How long does a rotary engine last?
 

Please nobody bag on me hah, my friend was telling me that a rotary engine has these things in the inside that spin and he said that they need to be replaced usually 100,000 miles or something like that, if they do how much does that usually cost and would it be worth getting an rx7?

You better do some research instead of asking such general questions. Cause you're gonna get a lot of fucked up answers. Search function, FAQ sections.....

LMAO:lol:

Average is 100,00 miles with a standard deviation of 50,000 miles :D
The question is rhetorical. It's a tootsie pop, it depends on how you lick it...

Wow, this post just made my day, I gotta quote this one!!! Hahahahaha!!!!

That's about as easy to answer as how long does a piston engine last. It depends.

+1
I say, if you have to ask then you probably should get one cause you'll just end up disappointed. If you treat it right, check on it every single day, then you should be ok. Dont let anyone tell you that they arent reliable. They are the only engines that will run even while "blown". good luck bro!

alright thanks guys fuck i knew i was gonna get bagged on shit lol

I don't think it's baggin on you, at least not on my part. I think we here have all heard the too many stories of "blew up on test run" all the way to "My F[B,C,D(... maybe not D)] has 200,000 miles on it!"
Bottom line is that it all depends on a lot of variables, narrow down the question (year, maintence, previous owner secrets, etc.) and the best guess will be more accurate. And as stated before, grab a beer and read read read those FAQs. Your friend is refering to apex seals I believe and it takes a looooong time for them to wear out unless you overheat the engine or fail to keep it oiled or build up carbon in the motor. Then it is not a matter of wear so much as just part failure. In a piston engine you have a million individual failure modes; busted timing belt, spun bearing, blown head gasket, dropped valve, warped head, etc. The rotary engine has far far less failure modes but probably just as high an overall rate of failure/mile
PS any name containing "bling" especially a newbie askin "tree falling in the forest" questions is pretty much chum in a shark tank here, evil hungry laser equipped sharks.

The last one I had lasted only 211k. They normally last 300k+ as long as you don't overheat them or run them out of oil or run them pig-rich so that they carbon up and die. (And no, hitting redline will not fix that, tuning your crap so it runs well will fix that)

Note this is N/A stuff. Turbos ruin anything, turbos suck, stay away from turbos unless you like breaking things and hemhorraging from the wallet. This goes for any turbo car, actually.

This is funny, I just talked with someone today who bought an FD new, the engine blew on the test drive for unk reasons. He bought the car anyways after it got a brand new engine with a healthy discount. That new engine blew at 6k miles, and was replaced under waranty. The car now has 152K miles on engine 3 and it "runs like new".

There was a poll some months ago asking how many miles were on your original engine. There was a ton of folks well over 100k and even 200k miles! The 12A will run forever if you treat it right (change oil don't overheat it). The 13B from the 1st gen is damn near as good.

The later 13B engines used thinner apex seals, so their track record isn't as good.

By the way: if it'a turbo, all bets are off. 3rd gen engines rarely last past 80K --- often just half of that -- before a rebuild is required.

g'day all,
Let's say you have a freshly built rotor(12a/13b/20b) Then your engine will last as long as you look after it. "MAINTAINENCE" is one of the most important words involved with rotors.
The thing with the rotary engine is the inner seals aound the rotor's edge's(especailly the apex seals) there is no way to determine how long these seals will last... Thats the fuckt thing with rotarys. However these days people are making rotary engines way stronger through experience from working with 'em now and also driver's/customer's know more about 'em too and know whats involved to keep turning over ervery morning.

Bigger porting also sacrifice lifespan. Mainly the 'bigger' styles such as bridge/J/monster/periphial porting. These ports are cut out of the end plates(except periphial) and when fitted normally interfere with the water seals, which is normally the first to go in a engine with big porting.

Here in aus of here'd of some rotor engines lasting for ages. If you buy an a used engine with high k's then there is no telling what kind of life it's had and therefor no way to tell how long it'll last. You can compression test it to giveyou an insight into the seal condition etc, which is always good for abit of 'peace of mind'.

Bit of aussie info for ya, hope you enjoy and i hope it makes sense's..

Hey i just joined this forum hopin to learn a lil on rotaries...i just bought an rx7 96 Type RB "Limited Edition".....first of all can someone explain to me what makes the limited edition diff from others...secondly the rx7 it says 53k on the mileage...any tips on how to make it last longer...anything i shud know abt maintenence?:sadwavey:

Reply to an old post
 

I realize nobody is going to read this from the original post but for future readers educating themselves, my brother's '84 RX7 got 550,000+ miles out of the original engine. That being said, he was a mechanic and knew quite a bit about maintaining cars. But I saw it go that far before he sold it. He rolled the speedometer back (or changed it, I can't recall) and sold that thing with 100K miles on it. The car was in that nice of shape nobody questioned it.

So, your brother committed fraud... cool story. Another anecdote on why not to buy cars from mechanics I guess.

Or apparently from Mechanics with brothers that live in Missouri.....nice

Pretty typical
 

Yeah, that is pretty typical of my brother. You probably bought the POS. Hope you got some miles out of it.

Please go shitpost somewhere else. An FC interior is going to look pretty tired after 500k miles. Also, 500k from a rotary would be some sort of Guinness record. Your high-school friends might enjoy hearing your made-up stories, but that's not going to impress any of the people who read this forum.


For what it's worth, I think the coolant seals on my FD started failing around 70-75k miles. The car was around 13 years old at that time.

+1 pretty useless thread bump...

i do just happen to have a 1985 GS with the original engine in it, 118k, i have all the books and records, so i can prove it. this makes it 34.

the secret is to park it under a cover in the garage for 15 years....

One of my parts FBs had 280k miles on the clock so there's potential to live a long time, just a matter of doing maintenance.

One of my FD engines got about 30K (miles and dollars) on it before I paid some "tuner" to blow the turbo up and send it through the engine. :icon_tup:

the highest verifiable mileage i've seen is 320K, it was a GSL-SE that went from Santa Cruz to San Francisco every day until it died on 17. it was still on the original clutch too.

the lowest mileage i've seen was 2 blocks, mechanic and customer had an argument over something (i think a fuel additive?) mechanic was right, additive would blow up the car, but mechanic was driving.....
Highest mileage FD i've seen was 118k, car was a commuter, and had literally only had the recalls and a set of front brakes. owner sold car, and the new owner put an ecu in really badly and it caught on fire....

13 years later, spent close to $6k putting his a turbo Volvo back together after the head gasket decided to go porous.

Some people can be told, some have to piss on the electric fence, and some forget their lessons and have to piss on the electric fence every now and then as a reminder.

(and then things like last night happened with the 18psi of BOOOOOOOST and the active AWD and the Continental gumball tires and active suspension and holy crap this thing is nuts)

every volvo has a bad head gasket, that's why its reliable?

seriously every ad is like "dead motor, bad transmission, its only got 350k miles on it, so its just broken in!"

i looked into doing a replica of the V70 wagon race car, and i think it could be done very cheaply, but you'd need 3 cars, and you'd have to fix and sell two of them... you need a turbo, a stick shift, and a white wagon with no sunroof, its like turbo swapping an FC....

and lucky for you i have pics! if you're wondering why there is a Viggin in the Volvo museum, its because Volvo made the engines..

https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.rx7...6e5cf87f1c.jpg