14K gets you much more than a 13b "race engine". I hope they are going to fix at no charge. Its really disappointing to find these threads as it does not help the confidence of future rotary owners who want custom built setups. Essentially hurting the "rotary business/name". Good luck

 

14k does sound like a large sum of money for a build, but in all reality, its a total factor really. Look at some of the serious builds people have done. Most people work their way up to something like that. Many folks on this board have spent well over that and I'm sure my wife would destroy me if I even thought of spending that much on my 7 right now :P. Ceramic seals are not cheap, but they have been proven in several 7-9 second Rx7s! The biggest issue with ceramic seals is that they absolutely have to be clearanced PERFECTLY. An idle ceramic plant pot can withstand the abuse of a thousand flames, but smack it with a hammer and its toast. That is my theory behind ceramic seals. What I mean by that is if the seal is properly clearanced and your porting is properly beveled, then your ceramic seals should survive ALMOST anything you throw at it. If your motor was repeatedly detonating for 1500mi I can understand the ceramic seal failure. Everyone claims the rotary is all in the tune; I believe that is absolutely certain to an extent. If the engine in blueprinted and 100% built to standard, then failure should be next diagnosed to tuning or other minor part failure. Bryan's tuning of your car with an advanced timing map [to my SHORT knowledge of BASIC EFI] may be attributed to the lean conditions caused by your crooked injector O ring seal. If this condition was previously known and fixed prior to the tune, I'm sure your engine would be another of Rotorsports Racing SEVERAL successful engine builds. Again the fact that Brian is working with you most likely due to your crooked injector O ring in the first place as an issue is a FANTASTIC situation. I'm glad to know that a builder can work with his customer even after a failure such as this. It makes me more comfortable to possibly be a future customer of a shop such as that. The motor can tell the story and its all in the understanding.

Matt

 

Well not all 14k is in the motor.. $500 RB flywheel, $600 for extrude and honed upper and lower intake, $80 10 gauge wires, $60 oil metering lines $200 motor mounts, and of course the charge for remove and replace engine was $1500, new housings and reused rotors (he said the old ones didnt need replacing) im not exactly sure how much labor was never figured that out. i guess maybe that was remove and replace.

 

I imagine you probably do not have a lot of time to yourself to work on your own car or you may not have a second car in the event the 7 goes down. On the forum there are plenty of write ups for a DIY R^2(remove and replace in crew chief ) engine . I'm sure you can do it yourself next time and save a bundle as long as you can follow steps and pictures. As much as I'd love to start modifying my 7, I can't afford to fix it if I blow it modifying it too deeply. Therefore I plan on just getting it to it's upmost running condition and a rock solid DD. Upon purchasing my wife's own car do I then plan on upgrading my FD. That way I can do everything from a ground up build in a bullet proof manner without the worry of possibly cutting corners. I'm not saying you have cut any corners in your own build as it appears you have spent a superbly large sum on a motor that should have been bullet proof. But it's always the little stuff that bites you the hardest with these engines.

I hope I have been of some insight.
Matt

 

Thnx for your suggestion matt it is greatly appreciated.. i was thinking about saving a little more money and investing in an identical engine with streetport etc so when one blows i can drop the other one in have the same tune and rebuild and tinker with the other one myself or at least try to learn and not be out of a ride at the same time lol.. i have the common sense to learn how to build one.. i just thought i would try to get it done professionally but you gotta learn eventually if ur gonna plan on owning one long term i can sense that already.

 

I definitely understand wanting to get things done professionally. I am definitely a person with the philosophy of both getting it done right the first time and also, if I didn't do it, it wasn't done right. I definitely plan on doing my own rebuild using OEM spec clearances and proven parts based on in depth research. I maintain F-16s for a living and have worked on motors since I was 16 so I feel more than capable of doing this. The biggest thing I h e learned since working on multi million dollar aircraft is, if you have a question, ask it. There are plenty of people on this forum that can answer your question if you have an issue. There are also several resources to tell you how to do a job right. I believe owning a rotary is not in fact of it wing different, but by disproving people who believe the rotary is unreliable and disproving the fact that these motors can make tremendous power based on its concept and size. It's different and that's what makes a true rotary owner risilient.

A setback is a setback. But don't let it stop you.
Matt

 

Bryan broke everything down and said somehow all the springs on the rear rotor flattened out.. housings looked great ceramics looked great just the springs were done.. he said he will be doing to repairs for free but i of course will be paying him for parts.. i just feel like its the right thing to do. Now i need to figure out how it happened so i can avoid it in the future.. he thinks its over fueling or something i just dont understand i NEVER overheat the hottest the car ever gets is when i shut it off and it heat soaks.. i have seen it get to 101 Celsius MAX from just shutting it off and letting it sit.. hhmm

 

Much has happened since I was last here. As far as your situation goes. I'm sorry.... I hope everything works out for you. I always say that owning an FD requires alot of knowledge or a lot of money. If you don't have one, you'll need a lot of the other. Learn as much as you can my friend. The performance car world can really eat you up. This is why people spend $40-$70k for those fast "out of the box" cars with a warranty. Making power reliably can have its ups and downs. Hang in there, it will get better.

Sweet Jessus!! $14k for an engine build!! WHY?!?

I originally thought the $14k was for the rebuild and single swap. Who convinced you that you needed that much work done to the engine??

You have a GT35R..... The most power you will make on a rotary is around 500whp. That can be done with a stock engine, porting, and a quality AI system.

I have had second hand experience with Rotorsports Racing parts. Two transmissions that were rebuilt from them. First one, locked up. Second one, driving it now but has a nice input shaft bearing knock. I got these from a person that is well known on the forum, and who personally bought from them. The second tranny was a swap after I bought the first one from him. He was trying to make good with our deal. Needless to say, we both had our fill with that shop. I hope you have better luck.

As far as my advice of taping the timing light to be viewable.... it works. I'm not talking about highway runs with a light taped to your hood. But to putt around the block or open it up enough to see what its doing is perfectly fine.

Keep us posted.

 

i payed like 900 bucks to him for a rebuilt trans and he took mine which had a reverse lock problem and since i have had it i hear whirring noises in 1st thru 3rd but doesnt seem to affect the driving so i never thought anything of it.. who knows. I need to find out why my springs went flat.. also i need to start looking for ways to widen my rear fenders.. i dont want some bondo crap thats gonna crack 6 months later when i hit a hard bump with my stiff suspension

 

just thought id give an update. Bryan had the car for a month and a half.. i kept calling and asking when it would be finished and he said next week, then next week.. eventually i said look bryan i really appreciate you doing this for free but i need my car back.. so i ended up paying half a engine remove and replace plus some overtime hours about 1350 so he had it done friday.. well i went and payed him picked up the car and drove home. 6 hours later im accelerating in second gear and the car falls flat on its face. i pull into my driveway which luckily was like 2 blocks away.. very rough rev and sounds normal when the rpms fall.. i noticed when i would try to get moving it had no power at all the boost gauge would go to 0 psi and never above got home and let it cool down then did a compression test the rear rotor passed wonderfully and the front rotor had almost NO compression.. i dont even know what to think at this point.. im just so upset.

 

No tech tip or suggestion here, just to wish you luck and am very sorry you are having such a bad rotary experience...

Cheers,

 

jesus christ man, talk about going from bad to worst and throwing good money after bad... I think its time to accept that who ever is building and or tuning the car doesnt know what they are doing and see you as a bottomless pit of money. How much boost were you getting before hand? I doubt even if 1 seal let go, you would get 0psi compression on all faces. something is very very wrong with that engine. perhaps you should look in to importing one or getting it rebuilt at another place. perhaps rebuild it yourself? I mean by the time you are done and if you keep using this shop, you might as well have bought and paid for a pro (someone else) to install a 3 or 4 rotor!

exactly how much money have you spent so far on your non-running car?

to be honest, I have never heard of someone with so much problems with their car. especially after dropping the type of cash you have!

 

Come to think of it he does have a 3 rotor fd in his garage he claims he has been trying to finish and it has all the best parts on it.. I'm furious right now all I can think of is he has 12 grand of my hard earned money and I have what I had before a non running car. People have been telling me its not worth the trouble but I'm going to get my lawyer involved.. at this point I feel like I have no choice.. I don't want to accept the fact that this guy just got me for 12 grand. I've heard streetported 13b's before and I've had friends listen to mine rev even they say it sounds like a stock port..

 

i chuckled a little bit at the comparison, sorry. ceramic flower pots are nowhere even remotely in the same realm as the ceramic used in fabricating apex seals, the materials alone cost about $300 for those 6 little bits. that's a bit like theorizing how the space shuttle would do covered in flower pots.


but yes, your engine should be gold plated for that price, that is just ******* rediculous unless it came with a lifetime warranty to make over 500whp daily. sorry for your luck with this particular builder, definitely is what gives these engines a bad name.

 

This is why I suggest to treat these engines as disposable and just use stock based engines. You blow one, just drop another stock based engine in and go. I wish I used this insight myself many years ago. If you want more power, use a larger turbo.

If you are competing (time trials, etc), building an engine has a different purpose but other than that its a nuisance for most owners they can do without.

 

somewhat true. with ANY engine when you apply more power things have to be more perfectly in balance otherwise things break. even builders who do it daily miss things that can have catastrophic results, some builders even resort to not touching modified engines or offer no warranty with modifications because the unforseen can always arise at any time.

the people who go the furthest usually are independently wealthy or do the majority of work themselves being meticulous about checking everything over and fixing small issues as soon as a hint of a problem arises.

it's a bit frustruating when you go through a car and miss any one of the thousands of points that may need attention and you have someone riding your *** pointing the finger. but paying the figures stated here things should have been checked over better it seems to me, but we also don't know the whole story. does the price include turbo and custom manifold with wastegate, injectors, fuel pump, ECU and tuning as well as the engine and R+R? if so then i can begin to imagine why $14k was dropped in this case.

but sometimes it takes a little extra time to do a warranty job depending on timing. if you rush it then you may realize the results may be unsatisfactory. my suggestion is have someone else look the car over this time and diagnose why the engine keeps failing, it appears to be fuel/tune related or possibly ignition related, something isn't setup or tuned right. and why in god's name would you push an engine just after pulling it out of the shop with major engine work done? i generally recommend when things have been rearranged to slowly ramp up boost to see how the engine is reacting for any issues to still be present, for this i am losing sympathy.


building these CARS(read as not just engines) is not an exact science with these motors, they give almost no indicators at times before leaving you stranded. some people have had great luck, others have had the worst luck.

even as a builder you have to accept that some things are out of your control. you did not assemble the injectors or wiring clips or test them for flow, or build the fuel pump, or check that the correct high octane fuel was used, or that maintenance was done correctly or of many things that can cause catastrophic results if everything isn't ideal. some things can be checked but it takes vast amounts of time to do this in every case, so don't shoot the messenger.

sometimes you just have to start from scratch. troubleshooting generally requires a good engine, sometimes it costs you an engine. the vast testing can be done without, but in most cases it is unrealistic to pinpoint some issues which may be buried deep into a single injector driver that malfunctions once in 50,000 pulses.

 

No the turbo, manifold, intercooler, radiator, fuel system, everything was already on the car that price was just for the engine and used transmission.. and I live 2 states away I had plenty of low rpm highway driving before I reached my house.. with a few cooldown stops in between. Trust me I hate going thru this I keep an eye on all my gauges I use the power fc to watch anything my stock gauges don't show.. I always check my fluids even my friends make fun of me for how **** I am about my car.. I mean its not like I was asking for it to blow up.. why does everybody seem to think its me.. its not. I tried looking for a builder with a good reputation he was number one on google for some reason seemed he knew what he was talking about so I said here's the deal I want 450 hp and I want it to be as strong as you can make it.. whatever it takes just give me the price.. he did.. I paid.. and these are the results. Don't know what else to say. But I understand ur point of view you don't know me but all I can say is.. no I'm not one of those guys.. I am very careful. Before I left bryan said he drove around and monitored the tune the ignition timing and watched the A/F he said everything was fine.. so I drove off got about 400 miles on her with some cool downs and got into boost a few times and it was literally like the third time I. Let it go beyond 8 psi..

 

i'm not trying to put blame on you, as i also mentioned sometimes a particular car is cursed with an issue that is unrealistic to diagnose. i have one in the shop now that has gone through 4 engines, 2 of them i have warranteed and is also the main reason i have modified my warranty policies. almost everything that is associated with the engine has been replaced and countless hours into checking and rechecking things, the issue arises about 1.5 hours after initial start up and only under heavy load even with all sensors reading normally.

sometimes things are out of both your and your builder's control and rely on the parts being used, which sometimes are not working correctly(even new parts can be faulty especially as quality goes down as it seems to lately). intermittent problems are a nightmare especially when related to critical operations.

but i'm not saying to accept the outcome but get someone fresh on the car who won't be cringing as soon as they see it.

no 2 cars are ever the same when they enter or leave a repair shop, even if they both have the exact same parts bolted in the exact same order.

this is just to give you perspective on how to approach your situation.

 

I would really like to find a guru somewhere in the southeast to rebuild it but I don't know anybody.

 

everyone has their great success and horror stories, sometimes it is just luck of the draw and it seems you should just keep checking around as i know there is a handful of shops in the southern states.

just be adamate in telling your story of what was done and be patient for results.

 

There are always two sides to a story. Thank you for giving your point on a public forum. I will use your posting as a reference for my attorney.
Bryan Smith
Rotorsports Racing Inc.

 

now we're all curious as to the other side of the story...

 

Ah I see he can repond to my post on rx7 club but not respond to my emails.. nice one. And yes please give the other side of the story I'm curious myself because I haven't heard it.

 

I will walk in your shoes for a sec. You did spend a lot of money and had a bad experience. Well you were able to get another motor rebuilt to make sure everything was ok. Good. But if I were you I would be looking into the other issues that might be plaguing your car. For example. I had a 87 rx7 that I thought was the best thing ever. Went thru 4 motors and blamed them all on me, tuning, boosting, drinking, etc. After all that I parted out the car. Pissed off like hell. Sold the ecu to one of my buddies. He blew up 2 motors. Hmmm. Sent the ecu out it had bad injector drivers. But we blamed motors, builders, too hot, cold weather, etc etc. I'm in the same predicament now. I think I lost a pump while boosting, didn't find out until I was checking on something else. My story is different than yours, but hopefully you can find your gremlin and get rid of it. Cause no matter who builds it with what special parts it can still blow up.

Good luck to you man.

 

My tech down here is in the process of checking everything he can think of.. so far everything in the fuel system and ignition system is good. He has had many cars including an R34 GTR with an ecu that had fuel injector drivers fail... he knows of a way to test for it he said he has already checked it. He did notice that there is some metalic specs floating around in the coolant and some black stuff along with bubbles.. both at cold and operating temp. Before I got off the phone with him he laughed and said "I told you, you should have dropped a v8 in it" aaahhhh! Everybody keeps telling me to drop a v8 in it that hurts my feelings I want a strong 13b to slap em around with.