Aaron J Williams

Greetings!
I have an 86 non-turbo with a locked up engine. I just got a parts car with a running engine and my question is if there is anything I should check, do, or replace while the engine is out before I put it in the other car. I'm a total noob to rotaries but I have been a mechanic for 20 years. If there is anything that is prone to failure on a rotary, and is easy to replace with the engine out i'll fix it before the install to save me hassles later. I did a search but didn't find anything, probably because I don't know enough about rotaries to know the relevant keywords. Any help would be appreciated, Thanks!

cbf246

compression test it to make sure its still got plenty of life left.

Aaron J Williams

Already did that, 95 psi on the front and 91 on the rear. I also started it up and let it warm up for 5 min. and watched the temp gauge which never even went to half way up, then shut it down and re-started it after 3 min. to see how easy it started when warm. It started fine, smoked for 3 seconds then cleared up. The first couple of times I revved it hard it smoked but then that cleared out too. Oil pressure was 60 psi at 3500 rpm and 30 psi at idle. Cooling system held pressure, so I don't think there are any internal leaks. Plugs and oil are fairly clean but smell like varnish gas because the car sat for a year or so before I got it. Usually on a swap i'll change the rear seal, front seal, oil pan gasket and oil pump (if it's a ford), and the usual tune up stuff before installing the engine. I just wondered if there were any pesky o-rings or such that are prone to leak and easy to change with the motor out of the car, or if I should take the exhaust manifold off and clean out carbon or something like that. I see fro my reading that these are picky about carbon so I thought i'd ask before installing the engine. Do it right the first time or do it again is my motto!

Rocking Rotary

iTrader: (14)

the clutch is a easy one when out. The o rings you speak of are on the inside of the engine so you rebuild if those go.
You really shouldnt have to clean any carbon out of the exhaust manifold since rotary exhaust gasses are damn hot it should burn it clean. The carbon on the inside of the is another story may want to give it the old water treatment. Make sure your 5th and 6th ports are working.

Aaron J Williams

Yes! That's just the kind of info I need. 5th port actuator was froze solid and 6th was sticky so I cleaned and lubed both. The pipe to the cat wasn't even hooked up probably because someone put a catco cat in and it didn't have a port for the tube. I'll just weld a spout in between the pre-cat and the catco one unless the car i'm fixing has the right cat. During my info search about the ports I saw that there was some dispute about gutting the cats causing the ports to not work anymore. I would like to gut the cats but not if it stops the ports from working. Any thoughts? Also, I have never seen a clutch disk like the one I took off the donor motor, the fiber was completely gone! It was shredded all over the inside of the bellhousing. Since it has a stepped flywheel I'm wondering if whoever surfaced it forgot to surface both steps equally and caused the pressure plate to have less force than it should, or do rotaries tear clutches up like that? Thanks again for all your help so far. I can't wait to get this car done and see how it stacks up to my 91 Supra Turbo!

lax-rotor

iTrader: (1)

Depending on your setup the 5th and 6th port actuators are usually run by the air pump. There is a modification i believe (or it might be a different year) that the 5th and 6th ports can either be wired open(which has detramental affects to low and mid range torque) or redone to open with back pressure. If the engine already has been modded for that then I'd say avoid the headache and stick with it. Also it's extremely easy to pull the harness from the ecu side rather than off the engine, that is of course you would like to clean the engine up and make it nice. But i'm kicking myself for doing it that way... I didn't even clean it. so I'm going through and hooking up the harness on the engine.

Aaron J Williams

Thanks Lax! Like a fool I cut the harness on the donor motor since I was using the harness from the fixer car. Now I'm pulling the bad motor out of the fixer car and realized that I had to take the upper intake off to unhook the wiring for the injectors buried under the UIP! It would have been a lot easier to do as you said and pull the harness from the ECU. So now I think i'll go ahead and clean up the engine and replace intake & exhaust gaskets, vacuum hoses, and injector o-rings. I also found what looks to be an oil injection pump like 2 stroke bikes use. I'll have to do a little research on the forum to see if that system needs any attention. My 5th and 6th ports are teed off of a line which runs from the air pump to the cat, and the fixer car still has that line and it's connection to the cat so i'll probably just hook it up stock and see how it works. Man there are a lot of vacuum lines under the intake!!! This adventure is turning out to be quite the learning experience, I'm glad you guys are here to assist.

trochoid

iTrader: (6)

While you have the engine out and the intake off, send the injectors out for service, check the pulsation dampner, some replace it with a banjo bolt and replace all of the vacuum lines.

gski4life

I had the same questions and found the answer here