Lifespan of a Tracked 13 BREW
 

For those that have dedicated track cars, about how many hours of pure track time (road course) can you go before needing a rebuild? Yes, it's dependent on a bunch of factors, but i'm talking on average

I have about 7000 track miles on my LS1 swapped car. Every turbo rotary guy says they would be 2-3 engines in by now :)

Chances are those "turbo rotary guys" didn't have their motors built & setup correctly.. ;)

60 hours . I have roadraced rotaries since 1997.

They did, and pretty much said said they got around 40-60 hours out of them if something didn't catastrophically fail.

NA it will last way longer.

That would be with a turbo engine and an 8000 rpm redline. No turbo it would last longer as with a turbo the apex seals chatter and wear the housings .When you wear 30 % of your apex seals gets really bad quick.

RacingDriver has all the data you need for fully raced motors.

On my HPDE car I'm around 9k-10k miles over the past 9-ish years. Compression was mid-high 90s last time I tested. Still hot starts and cold starts fine.

I rebuild every 20 hours on boost. Never needs anything other than soft seals, though this is with ceramics.

Interesting thread.

How many hours are people getting on na 13 pp engines, 9k redline? I understand they wear faster when you push up to 10k?
How about stock seals in a non pp kept below 8k?

Im building a new toy and have been trying to decide between lsx, 13b pp, or na 20b big street or bridge port. The how often do I rebuild has been on my mind.

Just some anecdotal stuff, Kyle Mohan completed an entire season of formula drift without tearing his 1000hp nitrous spooled turbo engine apart. They run those engines hard, even if it's for short stints.

60hrs eh?

So long as you average 100mph on the track you will get about 6,000 track miles?

Pack up that premix boys, were going to Daytona- whooooha!

:goodrebuild:

Short stints are the key there.. running it hard for a minute is very different than running on a road course for 20-30 minutes. To your question - the LSX is going to be easier to keep cool, more forgiving, cheaper on fuel, and cheap to build. You can get a pullout or a crate engine and make 500+ HP with a cam swap or buy the 376 525HP crate LS3. I'm not saying one is better than the other here, but by and large one is CHEAPER in the long run.

I agree. Also one of those options has a huge and cheap aftermarket and replacement parts supply chain.

Remove sentiment from the equation and its a no brainer.

You may as well be driving a vette lol :ugh2:

Well, that's certainly depressing. I'm at about 25 and think my compression is starting to wain :(

It is 400lbs lighter than a comparable vette. That said, if I was building a track car today, there is no better platform for the buck than a C5 vette.

We pulled apart the last engine this year ( 20b turbo, 16 psi) at about 20 hours and it looked mint. Pre mix is important as is running the right ignition timing . A lot of guys run too conservative and that creates engine damaging heat. Mazda competition mentions engine wear is exponential over 8500 rpm, especially bearings and seals.

A very close friend of mine runs almost the same spec fd with a 7 litre ls7. He's on his 3rd engine since 2010 due to tired rod bolts, tired cam springs, and the last time bad luck when the external oil pump belt came off. In racing anything can happen.

Our 20 hour engine blew an apex seal when the wastegate failed out of the blue with no warning and overboosted before the limited kicked in. It was 10 years old so I should have changed it I guess.

The 500 hp v8 compared to a 500 hp 13b turbo will be cheaper to run , better on cheap pump fuel, easier on rear tires, has torque out of the corners and in traffic, AND easier to drive, especially in the rain .

Comparing the 700 hp v8 to a 700 hp 20b turbo you'd need a fully built , big cam, hi revving LS from somone like K tech to compete. That would become a high maintenance engine and not cheap to the point that cost would be similar. Drivabilty goes away too. I love the 20b turbo as I can dial in more or less power to suit the track, cant overrev it due to a missed shift, and on low boost with the 20b torque is actually pretty good in the wet.

Wouter

Plus it just sounds amazing !

Spot on.

Altough many EFF8374 setups ive followed in road racing are extremely competitive (usually the top of their class or outright 1st place) with no issues on power out of corners with near instantaneous throttle response and same motor for many seasons... 🤷🏻*♂️ So I guess there's too many variables than to just say lsx > 13b for road racing given the build/setup is so much more important for the rotary.

There will be track layouts that naturally favor one vs the other, as well.

I agree the new turbos for the 13b are amazing and will be competitive. And there are many factors to make one work better than the other. A close ratio gearset would help a lot. In this race the LS has the edge over the 13b.


Red rx7 has a ls7, silver rx7 20b turbo. The pastel blue rx7 has a 13b turbo. All cars were driven by experienced drivers and running slicks. The 13b is this instance was not as quick as the ls7, especilally in traffic.

Omg this was an AWESOME video!! Great to see our FD's still fighting it out in racing series's like that... this race was 2010? Do they still have this series or series's like this where FD's compete!? 🏁 :) I see a lot of modern sports cars and exotics mixed with older ones too in this. And that chevy was a tube framed stock car vs REAL street car chassis'd FD tearing its ass in this race lol... awesome stuff man.. :D 👍

Well in actual racing there are rules...

So, how is the turbo rotary classed against the LS V8s?
EFR rotary loses its torque at the wheels advantage over the LS V8 around the 6 liter displacement range or over 4th gear 1:1 gear ratios (ovet ~ 140mph).

Well, think this thread has officially gone off the rails. Think i got my answer, but more data points would be useful

Now back to the Rotary vs V8 discussion.... :biggrin:

And FWIW, there's no competition between a Rotary and V8. I'd rather give a point by to a V-8 than drive one :icon_tup:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by BLUE TII

So, how is the turbo rotary classed against the LS V8s?

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Over here at least, anyone serious would laugh at the prospect of an LS, except for production classes....racing iron blocks were made for a reason they say.

Rules here are 1.8 times displacement for rotary plus a further 1.7 for turbo, except the one where the 20Bs are deemed eligible - and they end up with a 1.75 multiplier to keep under a 6 litre maximum displacement rule.

Truthfully, I'd be surprised if many good v8s would lose out to any rotary out of corners or off the start line, short of burning it all up in wheelspin, no matter the turbo.

it is, there are a LOT of factors that matter, the driver, the track, length of the races, etc etc

just to give one example, we used to race an Acura Integra, and we did sprint races, and the 25 Hours of Thunderhill.

in the sprint races the car would go about 2-3 seasons before needing any real work, but in the 25, we usually blew it up about half way through, and we had wheels falling off because the bearings (which were new and repacked with fancy grease), or in other words the duct tape at the end of the race was literally holding the car together....

actually example 2 is a Miata, and we took it to Nasa's west coast nationals, i forget the schedule, but we started practice Thursday with a 40 minute race on Sunday. out of the whole ~30 car field, 3 days of practice and qualifying meant that during the 40 minute race, something like half the field broke.

if you look, you'll see them on the side

True! Also factors are oil and water (type and temps), air temps, induction pressure. But in general....

From experience, about how many 40 minute races could someone expect to get out of a forced inducted 13B engine before a rebuild is required? 15 (10 hrs), 30 (20 hrs), 50 (33 hrs), more, less?

If the range is 10 hrs - 60 hrs depending on _________, then those factors do significantly affect lifespan and no generalization can be made.

Nice vids on this post BTW.

At least you are prepared :)

The LS is all aluminium, but taking into account that a turbo 13B is basically classed as a sub 4L engine the classing might make it hard to compete with sub 6.0 NA V8?

For the people I work with 30, roughly once a year if they're racing monthly with 2 practices, 2 qualifyings, and 2 races a weekend (one or two months off, and those qualifyings are 15 minutes, practices are 5-10 on hard throttle). Generally soft seals are the only thing replaced, then side seal springs, then side seals, then bearings. I use ceramics so the apex seals and other hard parts last for years.

if the temps aren't right anything will blow up, overheating is overheating



i'm not sure, but its not linear. the Honda will do 15 minute races nearly forever. 6 weekends a year, is 12 days, with four 15 minute sessions a day, its like 12 hours a year. and it will do that for 2-3 years, which is like 36 hours. but if you go and run that at once, like the 25, its dead halfway through, and we're limping it along. only 12 hours.

BTW a whole season of drag racing is like 15 minutes of run time, so its radically different.

and BTW 2, one of those 25's we had nothing but engine trouble and the guy next to us was running an NA FC, and that thing ran the whole time with no real trouble... (Mazda used to run the Rx8's too, and except for the one that blew an oil cooler line, they just ran like Seiko's the whole time)

My experiences are similar to Wouter's. I've gotten 2 years of abusive racing out of a 13BREW single turbo setup. That's 7 to 8 race weekends a season with each weekend being two 30-35 minute races, two 20 minute qualifying sessions, and one 20 minute practice session. So that's about 30 hours plus a couple of test days in there and some dyno time. My 13BREWs have been mild street ported with OEM apex seals and a mix of OEM bearings and race bearings. My rev limiter is set to 8000 RPM.

With the 12A bridgeport in my GT3 car, I usually have it refreshed after 10 races. This mainly is to replace the side seals and do a general once over. This motor runs ceramic apex seals and I set the rev limiter to 9500-9600 RPM; max power is at 9200 RPM. I have run one of these motors to 10,000 RPM regularly over the course of a long weekend of racing; things just wear out more quickly at these RPMs.

Guy

To be honest just rebuild before the engine starts telling you it needs a rebuild and you're good. If you wait until you've popped something the rotary isn't all that forgiving IMHO.

neither is the honda! we had one drop a valve, and it ruined the head, but it also split the block...

we had another one just detonate itself to death (the tuner advanced the timing, and it didn't add power, so he just left it = boom), it also split the block, head was savable, but barely.

and then the Miata engines are ridiculous, its like $7000 for a rebuilt one now.

You really need two. One in your car, and one being rebuilt

WHAT :crazy::crazy::crazy::crazy:

That's more the the FMV for the entire car

true! but if you want a spec miata that does 103rwhp vs 102 rwhp, it costs $$$.

in an odd quirk the Skyaktiv program was a remodel of the factory, and they do not have any Miata engine parts like heads and blocks anymore. the quirk is that the rotary engine factory didn't get touched, so they can still make new REW's...

While I always say having an A and a B engine is a good bet this isn't COMPLETELY true. The rebuilds I'm speaking of take half a day and are more of a health check/reclearance of a few parts and a soft seal replacement. It takes far longer to remove and reinstall on a street/track car. On a real race car they take about the same amount of time (the building vs removal and reinstalling that is).

Here a turbo 13b comes in at 4003cc. In longer distance races, with fuel consumption the major factor, the usual competition will be the 3 to 4 litre cars- and mostly Porches here. With a few notable exceptions, lots of those drivers couldn't drive a greasy pole up a pig's arse through corners, but they'll murder you on exit with power down and torque, especially when the car is heavy with ~100kg of fuel.

The serious 6 litre cars usually run in a sprint format series, with 20 minute races. Just the other day, this popped up
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i18U...cCAcshVUH_qG5s

don't know the guy or the competition, which is a State championship, but he seems to be running OK with the chevs at this level. The National championship for this class is dominated by the V8s, last guy who tried with a turbo bridgeport 20b and was a handy steerer, did run several seasons, but not a huge amount of success, budget usually being a much greater determining factor at that level.

To be fair, that is for a pro built motor by a top flight builder for a customer looking to be at the pointy end of the pack nationally.
I built my own SM engine for use in regional races for under $2k including machining costs. Dyno'ed 118 rwhp. I don't have the patience, time or money to race nationally. Regional motors are still a bit expensive but can be had for $3-5k depending on options.

i have about 40 track hrs on my FD, about 30k miles total so far, still going strong. making 300whp, mostly 20 min sessions, and a few 2hr sessions. interesting to note just about all of my piston race friends have gone through at least one engine in the same time. i also race two other piston cars, a subaru and a dsm, not the best examples, but both have not lasted more than 25 track hrs without spinning a bearing

Reading some recent threads on seals, think that's my issue. Aftermarket seals warping under stress of repeated sessions of WOT for 30 mins. Confirmation is pending tear down

Which ones are you running?

RXParts. Don't want to put out anything negative until the engine gets broken down

I have RXParts too. I passed 10,000 miles on my rebuild today, I don’t drive it lightly but its only seen limited track use.

If you are warping seals you have a heat issue. I would look into your egts and intake temps. Most aftermarket seals like RX Parts are designed to warp before breaking and sparing the engine internals. Stock seals will break with that kind of abuse. That being said, we have logged over 10k miles and 2 dozen track events at the 500hp level a decade ago with RX Parts seals.

Just heard from another one of my customers who frequently tracks his fd. Setup consists of a ported motor with RX Parts seals, EFR 8374, HKS Vmount, and Power FC. He has about 20k miles on the motor, with about 10k of that being track miles. He frequently runs up to 30lbs of boost on 98ron and meth injection. I have found that running too hot/too lean will warp any of the aftermarket hardened seals. However, abusing a stock seal similarly will result in breakage.

I have seen several pro turbo cars drift/ road coarse holding strong compression after 3 years of abuse. Inadequate cooling/ ducting and too small of an exhaust housing on your turbo is often culprit. Seems like a rebuild to check tolerances every 30-40,000 is not a bad idea for an engine that lives at high rpm.

Any update TomU?

Unfortunately. IRP finally got around tearing down my motor and said it's trashed. Don't have pictures yet, so don't know the extent. I thought it was warped seals, but it may have been my AI washing away all my combustion chamber lubrication. I had an externally fed OMP + 1 oz/gal pre-mix, but the AI (50/50, 500cc nozzle, opening at 7 psi) may have washed it away.

:( Very interesting. Are you planning on making any changes to the injection going forward?

TBD. Will be installing a V-mount which should take care of any AIT issues as well as Haltech ECU which may help safeguard against detonation, so not sure if AI will be needed