Here is my long sad story:



My '90 GXL's engine finally blew. I looked around and decided to go with a rebuilt Hayes engine. With the options that I selected, my engine came to about $3,000. They promissed it in two weeks, but they finished it in eight. They then sent it to AL instead of NM. My mechanic installed it and it had bad compression on one of the rotors. Hayes took so long to get me the engine, that by the time I received it, it was too late to dispute the charge on my credit card.

I gave up on the non-turbo rebuilds and bought a Japenese '91 turbo engine from Mazda Racing. I also bought a Haltech, Greddy boost controller, Turbo X BOV, Greddy FMIC, Fuel Pump, clutch, etc. I wanted to do this conversion in a reliable, tunable way.

I am active duty military and a full time college student, so I don't have the time to work on it myself. When everything was installed, my bill was $2,500. I sadly ran up my credit card bill even more but satisfaction is not yet.

When my engine started, it blew colums of white smoke and used about a quart of oil in ten minutes. My mechanics were puzzled. They then deided that the turbo was shot and was blowing oil. I sent the turbo off for a rebuild with BNR supercars. The stage 1 rebuild along with porting the housing and manifold came to $580.

Yesterday, I finally installed the turbo and manifold and guess what--it still blows oil out the back! The engine runs fine (for a new Haltech setup), the turbo spools fine, but, my car is using more oil then gas. A compression test shows good compression on both of my rotors.

Do I need a full rebuild, or do I just have a bad oil seal somewhere that can be changed out? I am out of money and out of credit, and unfortunately I'm still out of a car. What can I do to make this cursed thing work?

If it is something that I can do, I will take a week of leave and do it myself. I haven't driven my car in almost a year now. I need it to work already as it is the only car I have.

Help!!!

 

Oh, by the way. I'm in the Middle of Nowhere, NM. If I do need a rebuild I want to be able to deliver and pick up my engine because I'm tired of paying $200 to get engines shipped to me and then paying it again to ship them back out when they don't work. Anywhere in Texas would work.

 

how far have you driven the car, and what is the oil consumption like?

i'm asking because if the turbo was blowing oil before you rebuilt it, then chances are there is still a lot of residue still left in the exhaust system.

however, if your oil consumption is out of the accepted range, then you do have cause to worry.

 

I haven't driven it anywhere because it is blowing oil so bad. My first thought was that it was just residue in the pipes so I let it run for about 20min. During that time it didn't get any better and it lost about a quart of oil.

 

Maybe your oil metering pump is set to full-on. Is it hooked to the Haltech?

 

a quart in 20 minutes? GEEEZ!!!!
i'm guessing you didn't have the motor rebuilt before you had it installed?

how does it idle? is it rough or smooth?
where is your oil pressure during all of this?
look into that oil metering pump thing as Jeff20B said, to lose a quart in 20 minutes is just crazy! i'm really sorry that i can't think of any better ideas, and i must admit that at this point, i'm pretty stumped.

i've pulled apart motors that had bad rotor oil seals, but i can't remember any of them losing a quart in 20 minutes (that's like less than 20 miles/quart), but that's not to say it can't be so. this would be you worst-case scenario ... a full rebuild!!!

 

My oil pressure looks fine, but I cna't get any boost. I don't know if my gauges are hooked up correctly or not as my A/F stays in the same spot too. My mechanic blames that on the O2 sensor being full of oil.
The engine idles pretty decently for having just installed a Haltech that is running rich as hell. It actually sounds almost identical to the GXL engine that I had in there before.
I thought of the oil metering pump. My mechanic said that he pulled one of the lines off and it barely dripped. The pump is not hooked up to the Haltech and should be running at about 45%.
I'm pulling my car out of the shop on Tuesday as these mechanics don't know too much about rotorys and they charge me for poking around. After I pull the car out, I will trouble shoot it more so any more suggestions as to what to look for are welcome.
Do I need a full rebuild if my rotors have bad oil seals? I know a full rebuild is probably the best way to go, but right now I really need my car.

 

If the oil seals are bad, you have to tear it down and atleast do a basic rebuild. So did you get your money back from Hayes or what? Seems like several guys have had bad luck with Hayes. The only very reliable source I have heard for j-specs is Dave Gibson at fc3s.org.

 

Hayes should have corrected their problem for you if their rebuild was the problem. With porting , 3mm seals ect. ect they are slow,but they should stand behind their work

 

well, that may or may not hold water. just remember that barely dripping has to be multiplied by two for each rotor. also, they are aided by the intake/combustion vacuum ... so just pulling one line off is not 100% accurate. though, i'm not saying it's meaningless.

i don't think you should be getting measurable boost with the car just sitting there. if you have an aftermarket blow-off valve, you can use that to hear whether or not it's trying to boost up, without driving the car, but that's about it. however, i think the engine has to be under load for it make any measurable boost.

just out of curiosity, did you guys prime the turbo before you started the engine?

now ... for the rebuild issue. i don't usually recommend doing a half-*** rebuild, especially if i don't know who's doing the build-up. however, if you have enough space to make sure that every seal that you plan to reuse, goes back in the spot it came from, and you have instruments to check your tolerances/measurements, then since you said the engine checked out with good compression, you might be able to risk just replacing the rotor o-rings/oil seals.

however, having said that, i understand the frustration of not having your car and all, but if you're not comfortable doing this yourself, and you can't afford having someone that knows what they're doing to do it for you ... then, my best advice to be made in good conscience is to just wait until you do have the money.
i'm just trying to be real. it doesn't make sense to put this thing together just to have something else fail.

 

actually, one other question i forgot to ask is what color is the smoke?

 

Thanks for your help guys. The smoke is white. I have a feeling that is is something to do with the oil metering pump. I'm creating a block-off plate this morning and will try installing that. The pump I had on there before worked fine, but the one that is on their now is from the j-spec engine.
I work from midnight to eight in the morning, so I'm off work for the rest of the day to play with it.
I was looking at my Mazda manual and at annamations of the rotary engine, and I can't fighre out where that much oil could be comming from without my engine losing compression.
All roads lead to the oil metering pump. I'll let you guys know as soon as I do.

 

11:30 and I need to get some sleep. I'll have the plate done by tomorrow and will try it out. I am hopeful...

 

White smoke? That's coolant burning. Blew a water seal perhaps.

 

yeah ... white smoke is anti-freeze
does it have a sort of "sweet" smell to it?

 

It's defenately oil. As I said in another post, all smoke irther looks whate of black to me. Oil literaly blows out the tail pipe (single). There was a truck packed behind me when I was running my car and I covered the front of the F-150 in a nice coat of oil. Nonthing sweet smelling about that.
If I have the block-off plate done by tomorrow, can I just mount the plate where the oil metering pump goes and leave the oil metering lines hanging off the engine? Or do I need to remove my manifold and put some bolts in the oil injector's holes. I wouldn't drive my car with the oil metering lines hanging, I just want to know if my car would run like that or if it would suck in air.

 

okay ... the ol' F150 test, never lies ... it's oil!

well, i really hope this thing with the OMP works, man. you will need to block them, because, like i said, the do use intake/combustion vacuum. i just stuck a screw with a LARGE head in mine ...

 

Looking at my above post I realised how bad I write when I just wake up and I'm in a hurry to go to work.
To all of you English majors--I aplogize.
Since the block off plate isn't finished yet, I'm going to try installing my old oil metering pump from my N/A engine. According to the Haltech forum, the pump runs at 45% when it is not connected to the computer.
I was wondering what would happen if I pulled the screw-style plunger out of the OMP and ran it like that. Without the plunger it wouldn't pump oil as the plunger (to the best of my knowledge) is what rotates and forces oil into the lines.
I'll try the other OMP and will let you guys know!

 

I just finished trying the other OMP with the same result. What else could it be? I don't think that I have ever been so frustrated in my life. The OMP lines have air bubbles in it which leads me to believe that its not dumping oil.
Is there a chance that this second turbo is bad? I haven't checked the intercooler piping yet, but I'm willing to try anything.
Something that sticks out to me is that when I started the engine it ran clean for about a minute, after that it started smoking. I shut it off checked my coolant, oil etc and started it up again. The second time it ran clean for about thirty seconds and then started smoking. Is this just the delay for the manifold to heat up or is it something else.

 

I gave up on building a block off plate and I ordered one from K2 Racing. I haven't heard from them yet so I don't know when it will come in.

Does anyone know what size bolts I should use to block off the oil injector holes? I do not want to mix and match and risk stripping out the holes.

 

do you have a spare set of bolts? if so, then you can just epoxy the holes.

OR

you could buy some banjo fittings that fit those bolts and block those, that way you don't destroy the lines or the bolts.

 

I meant the holes on the top of the block.

 

i know which ones you were referring to. i was just suggested ways to use the stock bolts ... but i guess you could just take one of them to a hardware store (Home Depot or something) and measure the thread size there ... i don't know what it is.

 

i had a similar situation on a custom turbo job but is the returnline for the oil at the bottom most point otherwise you wlii burn a lot of oil

 

I found wat the boltsare in case anyone needs to know. They are 10mm x 1.00. They were really hard to find around here. THe shortest ones I could find were about four cm long. Should be good, if it isn't, I'll use washers.
My block off plate should arrive today! I'll let you all know what happens. Thanks to everyone especially diabolical1 for your help.