Possible moisture in the rotor housings
 

Hey everyone. I just bought a 10AE a couple of weeks ago from a friend as a new project/resto car for me and my dad to work and learn on. This is my first rotary, so it's going to be a lot of lurking and learning between here and my other friends/local shops.

Background on the car:
The previous owner of the car had done a removal of alot of the parts in the bay to get to broken parts to fix, as well as source and fix oil leaks. I was told the car did run before this, but he never installed everything back on. The car has sat for the better part of 4, maybe 5 years as is.

Now:
I went on Sunday with my friend and dad to try and put ATF in the housings to see how if we could revive the car. When the plugs were pulled, we noticed rust on the heads. Since we don't know what could've caused this exactly, we didnt want to risk turning the crank to cause any further damage. My friend is suppose to come back this week with a scope from his job to take a gander inside and see what I'm really working with. I just wanted to open this thread up to gain more thought and feedback about this while we are working to get this car back to life again. I have been and will continue to keep using the search functions and reading on past posts, but would like a home base for discussions with you all.

Pictures:
Here's the before and after of the car when we finally were able to get it to the car wash after the weather started to warm up.
https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8619/...3e230de6_s.jpg

Here is how the engine looks at this moment
https://www.flickr.com/gp/24120546@N07/5u2JsF

Here is the front housing upper spark plug
https://www.flickr.com/gp/24120546@N07/58XQ9C

Here is the rear housing plug
https://www.flickr.com/gp/24120546@N07/77r3Xz


Anyways, here's what I know about the car as far as what it has:
Rtek7 ecu
Koyo Radiator
Samco Hoses
Pineapple Ignition Cap (??)
Racing Beat ignition wires
Apparently it has a EGR, etc. delete, including the rat's nest delete? (I don't have a master mod list anywhere)
Blitz BOV
intake
Racing Beat full turboback
Springs
HKS turbo timer
OMP delete
braided lines to/from oil cooler

that's about as much as I know from looking and talking to friends

I'm having some serious link issues here. Sorry. I also can't seem to find a way to go back and edit your post either haha.

The car before/after cleaning
https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8619/...3e230de6_b.jpgUntitled by prgti94, on Flickr

The engine as of now:
https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8709/...e61f940f_b.jpgUntitled by prgti94, on Flickr

Front upper plug:
https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7640/...91962cc2_b.jpgUntitled by prgti94, on Flickr

Rear upper plug:
https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7614/...48ffd5c7_b.jpgUntitled by prgti94, on Flickr

Rust on the plugs usually is very bad, my guess is coolant was left in it while its sat, your probably going to be looking at a FULL rebuild/engine swap

The engine parts could all be garbage because of the freeze left in it, just don't be surprised/pissed if this is what happened, you saved one of 1500 made in 88, don't give up/trash it

Yeah I dedintiely don't

I don't plan to sell it or anything. I'm checking with a local shop to see if they have any s4 t2 blocks that are either rebuilt and ready or need it and get it done and street ported. I don't really plan to go big turbo on this one. I'll save that for the 20B.

If I don't have the chance to get it scoped out this week, next full day off I'm going to pull the exhaust off and take a look inside.

I also have a friend that said I should try to put ATF in and crank it to see what happens.

Don't ATF it, you could make things worse by loosening a piece of carbon or rust and for sure destroy things inside. Look inside when you can and go from there

How long has this sat? By your first picture, i'm guessing a minimum of 2 years

Personally, I wasn't going to ATF. Idk why he even recommended it. The car sat for the better part of 4/5 years. I believe he started fixing stuff in 2012 and it sat like that since then. So roughly 2-3 years with the engine not put back together.

Does it even roll over by hand? If it doesn't, save yourself the hassle of pulling the exhaust to look inside, just start pulling the motor

Being its sat that long, all the seals are probably brittle, and you try and run it, it will just destroy them

In all honesty i would pull the engine and tear it down, you have quite the project ahead of you, again, don't lose your will power on it, it will be worth it in the end