This may not help, but I'm someone who makes big sweeping changes to solve a problem to ensure it doesn't happen again, especially when the issue has cost me $$$. For my money--new tuner, new ecu, different seals, aaaaand WaTeR iNJecTIon!. Sorry, had to say it. All joking aside, everyone deals with things differently and has different solutions to different problems.

 

After doing some extensive logging and having Haltech review my logs and Nelson’s tune (he provided them with the unlocked tables), we have ruled OUT Haltech being the cause of my issues. Their support was great to work with and they said that my logs looked excellent and that Nelson’s tune was good. If anything, it was conservative, but definitely not aggressive. This rules out the tuner and ECU. My first issue could possible be attribute to iRotary but that doesnt explain why I’m having compression issues with my Rotary Aviation Seals. After chatting with Bryan, I’ve got the option to pull, inspect, and rebuild the motor again (at a high discounted rate) or he will give me a discount on a new crate engine (and some credit for a core swap)

I’m again at a crossroads. I hate rebuilding again only to risk the same issue for a 3rd time. I also have very little desire to dump money into a new engine which will also mean a new tune (I’d likely go with TunedByShawn based on Haltech recommendation if I didn’t wanna stay with Nelson). The other option is to just drive it as is until it decides to fail and then re-evaluate. That could be next week or that could be 3 years from now.

Selling is not off the table either…I just have no idea what asking price would be in this market and if I’m better off spending money on the rebuild and selling or just selling as is. Hate that this is where I’m at, but it is. My $5500 “field find” has surpassed $60k so I’m pretty done with the bleeding of the money.

 

New crate motor removes the most variables. Stock seals are actually pretty sturdy, all things normal. 3rd time is the charm?

 

Yeh. If I went this route, I’d stick with stock seals and porting. I’d lose top end power but at this point, I’d be aiming for reliability but given how much I’ve spend already on the last two rebuilds, 3 engines in a year just seems like its no longer worth it…

 

#TeamGT3RS

 

i discovered your thread last night and started reading at page 16. would you please post a few pictures of your engine bay and your spark plugs from the last two engine failures. .

 

Howard, I dont think I have any picture of my plugs from my last failures but I can pull the plugs from my current setup which hasn't changed from rebuild to current state. As for engine bay, let me dig some up....

 

 

do you have knock sensors?
what is your lead and trail timing at the boost levels you were running on the dyno(s)? (around 14 psi?)

 

I do have knock sensor. As for timing, I don't know. As stated earlier, my tune is locked. I do know Haltech reviewed my logs and Nelson provided them with unlocked tables and nothing looked abnormal. Nelson tunes probably 3-4 cars a week so while we can't see the tune, I also don't think it's tune related.

 

a new REW crate motor and sell while the market is hot & high seems like the option that might suit you best and help recoup some of your expenses

mostly because it also seems like your heart isn’t in it any more which generally suggests it’s time to move on to the next chapter

modding Porsches isn’t any cheaper though
.

 

three broken motors, three different brands of apex seals?

time to stop talking about apex seals, time to focus on the constant: Heat.

as delivered the FD made 217 rwhp (using a 15% driveline discount)

on the internet everyone makes 500+ hp when they turn up the boost so 408 should be easy peasy on the motor.

408 is almost DOUBLE OE output. this a motor that, unlike a four cycle, has no cooling cycle.

if you visit my website and check out the section "Understanding the Turbo'd Rotary" you will see a list of 9 Supercars.

the average rwhp per cubic inch is 1.91

400 rotary rwhp per cubic inch is 2.5!

all these Supercars sport extremely sophisticated reactive management, far more capable than anything we buy in the aftermarket. they have highly engineered combustion chambers to discourage detonation etc etc. we have a clunky long combustion chamber that encourages detonation. we have a trail spark plug because of the long combustion chamber that encourages pre-ignition.

we do, however, have ports that outflow any other engine. they flow enough to easily get us in trouble unless we have every link in the happy chain covered.

heat is the enemy and can kill in numerous ways.

while your motor had other inherited issues (correctly diagnosed by Dale- too much pressure from the belt on the crank nose) you clearly had detonation which, no surprise, broke the OE seal. the rotor housings were also boat anchors, perhaps they could have been honed but they had a lot of chatter and longitudinal striations. probably from E85 and poor premix. chatter comes from running too hot a plug. spark plug mountain pushes the apexseal back into the groove and it starts doing Newton's Law.

not only did you have a chipped apex seal but you had F68 R76 compression. either your apex seals warped or your corner seal springs collapsed as they reacted to the heat of detonation. collapsed corner seal springs can reduce compression as much as 30%.

motor 2, the I Seal motor started out at F111 R114. acceptable. shortly thereafter F54 R 41

motor 3 a pretty similar story F72 R 65 (all averages)

should you do a motor 4, with take your pick apex seals you probably know what i think will happen.

the converse of this is that if you had fixed the constant all three of your motors would have worked and put a smile on your face... (other than the bearing deal on the first motor.)

so what's the problem.

Heat.

there are a number of items that need to be fixed...

first off, AI. you are making approx 400 hp of 2.5 hp/cubic inch. the combustion chamber needs help. it needs water. numerous people have suggested this. the idea that it will cost you power is laughable compared to the cost of 3 engines. as Dale suggests, just get yourself a simple AEM system (they recently re-engineered it so it works pretty good).. do 500 CC per minute of water or windshield solution. no need to retune and if your tuner opposes it find another tuner. IMO, if you had the system on board this thread would not be on page 26.

second, get rid of the 9 heat range plugs, you mention them on 4-8-22. you should run 10 or 10.5. 9 plugs retain more heat around the sparkplug boss which rises off the floor of the rotor housing creating "spark plug mountain." this pushes the apex seal off the housing. it is hard to create compression when the seal is off the housing. it also starts a chattering on the housing surface which degrades the seal and housing as well as compression.

while your general setup, V mount, is pretty typical, it does little to control all important IATs. your air filter sits on top of the radiator exhaust stream (150 F) and next to the intercooler. at 14 psi the air coming out of your turbo is 300F. raise the boost and it could touch 500. the end tank on your intercooler. might melt your air filter. the intercooler core sits on top of the radiator... all of this is probably not a great help in reducing the 300 F coming out of the turbo. low IATs are one of the most important items effecting engine performance and health including longevity.

but you have a "failsafe" as to IAT... 200F. sounds great on paper. did your tuner ask you what sensor you were using to measure IAT? chances are it is a thermistor. maybe it is a fast thermistor. a fast thermistor is like a fast glacier. the only sensor that can measure IAT accurately is a thermocouple. all thermistors are range bound V time. which means they are way behind. which means your computer thinks your IAT is 75 when it is 200. thermocouples read 4 times per second and are accurate + or - .4 tenths of one percent. at 200 F that is a max error of 1.6F. IAT can change hugely in less than a second. if you are going to respond you need a thermocouple.... otherwise, no "failsafe."

whether you keep or sell your beautiful car i suggest you do the AI, do the plugs and an "air" thermocouple (fits in the OE position) and drive it a bit...

good luck

 

Some good advice right there ^.

Reading Dale's thread(s) and posts regarding AI and IAT's convinced me to go the extra mile and setup a proper injection system and not tune timing for it. I'm not touching 1bar on the 99 spec twins until I have my setup completely dialed in, and will incrementally go up a little just to hit around 320-350 HP max.

I hope you get the new engine and stick to the FD, it's an amazing platform, but wouldn't blame you if you end up selling it. Been a tough road this year, all you can do if you keep it is learn from it and move forward and hopefully have a solid setup next time.

 

@Howard Coleman man…where were you 10 pages ago!? This is all great info. So….based on what you said…if I were to rebuild one more time, what would you do for seals (apex and corner)? Go back to OEM? Rotary Aviation again? Another brand?

And yes, at this point I care less about power and more about reliability so AI would be part of the next setup but I’ve seen/read plenty of people running FDs with similar or more power without AI so I just assumed while suggested, it “wasn’t necessary”.

As for plugs, I always thought you ran the 7 or 9’s. I don’t know much about other plugs so I’m not sure if there is a brand/model you suggest in the heat range you recommend.

My IAT sensor is this one: https://www.lms-efi.com/collections/...x-7-direct-fit That I got from LMS-EFI. Not sure if you can tell by looking at it which flavor of sensor it is.

The vMount does have OEM fans below them moving air and it almost always on since I run my A/C year round.

At this point, if I rebuild, I don’t think I’d push more than 12psi.

Thanks again for your input.

 

Also, where would you suggest I move my air filter? There isn’t a whole lot of space to move it…

I also found the plugs from my iRotary motor and there are 10 heat range. They are Iridium Racing plugs that @Molotovman suggested.

 

Agree with Howard on many of his points..... this stuff "shouldnt" be difficult as the formula for a safe 500 rwhp street setup has been around for a long time. Hate to see all the troubles you're going through.

Add water injection and Denso Iridium IRE01-31 heat range 10 spark plugs in all four holes. <----- both critically important IMO.

If you plan to make any kind of power (400 wheel) run RxParts apex seals with oem stock corner seals.

Leave the air filter, consider cleaning or replacing it.

Remind me of which ignition coils and plug wires you're running?

 

"this stuff "shouldnt" be difficult as the formula for a safe 500 rwhp street setup has been around for a long time."

i agree w Rich.

the key here is our motors at middleish output levels are HIGHLY STRESSED, consequently if any one link in the chain is not 100% the chain breaks. most of this thread has been looking at the wrong link in the chain. while a few people have apparently dodged a bullet while running without AI this by no means obviates its use. someone wins the lottery too.

back in the day w the stock turbo system and a few mods, around 330 rwhp, combustion chamber pressure and heat were not quite a challenge. 14 psi is not the same as 14 earlier and i can assure you that the CCP and CCH do not go up linearly with power output.

AI is also a win win as not only does it calm the combustion chamber it also cleans the internals.

we run fairly rich and add 2 cycle oil to our fuel. we also have a lot of hot combustion surface/rotor face. hello carbon. you might be thinking blah blah blah... here's a picture to get you out of the blah blah blah.
two rotors. the rotor on the left is from my personal motor, 4 years in service around 500, with AI. the rotor has not been touched since disassembly. to state it clearly, it has not been cleaned by me. it has been cleaned by AI. the rotor on the right is a typical incoming rotor with no AI.





my rotor looks like your car... beautiful. while i run 100% methanol as injectant water will do exactly the same thing.

carbon free rotors are important because carbon can glow and cause pre-ignition... not a good thing. pre-ignition can cause follow on detonation.

your IAT sensor is a thermistor. thermistors are fine for oil temp, coolant temp. all move slowly.

IAT can move very fast and if you plan to use it as a "failsafe" you need to be able to track at the same speed.

how fast?



this is a recent typical log that i hope will point out a couple of things...

IAT moves FAST.

into boost:

turbo compressor output temp moves from 175.5 F to 219.9 F.......44.4 degrees
IAT moves from 95.2 to 132.1............ 36.9 degrees

in .212 of one second!.

out of boost

turbo compressor output temp moves from 421.9 F to 375.1.......46.8 degrees
IAT moves from 164.1 to 111.6......... 52.5 degrees

in .144 of a second!

imagine if something malfunctioned causing an IAT spike... there is a thread on the forum showing a fast thermistor in action. it was still stair stepping upward trying to catch up to reality numerous seconds after the throttle closed.

take another look at the log. the bottom section shows temps out of the compressor, before the IC, IAT and AI system pressure. notice w the onset of boost, before the AI triggers, IAT is tracking compressor temp. notice how it flattens with the onset of AI. what do you think IATs would have been if not for AI?

this is one of 106 logged 3rd gear pulls around 550. EFR9180, 2600 ft elevation, around 26 to 32 psi, 93 pump w 37% ethanol and 1200 cc of 100% meth as AI. 10 or 10.5 plugs, I Seals.

Anthony, do you have logs? if you do we can answer a number of questions as to your tune. what is your lead timing. what is your split. as has been posted by many in this thread it is unrealistic to have a locked tune. there are zillions of things that come up as you drive your FD that require you revisiting the tune. sad to say, a single turbo FD is not the same as a buttoned down Porsche. it isn't for everyone. ultimately, w a single turbo FD you will need to understand most of it.

 

@Howard Coleman I do have the logs from dyno pulls but they are for Haltech. I'm sure I can graph and screenshot what you might want to see if you don't have Haltech software to play it back. As for the tune being locked. It is what it is. I dont know there first thing about tuning so I went with a guy who's got a great reputation and has had lots of success tuning for a Formula Drift team as well as being the tuner for Lucky 7 Racing and few other shops. I don't have the time or knowledge to mess with constantly making changes. In the ideal world, it gets tuned and should be mostly set and forget. I agree that a single turbo FD isn't as buttoned down as a Porsche. The two are vastly different experiences for sure. But there are a lot of people out there who run these cars and to your point, win the lottery, without AI and with a tune (that might have some minor adjustments made after the initial tune). The irony of all of this is that I had really no major issues running a PFC. It seems like "modernizing" my car has led to all the headaches I was hoping it would avoid. At 14psi, I was hoping to be conservative on pushing the engine compared to folks who are pushing way more boost. At this point, I'll take 12psi as my max if that means more reliability.

 

@GoodfellaFD3S IGN1 coils and wires from Sake Bomb Garage

 

@Howard Coleman here is a photo of my engine rotor after iRotary boom. Def darker than yours

 

OK. So here’s the new plan. I ordered a AEM v3 Water/Meth injection kit. I’m to install it along with the 10 heat range Iridium plugs ASAP on my current motor and see how things progress over time. I want to see if my compression numbers stay the same as I continue to put more miles. If this engine goes go or gets to a point where the compression is too bad, Bryan @rotorsportracing will honor the discounted rate to pull, rebuild, and re-install the motor.

@Howard Coleman what IAT sensor would you recommend?

 

both my air intake sensors are over 10 years old and have always worked well. i like The Sensor Connection. about $54.

here's the link to the specific product:

Air Intake Temperature Probe Thermocouple Blower, Supercharger

my usual source for the accompanying amp is out of single stage amps so i googled thermocouple amp and came up with something that looks really nice and is el cheapo... $30



link:

https://www.reveltronics.com/en/prod...er-type-k-0-5v

 

I may have mentioned this already in your thread, but for any IGN1 coil setup you need to ground the literal hell out of your setup--- battery, chassis, block, and ignition harness.

On my '95 FD I could hear the ignition 'tick' at idle along with high rpm breakup and added multiple 4 gauge grounds along with a 0 gauge ground. Even went so far as to use dielectric grease on the plug ceramic to plug wire interface to get it to clear up completely. The coils have a very strong spark that wants to go anywhere but into the combustion chamber.

I've seen and heard of numerous engine failures from poor spark due to inadequate grounding on these coils, for some more-stock setups frankly I'm not convinced it's an 'upgrade' from fresh OEM coils and an old school Twin Power.

 

@GoodfellaFD3S Is there a way to “test” that I have the right grounds? I’m using all the factory ground points with my new harness with the only exception being my battery which I relocated to the rear passenger bin. I ran 1gauge welding cable from the battery connector in the engine bay to my battery in the bin. From the bin, I ran my ground from the battery to the grounding point at just behind the bin which to the OEM rear seatbelt mounting hole is for JDM cars with back seats . I used a wire brush on a drill to make sure to remove the paint at the hole and also used dielectric grease.

 

u have pics of coupler installed in uim? got me thinking of swapping out too