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I don't want to cause any kind of digression in the thread but amen, I feel like I've had a similar experience and wanted to validate your comment. And I think I've only called them 4 times.
keep in mind that their business is building and fixing cars - not providing free tech support. You calling them 4 times and not spending any money with them is time not spent fixing a paying customer’s car.
Let’s not clutter this thread with responses on this topic but understand their side
The amount of water being sprayed from the nozzle, pump pressure, intercooler efficiency....these all play a big role. They are also running on E85 which changes the game a LOT.
They have a HUGE intercooler, a very efficient turbo, and a fuel that naturally cools things down in the combustion chamber big time. This is NOT a street car either. On that setup they would get very little benefit.
Do I have a dyno to back up what I'm saying? No. But in every day, seat of the pants driving, it makes a nice difference with my setup on a street car with regular 93 octane. I don't notice a power drop, I notice the car running better and I find that the car runs on a hot day more like it's a cool day outside and I see my intake temps on my PFC Commander drop like a rock when I get on boost and the injection is running.
Keeping combustion chamber temps down is the #1 way to prevent detonation. Detonation is from hot spots in the engine. It can also happen from hot spots on carbon deposits on the rotors, which AI helps clean away. A friend of mine here in town rebuilt his engine after it running with water injection for years, he had to give the rotors a spray of brake clean and a wipe with a rag to make clean, not go through a thick layer of carbon.
If you don't want to take my advice that's fine. I'm telling you, a mild water injection setup like AEM's makes a noticeable difference and will help keep your engine happier longer. Personally I don't notice any difference in power though there may be some but I'll take that to keep my engine happy.
Dale
I trust you, ordering it now. Was trying to figure out more information on the subject and didn't account for any of what you mentioned. Appreciate the thoughtful replies, and sharing your experience/expertise.
Edit:
Spoke with someone from SBG and they said if I'm running just water, I won't need the failsafe gauge, but if I'm running water/meth then would need it and also tune for it.
Dale, so you're untuned for AI and running straight water, or blue windshield wiper fluid? SBG claimed I needed to tune for the latter. Also, I am currently deciding between the JP3 subframe mount or the SBG mount. Anyone have experience with either?
Edit2:
Found this post that recommended a smaller nozzle. Not sure which one you guys would recommend. The post is for 8 years ago, so perhaps this kit is a bit different now? Kind of late but will call SBG tomorrow to confirm again.
Originally Posted by djseven
Done it for years on several different FDs with almost your exact setup except I usually run the Pettit ECU.
If you are still sequential you will need to run the smallest nozzle offered by AEM. Unfortunately their new kits only offer their mid size and large nozzles so you will need to order the one you need separate. Off top of my head I cant remember the CC that it is. If you are running non sequential you can get away with running the midsize nozzle if you set it to come on around 7-8psi. The mid size nozzle is simply too much water for the amount of air you are moving on the primary turbo at low rpms as it hits 10psi extremely low in the rpm range.
AEM kit is very straightforward and has everything you need to install minus a 12 guage power wire and terminal. Can be installed in about 4 hours and if you have a touring model with the rear windshield wiper tank and dont remind removing the spare tire you can have a very sleek install that is practically unnoticeable.
I was sold on AI a long time ago but I came across this a few years back and it reinforced my conviction. It's a research dissertation on the impact of water injection on spark ignition engine performance. Dense but insightful.
Been busy the last few weeks but I got my car back 3 weeks ago. Maybe it's just in my head, but she feels way better and the compression numbers are fantastic (see photos). I'm currently limited to 5k RPM and 5psi of boost until I get to at least 500 miles. Then I need to change the oil, and still drive her gently until I hit 1000 miles at which point we get her back on the dyno to clean up the tune.
Even keeping it under 5psi (Nelson provided a temp tune to help limit me), she feels so much better. Not sure how long I was running around with busted seal but the difference is there. I can't wait to be able to open her up. I also think oil pressure was the cause of my failure. Looking at logs now and logs of my car (even before my track day), my oil pressure with a new pump is way better. The lowest oil pressure I see is in the 40's whereas before I could hit the 20s or even high teens at idle. Oil pressure was never an issue outside of idle on the old pump/motor but now it's outstanding.
I have not yet done AI but the final (re)build/project was:
Brand new rotor housings
Street ported (again) but via CNC
ARP Studs
Clearance and Balanced Rotating Mass
New Oil Pump
iRotary Apex Seals
New OEM springs
SBG Dual Oil Coolers
Replace 5th Gear Synchro
Lightweight Flywheel
The Goal was to build a motor that could withstand the rigors of a track day even though its mostly a street car. Hopefully this is it. I have another month to log my miles, get her on the dyno, and then meet some of you at DGRR at the end of April.
That’s it. I quit. I’m done with this car. After doing my break in, I took her to the dyno today to get it tuned. Everything was going well and then it wasn’t.
We were doing a pull to 8k rpm. Around 7k, the car felt like it hesitated to go higher according to the Bob (shop and dyno owner and respected piston tuner in my area) who was operating my car while Nelson did a remote tune. He said when he let off the gas at 8k, the car stalled. Since it was still rolling on the dyno, he popped the clutch and the car started and then died. We could not get the car to start again. We checked for spark. Good. Fuel pressure. Good. Oil pressure. Good.
We didn’t have a rotary compression tester so we used a standard one and pulled the check valve to see the pulses. Rear rotor was showing pulses around 45. NOT GOOD. I tested in front rotor…about 45-60. NOT GOOD. Then it occurred to me that the odds of blowing both on 14psi seemed a little odd. I went and checked my battery voltage and it was low. Seeing as the car was in the ON position quite a bit while Nelson remote tuned and was using the hands free on my stereo to communicate with Bob, this made sense. We put one of those battery boosters on and tried again. This time my front was showing 85-90 which is better. Swap to the rear and it was still low. I’m hoping we didn’t have enough juice in the booster to try again and that explains the rear rotor. Ended up having the car towed home. The tow truck driver used to own a FD and felt so bad for me. He gave me his number and said if I wanted to sell it, to call him first.
So now the car is at home, on a battery tender, and I plan to borrow a local FD owners compression tester and measure my rotors on a full battery and cross my fingers I didnt actually pop the motor.
I’m open to any and all suggestions on things to try before I take it back to Bryan at Rotorsports for a tear down. I checked the fuses for INJ and IGN. We also tried starting fluid in the throttle body and nothing. I am going to send my haltech logs for Bryan to look at just to confirm it wasn’t anything Nelson did. Bob was watching Nelson tune and he said aside from it being fatter than he’d tune (but he doesnt do rotaries), he said everything looked good. Nelson said he didnt see anything in the logs. Attached is a screen shot of the dyno pull where you can see the dip at ~7k rpm. There is also the obligatory FD getting towed photo.
I literally want to cry myself to bed. I guess I’m not going to DGRR now :-(
Are you running the oil metering system, OMP with premix, or just premix? Mike was running a new engine that I built (similar - new rotor housings, ported, iRotary apex seals) and it lost compression on the dyno.
The apex seals warped in the center, they basically bowed up. He had a lot of discussion with Francesco Ianetti on this, looks like those apex seals need a LOT of premix. He is running a Haltech with no OMP and had decel fuel turned off (as many people do) so there's no fuel injected on decel. That also means no premix injected either.
We cracked the motor back open, put plain Mazda apex seals in, and there you go.
You may have run into a similar situation. If so the good part is it's a pain to crack the motor open and what not but at least it's just new apex seals - the rest of the motor didn't trash itself.
@DaleClark I am running OMP plus heavy pre-mix (1.5 oz per gallon). I heard on the DGRR Facebook group the same thing and that I'm like the 7th person someone heard of with the same issue with those seals in terms of the symptoms: car is fine a break in, goes boom on dyno. When I got my seals, Francesco called Bryan and emailed me and said to not cut fuel on decel and premix. I had nelson send me a break in tune that disable fuel cut and to I followed his premix advice as well. I'm likely taking the car to Bryan this week and it will be a few weeks before he can crack it but I followed the step to avoid this. What I do know is I'm not going back to iRotary again. At this point, I'm leaning towards fixing it and then selling itand getting a Mustang Mach 1 or another BMW M3 and calling it a day. I've really lost faith in the FD and rotaries. I've spent a lot of money to do it right and it still blows up in my face.
F1bluerx7 is Mike Cochran. I told Andrew about our similar situation.again sorry to hear about it man. My lesson learned at this point is oem seals are the way to go for lower power goals.
Originally Posted by Djseto
@DaleClark I am running OMP plus heavy pre-mix (1.5 oz per gallon). I heard on the DGRR Facebook group the same thing and that I'm like the 7th person someone heard of with the same issue with those seals in terms of the symptoms: car is fine a break in, goes boom on dyno. When I got my seals, Francesco called Bryan and emailed me and said to not cut fuel on decel and premix. I had nelson send me a break in tune that disable fuel cut and to I followed his premix advice as well. I'm likely taking the car to Bryan this week and it will be a few weeks before he can crack it but I followed the step to avoid this. What I do know is I'm not going back to iRotary again. At this point, I'm leaning towards fixing it and then selling itand getting a Mustang Mach 1 or another BMW M3 and calling it a day. I've really lost faith in the FD and rotaries. I've spent a lot of money to do it right and it still blows up in my face.
In this case I think the iRotary seals have some serious issues. Ianetti is well known and respected in rotary circles and he does great work and this is very disappointing.
I think you did things right but you got bitten by a new product that's not tested at this point. Hell I've recommended those seals based on what I've heard and Ianetti's reputation. At this point I wouldn't touch them with a 10 foot pole until I have some sort of hard "this is what was wrong and this is how we fixed it" statement.
This also sucks big time for me because I was stoked to see you and the FD at DGRR!
Regardless you have some good options. First step period is to get some good apex seals in there and get it running properly again. Then you can look at selling and moving on or whatever. I have to admit it's DAMN tempting to turn the 2800-pound lump in my garage into a chunk of money that can damn near pay off my house.
I'll also be the first to say an FD can be damn reliable. I think once you get over this hump it's ready to drive and enjoy. Hell I'm just going to change my oil and then hit the road to DGRR this year. I built that engine about 14 years ago and the car has been dead reliable - starts, runs, and goes every time. Doesn't overheat, doesn't worry me, just get in and have a blast.
In this case I think the iRotary seals have some serious issues. Ianetti is well known and respected in rotary circles and he does great work and this is very disappointing.
I think you did things right but you got bitten by a new product that's not tested at this point. Hell I've recommended those seals based on what I've heard and Ianetti's reputation. At this point I wouldn't touch them with a 10 foot pole until I have some sort of hard "this is what was wrong and this is how we fixed it" statement.
This also sucks big time for me because I was stoked to see you and the FD at DGRR!
Regardless you have some good options. First step period is to get some good apex seals in there and get it running properly again. Then you can look at selling and moving on or whatever. I have to admit it's DAMN tempting to turn the 2800-pound lump in my garage into a chunk of money that can damn near pay off my house.
I'll also be the first to say an FD can be damn reliable. I think once you get over this hump it's ready to drive and enjoy. Hell I'm just going to change my oil and then hit the road to DGRR this year. I built that engine about 14 years ago and the car has been dead reliable - starts, runs, and goes every time. Doesn't overheat, doesn't worry me, just get in and have a blast.
Dale
Yeh. When had my engine spec'd out, Bryan said he uses E&J, Goopy, or cryo treated Rotary Aviations. I pushed for iRotary based on reputation. Bryan and Fransecso go way back and Bryan also assumed his seals were solid. I was his first (and maybe his last) customer on them. Bryan told me 14psi and around ~400WHP is about the upper limit of OEM seals so I could go back to them but there isn't a lot of headroom.
BTW you need to let the compression tester keep going to show the corrected 250rpm numbers. People always post the first result, you have to have the corrected numbers for an apples-to-apples comparison.
That said, those numbers are No Bueno for sure. If you wanted to get into this yourself this is rebuild on easy mode if you wanted to get in there and do it yourself. Literally un-stack the motor, slot in new apex seals, clean up RTV, stack it back up.
I would go with either Mazda OEM or one of the seals Bryan likes - he has first hand experience with those and he knows his stuff.
If you somehow end up at DGRR in a daily driver I'll buy you a dinner and we can bitch about blown engines . I've been through my fair share back in the FC days!
Front rotor on my RX-8 was 46-52-41 when I got it. The ONLY way I could get it to start -
- Stone cold engine
- Upgraded RX-8 starter that cranks faster
- Good charged battery
- Battery jump pack that was putting out like 15v
That joker would crank at like 300 RPM or something it sounded like, STRUGGLED to start but it did.
You can disable the clutch switch and drive the car with the starter FYI. Done that a few times. Put the car in first and crank the engine, the starter will move the car forward. I've put a car in a trailer like that before.
BTW you need to let the compression tester keep going to show the corrected 250rpm numbers. People always post the first result, you have to have the corrected numbers for an apples-to-apples comparison.
That said, those numbers are No Bueno for sure. If you wanted to get into this yourself this is rebuild on easy mode if you wanted to get in there and do it yourself. Literally un-stack the motor, slot in new apex seals, clean up RTV, stack it back up.
I wish I had the time (or tools) to pull my motor but I just dont these days. I talked to Bryan and he helping me out on the cost side. He recommends the Rotary Aviation seals. If I got luck and it didnt damage housings or rotors, I can get out of his shop for a "stomachable" rate...but def. not in time for DGRR.
Sorry to hear about this man! I currently have i Rotary seals in my motor built by IRP and this worries me a little. Hope it all works out for you in the end!
I wish I had the time (or tools) to pull my motor but I just dont these days. I talked to Bryan and he helping me out on the cost side. He recommends the Rotary Aviation seals. If I got luck and it didnt damage housings or rotors, I can get out of his shop for a "stomachable" rate...but def. not in time for DGRR.
Sorry to hear about the motor… sucks big time!
I’ve been using RA classic seals and have been happy with the results.
Going on 5years with this (EFR8374@15-17psi)motor, probably 20k miles of hard driving with several trips to deals gap and back(1600miles). Using OMP and adding .5 ounce of premix on fill ups.
Man I hope you don’t sell her but good luck with making your choice.
Steve
Last edited by estevan62274; 04-11-22 at 07:34 PM.
Sorry to hear about this man! I currently have i Rotary seals in my motor built by IRP and this worries me a little. Hope it all works out for you in the end!
Mike
Def make sure you're premixing 1-1.5oz per gallon with a OMP. More if you don't have your OMP. I'd 100% make sure you DO NOT cut fuel on deceleration.
So I got a phone call around 6pm today from Francesco Ianetti. We talked for a good 45 minutes. First, he apologized for my experience and said that no matter what we talk about, he knows it's not going to make me feel better about my motor.
He went on to tell me that I'm one of about 10 cases he's heard of that have experienced this same problem: car runs fine during break-in and goes boom on dyno. He said for all the other cases, people have left the "fuel cut on deceleration on", which means it doesn't provide lubrication when coming off high RPM pulls as the motor spins down to idle. He said the other common thread is that they were all on Haltech ECUs, but he was careful to say that doesn't imply anything --- just an observation of the data he's collected. He then went on to name drop professional and semi pro drivers across SCCA GT2, Drag Racing, etc who've all used their seals with no issues. He reiterated multiple times that those people consistently see better compression than competing seals. He very much wants to figure out what is happening but I pretty much threw a wrench in his dataset because I was heavy premixing and I have fuel cut on decal disabled (I have the log data to back it). In other words, what he thought would fix this issue, hasn't but this only appears to be happening on dynos.
While we won't know for sure until an engine tear down, all signs and other experiences point to the seals being my issue. Since he has known Bryan a long time, he ruled out engine builder error as a cause. He didn't even care to hear about my build. He just said "if Bryan built it, I'm not concerned". I felt like he was trying to insinuate it was tuner error but I told him Nelson has a pretty solid reputation and that he tunes for Kyle Mohan (Formula Drift) and that we have all the log data to pretty much prove it wasn't tuning error. His response was "oh, he tunes for Kyle?!" I'm going to connect them since he had some questions about the tune (the process) but not being a tuner, he declined my offer to send him log data.
There was lots of back and forth and lots of "I'm really sorry", but that was it. I think he genuinely wants to know what's causing this but he clearly also was leaning heavily on all the successful builds out there, many with more power than my build as his anchor.
He did say that if it's any consolation, the odds are VERY high that my housings will look like new still. He said that's one thing about their seals that they've seen over and over: they are much gentler on housings the any other aftermarket seal.
Car goes to Bryan Friday and will be a few weeks before he can pull it. If my schedule permits, I plan to be there when he cracks it open so I can see first hand what it looks like.
I think that's the first time ever I've heard of a seal manufacturer weigh in on an issue before tear down. I don't understand how it could be a seal issue unless it was a batch issue though. How could all 6 seals go bad at the same exact time unless there was an event that triggered it?
So so sorry to hear that. That's unfortunate that the iRotary seals did that. It's not fair that this happened to you for sure, but if at all possible try to keep the FD. You've put in a lot of time and work into it, and it'll be an afterthought once you get a reliable setup going.
Try your best to stay in high spirits, and hopefully it's just the seals warping, that would be an ideal situation for sure. Take your time and approach it with a clear head. The good thing is it esems like there's a good community of folks to support you.
12-21-21, 03:49 PM
