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My cooling system works fine and I'm not seeing the engine temp higher than expected. IDK. We'll see how it goes.
You understand the previous post was talking about the exhaust temperature,not the cooling system/engine temperature. The two have nothing to do with each other.
Rotary engines have hot breath,EXHAUST temps average 1800 degrees,that's about 600 degrees hotter than the temperature that aluminum begins to melt-as in rotor housing...That's why the steel sleeves are pressed into housing at exhaust port,to shield housing from the exhaust blast furnace. Be a real good idea to reinstall them...
So I think these exhaust ports are sleeved. Am I wrong?
I did have an exhaust leak when I first started it up. Was trying to be careful to not over tighten the nuts and would up under tightening. I'm gonna take this opportunity with the exhaust off and a new gasket en route to clean that mess up
The break in is coming along. I'll see 1000 miles (+232k chassis miles, my zero mile) in a few more weekends. The engine is tight, starts up easy cold even without a choke. The gearbox is pretty quiet especially for a "this probably works you can have it" transmission. I can hear the synchros over the gears and even that is subtle. Mostly I hear intake and racket in the pre silencer. Since I put in a heater bypass it's not drinking coolant. Temp gauge stays around 1/3. Very positive so far.
I had a stock 83 GSL back in the day and I think this car feels a little stronger than a stock 12A using just the primary throttles. Opening the secondaries wakes it up even more, but I'm shutting it down at about 5k. Can't wait to ride that to redline
The shakedown.... I'm literally shaking out wiring problems. Sometimes the fuel pump doesn't work until it does. Sometimes the oil pressure gauge works (don't worry I have a reliable mechanical gauge). The fuel gauge started reading nothing below about 7 gallons. There's a lot of corrosion on the connectors behind the seats so the first order of business there will be to clean that up.
Last edited by cpt_gloval; Apr 29, 2019 at 11:50 AM.
Need to start working on the aesthetics. This side has better paint, but someone broke the mirror off and dented the door a little in the process. The paint on the other side got eaten by cedar sap.
Yes I have that missing center cap, I just don't want to take the wheel off right now lol.
The size delta between my vehicles cannot be ignored lol. The truck weighs a good three RX-7s.
I don't have a radio, don't want one, is there a good commonly-used option for just capping the antenna hole?
I think the engine is pretty much run in. Doesn't drink any coolant, and I replaced my heater plugs with a bypass connector by the firewall so I'm not concerned about popping a plug. Starts on the first turn off I prime it with the AP. It does the same thing pretty much every time unless it was a lot warmer/cooler out last time I drove it. Then I have to trim the mixture a little.
Loving the car. I'm happy I got it mechanically sorted by spring. We're having a nice dry one with a lot of opportunity to drive around in nice weather
Scored a pair of J-109s for $50! I didn't know where else to brag about that find lol. Mine currently work but I'm always looking for certain spare bits as they approach unobtanium.
Ok, so the car is pretty well mechanically sorted. It starts and stops and goes and sounds awesome and I'd drive it over the Cascades today if there was anything to do in Leavenworth.
I need to sort out the interior and body. The body looks like it has 235k miles on it, and the interior had mice living in it. Next up: interior. I just about have my dash removed to take the carpet and heater core out. Hopefully I can have the heater core repaired. Getting new door, wall, and seat upholstery too... I like the plaid look from the Series 1s but decided it wouldn't quite look right in a series 3 interior. But I think the VW Golf pattern will be perfect.
Oh heck. Now that I expose the floorboards, I am seeing that one of the floorboard plugs was pretty much completely rusted out. Fortunately it knocked out easy and the floorboard itself is intact and the hole is still pretty clean, just some surface rust on it. I took all of the insulation tar off that side of the floor to make sure I don't miss anything when I brush off the rust and apply some chemical rust mitigation to the whole thing.
Got some DynaMat to replace the tar layer on that floor, and a couple things of DynaLiner to replace all the jute I tore out. I am in favor of upgrading to synthetic/inert material for under the carpet, after experiencing nasty mouse-pee-crystal jute.
Yeah I'm familiar with it. They didn't have it on hand at the auto parts store so I just got whatever. It's fine for something I'm going to bury under carpet and not let mice live in again.
Project update: the interior is about done. I'm having a shift boot made. No rattles, nice and quiet until I open the window.
I put a S1 manifold and spacer on and cleaned up all the ignition wiring and this thing purrrrrrrs. It's up on stands now for a Carter fuel pump upgrade.
Collection get: upper 6 port manifold for dhla, good working stock lower 6 port manifold.
I'm going to put a wrap around side draft over an exhaust actuated s4 6 port 13b and see how that goes.
