their cars on track without issue, mine just doesn't seem to like WOT.

 

It was way too rich to try to stop it blowing again, at a 1.1bar it runs 10.8:1 through peak torque then leans out a little top end. Just added a huge amount of extra fuel in at max boost after the last engine, as I had no intention of getting it rebuilt again.
If it's too much boost for the little 1.3l then I'm obviously using the wrong car. I was running against cars with loads more power (cars that run 9s 1/4s, but know what a corner is) and even at 1.3bar I was struggling along the straights. As per my previous post I do know of FDs running over 400rwhp on track without the same problems.

 

Its a shame, it looked great and well sorted

 

This might have something to do with it, your engine never warmed up.

 

That is warmed up with an electric water pump. Temp compensation factors are all adjusted in the map to take this into account. It will only ever get above this temp when sat in traffic where the lack of airflow becomes an issue, but once moving they never get above high fifties, whether on road or track.

 

50-60C water temps? A stock FD thermostat opens at ~83C, so you must not have one installed. Assuming you removed it, did you plug the bypass in the thermostat housing?

 

mine used to be stable at 70-80c