+1. why on earth would you buy a used engine on a car that is renowned on the internet for blowing engines and expect it to be any better than the blown up motor you already have?

I am very sorry for your luck, but it makes me thank my engine builders. I trashed my previous rear rotor/ housing when it blew. Got a jdm motor and had it rebuilt and it's great. Then again I'm mostly stock. Hope it works out for you.

I can attest to the ridiculous amount of carbon that builds up in the engines here. For the average owner there's not many places where you can just go WOT and run the car hard to keep the carbon down.

The engines themselves typically have low wear though. I just bought a used engine about 6 months ago, rebuilt it and got it back on the road a couple months ago. Yesterday I took it for a compression test, result was 115 front 118 rear. OMP is deleted so carbon won't build up during daily driving. I've got AI but have yet to install it as I wanted to get the engine broken in and test everything first. During the rebuild everything was tested and injectors were cleaned.

Why not spend the time and effort to verify all the internals are good and put in new seals and rebuild it right instead of just putting one in and hoping it would be ok. Lot of wasted time and effort just dropping in an engine that seems ok.

I'd love to see pics of it as well once you open it up.

will post up pics. pending on what the reason of the blow up was, i'll decide whether its time to move on or actually spend more time and effort on the rotary engine. it's kinda tiring after 3 years of dealing with this shit :\ i myself deleted the omp and was running premix in the tank, but I guess that doesn't do anything about the carbon that was already inside the engine. it's so odd, I actually inspected the apex seals through the exhaust ports and they were nice and springy, with no sign of carbon build up.

Why are you guys slamming him for buying a used engine? Tons of people do this because the used Japanese engines are known for being in great condition and low miles. But every once in a while there is a bad egg. It's true they usually don't ever get over 30k miles. But it's a lot of stop and go traffic. So yes there is bad carbon build up. And you don't know if the previous owner was drifting or abusing the engine otherwise. So it's a bit of a gamble but even a rebuild is a gamble. He just had some bad luck. It doesn't mean you shouldn't buy used engines.

Either way I feel your pain Zeeshan. That really has to suck especially after it was running just fine.

+1

Not to mention that he never stated the engine only had 1 mile. It decided to go 1 mile AFTER INSTALLING IT. It's amusing when the new guy isn't the ignorant one.

We are aware of this, after he clarified it. Going WOT on an unknown engines is asking for it. Just because was idling ok and was able to be rev, doesn't mean it will be the same when under load. He should have taken it easy and slowly work his way up till everything seem fine. I have 2500 miles on my current engine and I haven't gone WOT yet.

Doing what he did is like going to Thailand and jumping in bed with the first piece of ass you see.

What's wrong with that? hehehe

i guess i just needed to vent. oh well. not knocking the rotary, but it's not for me.

*runs*

Well, it might have a sausage in it's pants for one thing.

Buying a used engine is ok. If you get a used block though why not crack it open? Verifying the coolant walls, bearings, etc etc is just the smart thing to do on something that requires so much work to replace. Spec everything, buy some new seals, put it back together and you KNOW the condition of the engine.

Buying a used one, dropping it in and crossing your fingers is just not a good idea. There are a ton of posts where people have done this, and it seldom ends well. then of course they blame the "damn JDM engines". The JDM engines are put together the same as one built in the US, it's not like the build is any different.

would you buy a used gun and put ammo in it and just start firing without checking it out?

lol

I changed the thread title to make it more accurate.

originally it did state that it blew after one mile. Let's leave the statements of ignorance out of this, ok ;)?

Dual egt, its the only way to fly, afr is great and all but without egt what do you really know.

I'll be waiting for the part out thread. Interested in some parts.

You vulture lol

all jspec motors have 30-40k miles magically lol

The reason why they are advertised that way is because the taxes and other fees in Japan create a financial incentive for owners to junk or otherwise get rid of their cars with that kind of low mileage.

it was a front clip, unless someone tampered with the digital odometer, it had 29k miles which is 45,000~ km

This is true.

I believe the mileage. You must have gotten an engine that was severely abused. If you think about, they're really popular vehicles in the "racing scene" in Japan so I wouldn't be surprised if that engine came out of a car that was used for drifting.

Im no engine builder but I have heard countless stories of engines with perfect compression blow. Its either a tuning error or driver error. Or something else was wrong with the car, NOT engine related.

Can't always blame the engine when it goes cause it had a bad rap. Assumptions like those ARE the reason they got a bad rap.

shoulda rebuilt the engine or made sure it was good before heavily modifying it. throwing in a used rotary engine that has been sitting for years, is probably not in the best shape. I've had a used S5 13BT engine before that is still alive after 60k+ miles. And I've also received a seized S5 13BT engine before. as well as put in a used S4 13BT engine for one of my customers that had good compression but bad coolant seals. I have yet to blow a Rotary engine after 8 years of hard driving on many of em that I owned from S4, S5 NA or Turbo, and used JDM FD engine. Knock on wood, hope it doesn't happen to me now. But one thing I do to try to prevent it, is make sure everything is working and fuctioning 100% and maintenance it. Good luck with your next motor, whether its Rotary or LS1.

If you think about it the only place that engine would've come from is a crashed car. And just about the only reason they wouldn't sell it here is if someone died in the crash. There is a law here about that sort of thing and if one person dies in the accident you are required to inform the next buyer. Even if they just died idling in a parking lot from a heart attack. So usually you cannot sell that car so they are auctioned off to foreign buyers. It's just as hard to find used 13B REW rotary engines here as it is in America so they just don't auction them off for nothing. Especially with the exchange rate how it is right now they catch a better price in Japan than America. These engines are still useful even beyond 30,000 km.

About the Shaken.

Every 24 months there is a 60 point inspection the car has to pass and you need 8 documents to pass it. You can actually do it yourself and bring your own vehicle to the inspection center. This is called User Shaken and there's a whole club for it:

http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~EP7Y-TMT/

Older cars are more expensive (if you're paying a shop to do Shaken for you like %99 of people) because before 1995 there were more inspection points on the list. So a 1996 RX7 only has 60 points of inspection, but a 1995 has more (I don't know how many).

Costs break down:
JCI (Japanese Compulsory Insurance): This is determined by the average rate of accidents in your prefecture. It's currently 22,470 yen in Tokyo for a passenger car and 18,890 yen for a Kei car. Everyone in the prefecture pays the same so it doesn't matter how old your car is.

Weight tax: 25,200 yen per half ton. So it's around 75,000 yen for an FD. If your car is less than 18 months old, a kei car, or a hybrid you get big discounts here. I mean this is almost $1,000 every two years so it's important. If you have a kei car it's only 7,600 yen. Besides that the mileage doesn't matter, only the age beyond 18 months.

Test fee: 1,700 yen, 1,400 for kei cars.

Application form fee: 35 yen.

I'm not sure if they are still charging the recycling fee. There was a problem with people abandoning cars that they could no longer afford to keep so they started charging you at the time of registration for the disposal and recycling fee of the car.

Engine displacement tax:
69,000 for two yeas on the rotary engine. They measure it as 1300 CC. If you have a kei car it's ridiculously cheap, same for a hybrid and there's discounts for new cars. But they add %10 if your car is older than 10 years. But again nothing to do with the mileage.

Here's a link to a story in English about someone doing user shaken:
http://www.bigdaikon.com/mystory-20030305.shtml

So beyond the small additional fee's and taxes that are added for an older vehicle, the primary reason they are more expensive is because of maintenance. Most people are paying shops and auto repair is on par with dentists here in terms of perceived professionalism and cost. So if you need to change a turbo in your FD you might as well just buy a new FD. But there are those people who are truly enthusiasts and maintain their vehicles very well, even doing the work themselves. For those people it's no problem to pay the %10 more on the engine tax. They've already put thousands into the car otherwise.
So realistically if you have a wrench and know how to work on cars you can do user shaken and not really pay much over $2,000 every two years. It might actually be under 200,000 yen total.

i'm honestly betting a bolt made it's way into the intake during assembly.

Did you even open this engine before you installed it? An ounce of prevention...