Who sells these seals?

 

Also am i correct to assume that a single turbo conversion will increase lag. Remember I do not want a car that would only be practical on the strip.

 

Well your engine lasted 10 years with stock reliabilty, that's pretty good don't you think?

 

No. This is a myth. A modern single turbo FD3S will always be superior powerband-wise, lag-wise, and especially reliability-wise as long as the proper turbo is utilized for the application.

You will not find even ONE single turbo FD owner who desires to go back to sequential configuration.

 

yea i'm single and i love it!!!

i said get the RA seals because from what i have heard they are awesome! one guy was detonating on purpose to try and get the seals to break..... he only succeeded in cracking one..... it didn't break just cracked.... he was blowing his side seals before the apex seals....

so if you have a nicely tuned car, and you accidentally get detonation for some reason, these seals should hold up fine, that way you can figure out why it detonated and fix the problem.

http://www.rotaryaviation.com/2_mm_apex_seals.htm

 

Ten years of absolute babying the car. My only mod was an Exhaust. I want to faster, now that i have the money i want to be able to really make this car as fast as it can possibly be.(All areas of performance)

 

be very careful listening to some of these people.

only deal with the best shop in your area.

many people on these boards have done what you want to do only to find out that they end up with more problems than they started with.

best of luck

j

ps..honestly, if it were me..if i had sixteen k to throw into my car knowing what i now know...I would go with the ls1.

 

yea but artguy whats the fun in that!? seriously though, That is awesome that your engine lasted that long. My friends engine just blew recently, original engine with 104k miles on it..which is surprisin since he was modded on stock ecu for most of the miles.

 

What I dont get here is that you blew the FIRST engine after ownining the car TEN YEARS?! Why are you so friggin worried?!
Guys in this forum blow'em in ten months..****, on the dyno! If $$ isnt a problem get your motor rebuilt by a builder who stands behind their work and get the mods to support its canyon-carving nature.
BTW, has an actual mechanic confirmed that your motors gone? Because when rotaries die by the seal its imminent but if your coolant seals are going its usually not so sudden. Otherwise, it seems that if the seal is starting to go starting your car for a minute is even enough time to get the motor's exhaust pressure INTO the cooling system. Once the motor's turned off the pressurized/boiling coolant rushes back into the motor through the breach in the coolant seal. It will be hard to start if the combustion chambers are full of coolant.
Try to get the car jumpstarted or manually turn the motor over from the main pulley( I forgot you said you werent mechanically inclined)to work out the coolant in the motor then, if it does indeed start it should be spewing white smoke from the combustion of the coolant. Motor still good but dying slowly.

 

By not mechanicaly inclined I meant not able to pull and replace my own motor. But I can do little things brakes, spark plugs, belts, bolt ons etc.(mainly due to lack of tools). But thanks for the incite i'll try to turn the engine over by hand. That way maybe I can drive it to get the engine replaced. And BTW my car has less than 60,000 miles on it in 9 years. so even though the engine lasted many years it still blew with 57,000 mile on the ODO.

 

skeltah.
have you considered the 20b conversion ,its suppose to be more reliable and it does make a ton of hp ,and torque at pretty low end ,its not easy but as you stated its a project right??
the lt1 looks to me like a lot of work (i havent done it ,so i am not shure) and i do believe that an lt1 CAN make 400/450hp reliable , it just seems to me that the 20 b would be easier ,(water pump alternator,etc)
another option woild be to build the 13b itself,i think there are ways you could get around 360hp with the twins i believe safely ,so it shouldnt have lag
good luck

 

20B easier???

You haven't researched this at all, have you?

Sure the LS1 isn't an 'easy' install (should be much easier than a 20B), but most of the conversion pieces can be purchased, and the drivetrain will actually weigh less than a 20B.

 

Aviation seals being better than Mazda's is not proven. Mazda is a multi billion dollar company and has been building these engines for decades and has put how much money into the technology?(Using lasers etc on the seals) Now some little company hires one guy and comes up with a better seal? A lot of guessing and conjecture here ...Take this stuff with a grain of salt.

Lastly, getting low 4 sec 0-60 can be done with just bolt-ons.

 

Well, if you want to go LT1, you're in for a struggle. You'd have to find someone to make you a cradle (if you can't pull your engine I'm guessing you can't fabricate your own cradle), and there simply aren't many sources for LT1 cradles.

You could go LS1, and Brian Hinson will even build it for you in a turnkey style, but it will cost you.

My own ls1 conversion went well over busget and is just now getting everything sorted out. I pulled the engine on the 26th of August, to give you a time frame.

My advice would be to stick with the rotary if you can't do ALL of the work yourself. There are several pitfalls that noone seems to acknoweldge with the V8 swap, not the least of which will be finding a mechanic that is willing to touch it with a ten foot pole should somthing happen to go wrong.

There are so many details that I had to work out on my car to get it right, and it's still not "perfect". If your level of mechanical inclination is to changes pulgs or tackle the brakes, then the v8 swap is not for you.

With what I ended up spending on the V8 swap, I could have had my car at 400 RWHP pretty easy with enough money left over to buy a reman or tow if something went wrong. Stay with the tried and true rotary combinations and you should be just fine. Or, embrace your lack of mechanical inclination as an opportunity to learn a ton of skills, jump in with both feet, and come on over to the dark side.

 

Ouch Jason. There must be some serious issues with your car and your quest for 400RWHP for you to admit that.

Anyhow, the wife and I are relocating (99% sure at this point) to Austin later this summer. When I get there we can hook up for a drive in my LS1 converted car if you want. I'll be in town on the 15th for a job interview. I'd love to see your car if you have the time.

Andrew

 

i have a 20b , and i said it "seems" , i have not done a v8 so i am not shure , i know the 20b wasnt a walk in the park but ....
do you have a v8 ???,...how difficult was it ??. i have seen jims pics , boy he took that to a whole new level didnt he??

 

I had a chance to drive a first gen with a Ford 302 in it at an autocross last year. It had tons of low end torque, but felt VERY nose heavy in the corners, and would push like a NASCAR stocker. It sounded cool, the owner said it was very reliable and no trouble to maintain, but it didn't drive, handle, or feel like an RX 7. A totaly different vibe from our cars with their rotaries. It's just a matter of what you want out of your car.

 

i guess v8 power isnt bad ,it certainly is reliable ,one things for shure low end torque is awesome ,
i just like my rotary , ...just like being different

 

I think that the v8 is probably way easier than the 20b. Parts are easier to find, and with Hinson's kit 90% of what you need to do is done. Just bolt everyting together.

My ls1 came with all of the engine management system that it needed, a complete wiring harness (almost save for one $20 OBDII harness), and the tranny and engine came as a unit, so I didn't need to make any kind of adapters to get everything to work together. Just fit it into the car, wire everything up so that everything that needs to see power does, add in a cooling system and a means of delivering fuel at the right pressure and you're done.

There wasn't any one really difficult thing, just lots of time consuming little mini projects. The actual conversion took me 2 months until I could drive it with V8 power. Sorting out the little details is ongoing, but the car is 99.99% done.

 

Thanks everyone for their comments.