Elysian

i'm done. just got back from atkins, motor spun a bearing, dave told me only way that could happen is a loss of oil pressure or running out of oil, which both, as far as i know, hadn't ever happened. so i left, told them to keep anything thats worth keeping, cause i didn't want it... i am really considering the "dark side" right now, got access to a free 383 stroker. if anyones followed my shitty luck at all with these ******* cars, u'd probly understand, i'm done. thats about it... time to do something different, can only afford so much, can only take so much heartache...

cpt_gloval

iTrader: (1)

that's too bad, man. what are you doing with the carb setup?

dr.jones63

Ya I hear. So I called Pineapple up today because they work with GT garage who tune Microtech to ask about a rebuild. I was checking about Rob rebuilding my engine and then having Chris tune it. Thats not a option anymore. Chris tells me $1600 for engine pull and intall plus parts, roughly $2500 out the door. I ask does that include tuning - no thats extra. I just got done doing a engine pull and install on my sons 87 T2 so I say what I really want is I pull the motor Rob rebuilds it, I reinstall it, Chris tunes it. I ask is Rob going to guarantee the engine if has a problem during the tune? NO!!! Chris tells me they don't guarantee anything over 250 hp.

STICK A FORK IN ME!!!

Let's do the math

$3500 - rebuild
$2500 - shop work
$500 - Tune, guessing could be more plus my time.

$6500-$7000 and they can't stand behind there work?

And I was thinking of forking out the $ for a Pineapple enging but the baggage is too much. Im sure they do good work but the price seems a little too steep for me.

I could do 3-4 JDM's or buy 1 tuner car or 2 decent stock car's instead.

STICK A FORK IN ME TOO!!!

I will explore other options. Good luck with yours what ever they may be.

Elysian

yeah i just solidified my plans for the 383. we're going to look at the truck right now to get the casting number and figure out what kind of trans it has in it(i think TH400) and then we'll have my bass player from my band's brother come out, tow the truck to our place, pull the motor/trans, and tow the rest of the free truck off... i'll also make sure i have all the parts for that motor that they have, can only think of a few things i'll have to do to it besides pull the oil pan off and general cleaning, its an already rebuilt motor... should be beastly. granny's kits range from 280-300 bux, its gonna be nice... cpt i was gonna keep the carb but sell the manifold, the carb can go on my new motor, tho i'd consider selling both if the price was right, and it could help me afford a double pumper for the new motor...

jammerx7gsl

Sad to see you leave... oh well....

You should sell me your carb setup

dr.jones63

Sounds like he's keeping the car too me.

Elysian

yes, definately keeping the car... slowly build my way towards an all aluminum top end 383 stroker, but to get it on the road i'm just gonna go with the iron heads that are on it right now, and a an aluminum intake manifold... probly HEI distributor as well, and i dunno what to do about radiator, i think my 2 row rad i have now would probly cool a 383 alright, i think i'll pinch my pennies and get an aluminum one of them too... i dunno, i'm still in the planning phase right now, but i priced the granny's kit and its between 280 and 300 bux, not a bad deal... think i'll put the carb/intake manifold in the for sale section...

blazer1313

Sad to hear Elysian. I think you'll regret it later. But it's your choice. I guess its the price to pay the the cars we own. We bitch about the prices about our cars but is reality the rebuilds are probably what they should be. Think about it. Conventional V-8's are cheaper to do because EVERYONE has made kits and are trained on them. Rotories are something all in their own. Besides Subaru's Boxer engine being set up differently, we have the only other type of engine in mass production or at all that I know of. Thus only a handfull of people know how to work on them and only a handfull of people who rebuild them. They take this into consideration and are able to hike up the prices because people HAVE to pay it. Hmm maybe we should start a rotory performance shop on the Kitsap Peninsula. Everyone from Kitsap and Olympic Peninsula would have to use us. HEHE Also consider that a lot of engine peices are reused during a rebuild. Oil pump, chain, E-shaft, etc. whatever is still in spec. And your engine being a GSLSE engine is 20+ years old minus a rebuild (rotor kit and gasket set) and porting. I am sad to see you turn to the darkside and go to a V-8 but I can understand your frustration. I would rather see you keep the engine, save your money, replace what needs to be replaced and supercharge it! I personally drive my car solely BECAUSE its different. I hate being like everyone else (some aspects). I also think that almost every new car on the market is becoming less and less apealing. Everyone's going more quiet and more economical. I go the oppisite. Sometimes just to **** people off.

Elysian

what pisses me off, is that it was obviously my fault for this happening... dave told me that it had to run out of oil, or lose oil pressure... lemme think about that, brand new custom made oil cooler lines, an oil cooler from an FC that i bought from dan, and my oil never ever went below the full line... please. tell me how i'm responsible for this? seriously, i don't know how it could have lost oil pressure or run out of oil. i've tried to do everything right with this motor, i didn't run the **** out of it, i didn't treat it bad, i had a belt break on me, as soon as i saw my temp hit 200 iw as pulled over. i didn't mess around at all... but its my fault the motor went out... i'm done with it, and i know i'm not going to regret it, i've put multiple thousands of dollars into this bullshit hobby, only to be disappointed every ****** time. whats to regret going to a motor that i KNOW can be reliable? i've yet to break a chevy motor, i've had a few now.

and there was only 3 useable parts left in the motor, the front rotor, the front cast iron, and the front cover. the front stationary was damaged, probably from lack of oil due to the massive leak in the rear rotor, and the front housing was already overheated in the past, and patched up, which i was told by atkins that itd be fine, and the patch was coming off, the rear housing was ruined, i can't remember why, and the E shaft was way ruined... rear rotor was ruined from slapping around inside its housing, not to mention the spun bearing, i'd have to just get another core to do anything with another rotary. i'd rather do this, and possibly enjoy my car for more than a month at a time.

ddub

Life's short, don't sweat the small stuff.

I tell myself this every time something goes wrong.

Elysian

i wouldn't say all the money i've put into this crap is exactly small stuff... hell i'm STILL paying for the motor for my 88 TII, and i haven't owned that car for close to a year now.

hammmy

My brother has been looking to put something with more punch into his Porsche 914 and has been talking to me about rotaries. After discussing how to get to his 275HP goal, I told him he's probably better off going with the JDM Subaru options he'd been looking at. He called me back and said he's found a place in Lynnwood selling 300HP Subaru JDMs for $600 with ECU and wiring harness.

TII what? Is what I'm thinking now...

cpt_gloval

iTrader: (1)

a subie 6 would rule in a 914.

ddub

Oh well, I've probably wasted or had to spend just as much money as you on my rx7 for stuff, life goes on, and there's still a long list of stuff to be fixed.

Want me to show you a fellow rx7 owners list of things he's bought, fixed, and done for maintenance on his 2nd gen? He showed me the list that he's kept track of from the beginning, it's up to about 15 or 16k now. It's just the fact that old cars break, have issues, etc, can't get around it.

My point is that you shouldn't get so worked up and emotional about it like it seems you have, though I could be misunderstanding your posts as emotion doesn't transmit well over the internet Basically, there's more important things in life to get upset about. Yes it sucks, but life goes on.

stilettoman

iTrader: (1)

I figured out years ago that a lot of the problems people were having were due to the use of junk parts by certain people assembling these engines, in an attempt to make it profitable. That in turn was the result of Mazda charging exorbitant prices for their monopoly parts.

So I did all my own dirty work, disassembled a lot of dead motors to get enough good parts, cleaning, porting, and prepping all the parts, then had my rotary expert do the assembly of the basic motor, while I watched him and offered an extra pair of hands. I know exactly what parts are in my engines.

The 13b I put in the GLC ran for 140,000 miles and was still running strong last I heard.

The 12a in my RX-7 is running perfectly, but only has about 35,000 miles. I have an RX-4 carb, RB exhaust, dynoed 130 HP to the wheels and frequently rev to 8,000.

I have another street ported 4 port 13b sitting here with brand new SE rotor housings, in case I think of a good use for it, and I am confident it will also be an excellent motor.

I have no more than $1,000-1200 invested in any of these motors. They were assembled by Ken Durkee.

Elysian

ken durkee was the beginnings of all my problems... sorry to say, but my 2nd TII, i had a motor built by his shop, and ported by one of his "mechanics"... sadly it was after mark moses left... thats the one i'm still paying off, he ripped me for over 3k after tax, and another 600 for putting the motor in(mark moses did that at his shop), and more money for pulling it when it broke... heres just a sample of the "porting" that was done on that motor. and when i got the motor built by them, he told me he had a 12 month 12000 mile warrantee... when it broke he said he didn't warrantee "performance" motors... i'd hardly call the ports his shop did "performance"... not to mention, many of the parts in the motor were way out of spec(took it to rob at pineapple for a teardown and second opinion) anyways heres the pic.



i have tons of pics of those "ports", and i'm glad ken got out of the rotary business, i only hope the new management fixes that horrible shop.

CODE BLUE 2

Maybe thats cause you said Ken was your personal friend. But he in fact has screwed over a lot of people including Adam here. Guess some got lucky, some didnt. Sorry to hear Adam.

KompressorLOgic

iTrader: (6)

man that sucks!!

woundup7

iTrader: (1)

Sorry about your motor, two in the last week. Hum? It wouldn't be so painful if the rebuild kit weren't so expensive, If my motor pops i might go to the dark side. Summit has GM 350 long blocks with 3year 50k warranty 260 horse power and 350 torque with typical bolt on goodies. how much 1419 for the long block. The worse thing is no one wants to stand behind their work! Anything is cheaper than rotory parts.
Good Luck

Gregs

so ur keeping the fb right, u still want my grey interior?

Elysian

yeah man i do, shoot me a pm

z-beater

Hey don't worry about going against the grain...sure there are a lot of rotary enthusiasts here including myself that would not fully agree with a v8 swap. However I would be lying if I said that I never considered doing a v8 swap into my rx-7. As previous documentaion has shown whenever you do performance upgrades on an engine the life span will decrease. That is just a fact.

V8's offer both reliability and high hp. Even though some might consider it a sin in the long run financially it will be the best method. Not to mention there will be umptingbillion people that will be able to work on it.

I personally have owned more v8's then anyother type of motor and they do break down, but not nearly as often as my rx. Partly because I was satisfied with the stock hp.

I have seen one rx with a 383 stroker in it. I believe that it was about 4 years ago on ebay. I have to admit that it was an extremely tight fit.

Just remember that what ever you do...be different. I will always hang with you just because you have a rx. To me (and I ma sure many others) it doesn't matter that you have a different powertrain. Even though you will whoop me on the track you are still a rotary brother. Keep us up to date...and good luck with your project!

~Z

cpt_gloval

iTrader: (1)

do something cool like a 2.3 turbo out of a turbo bird or something!

ddub

I remember seeing a site where a 1st gen guy swapped in a DSM (built up) engine with a big turbo.

I don't condone piston swaps, but it was still kinda neat

Gregs

me codeblue and bstrange plan to do a small block drag FB over the winter, it will be quite fun if you ask me