turbostreetfighter

well guys i feel like i owe everyone and apology for what i am about to say but it has come a time in my life that i have to make a change and this car is breaking my spirits. everytime i turn around something goes wrong, i have been fighting it for about a year now and i honestly dont think that i am destined to OWN a race car of my own. it seems that all of the cars that i have built or been associated with work great but my own **** never runs!! so **** it, i have dissassembled the car and i am selling the rolling chassis with no drive train or electronics. i could go on forever about the scenario but my fingers would cramp.i had yet another 'failure' last week on the dyno that went from " it may not be that bad" to "HOLY ****,i cannot pay for this **** anymore" in about 5 minutes. lets just say that my BRAND NEW engine is toast along with my new turbos due to a bad injector.
i have an opportunity to drive and assemble a SSO turbo mustang for a fellow here locally and i think i am gonna do it, it is not my car and i dont have to pay for **** if it breaks. i love the rotary but it does not love me back so we are breaking up!!


very discouraged
MWW

crispeed

Marcus
Is this your first high powered rotary?

crispeed
87 Rx-7 TII
9.204@150.47mph
2600lbs
un-tubbed

turbostreetfighter

no, i had a beastly third gen ( 460RWHP) that i sold to buy my truck and trailer. this is my first high high h.p. methanol project. but you have to understand, the problems that i have have nothing to do with the power level of the car! it is just STUPID **** that continues to happen no matter how careful i am or how thourogh i am . the group of guys that i hang with have 8/9 second 10" tire cars and i have tuned all of them!!! which makes me look like a *** when my own **** breaks EVERYTIME i get to the track!

MWW

crispeed

Did it break at the track or dyno?

crispeed

banzaitoyota

damn!

turbostreetfighter

this time it broke on the dyno in second gear at only 24 psi!!!! i had already made one pull and did not change anything, it was the same program that i ran the previous 5.90 pass on and i did not change anything.


MWW

Marcel Burkett

Sorry to hear about your problems man , I had a few of my own an have a fair idea of how you're feeling , but every time I say **** IT !!! , I always find myself heading right back in there telling myself " many are called but few are chosen " , I think I am one of the chosen , chosen by the ROTARY ENGINE !!!!.
The share joy and pleasure I feel when driving my car more than makes up for the **** that happens , go get **** faced and give it more thaught tomorrom .

ps . A MUSTANG ? , **** MAN ? !!!! ..............

kabooski

Don't be afraid to ask for some help from other rotary racers in your state

You have lot's of Top people there in TX
Abel
Ari
Marvel speed
etc

If this your 1st time trying to build a race car
get some pointers from people that have already have experiance in the subject

start consertative in your timming
and fuel
do a pull
try a change
if you lose HP
go a bit the other way in mapping
etc

turbostreetfighter

hey man, the mustang will run the number and is already making 1200 h.p.!!! as you said many are called but i am not one of the chosen. dont ask me why. and then it comes down to the money, you cannot imagine how much money i have spent on this car....just the chassis work was almost 15k!!!!!! all chromemoly and Jerry Bickle ****....the best!! now throw in engines (many of them), tranny ,convertors electrical ****, safety **** etc etc etc the list goes on.i have got every bit of 45k in this car for ******* nothing, i would have gotten better results putting my money in the stock market!!!

MWW

Marcel Burkett

Yeah , may be but as they say "dont cry over spilled milk" , the money is already spent !!! , so what now ? ,are you going to sell out everything ?, would you recover all you've spent ? , You seem to be at the end of the road already so why give up now ? , get your injectors cleaned and try again !!!.

PS. Check your pm's!.

RICE RACING

I can understand your frustration, though I have had the immense good luck to never be plauged by "system failures" causing lost engines.

Engine development is hard enough when you are left to your own devices and directions you wish to explore, but it is even harder when luck in relation to component reliability (manufaturer related) is not on your side, and some people just plain draw the short straw no question about it.

People making comments pertaing to your need for help have no idea what you have experienced! I have know people who have lost their entire investment in an engine due to the famous $2 part failing! It's fucked how life goes sometimes but it is the way of the world.

When FAMOUS companies such as BMW back in the early 80's almost packed it in due to numerous engine failures & un drivability (traced back to electronics failure) on their turbo engine program it realy makes you wonder how the hell you can suceed, the problem is the same just on a much smaller scale, any company or idividual can "wear" a certain amount of losses, but if the potential gains are there then you persist through these "hurdles" to reap the rewards (financial or personal). BMW did this by winning the first turbo car drivers world championship in 1983!

I remember a famous quote by Gordon Murray (Brabham BMW car designer of the time) he could not believe that all of the sucess depended on a change so small to the ECU control unit that it nearly shut down the entire BMW engine program, it almost sent them broke! And it was that famous $2 part scenario combined with a parameter change that made all the difference.

**** example I know but marcus it happens to the best of companies /people. I have always said it is just not fair that small sub system problems can cause you to have massive failures of very expensive parts, it's murphy's law if it can go wrong it will go wrong!

Next time I see mr murphy, I am going to **** him up!

crispeed

Marcus
Just give it some time and you'll get over it. This is all part of the buisness. Sometimes you have to take some time out and think everything over.
Probably you were trying to start too far up the ladder too quickly.
I had a friend a local racer that went thru the same problem as you last year. New combination and too many un-tried parts. To make a long story short he broke so many parts that he was about to give up and sell everything. I told him just start over and go with the stuff that you know works. After his second time out at the track he ran his best time last weekend at the NHRA race here with a 7.86@168mph and guess what he ran all weekend without breaking stuff.
My personal opinion for you would be to put the **** back together and start slower this time. Put all the experimental stuff back on the shelf and go with the basics. Start with regular fuel and when you believe you have mastered that combination then shift over to the Methanol. I know you said it was a bad injector that cause the problem. For example on my setup I'm running a 3-channel egt to monitor everything so in the unlucky chance something like that should happen I would be better able to detect it.
Cheer up buddy! Feel free to call on the people here for advice.
If your heart is truly in the shape of a rotor like mine is you'll brush this off as a learning curve and get back on the bandwagon.

crispeed
87 RX-7 TII
9.204@150.47mph
2600lbs
un-tubbed

Marcel Burkett

You might try looking at some kind of insurance next time like , WATER INJECTION ? , dont know it might have saved you ???, good luck in whatever you decide .

AnthonyNYC

iTrader: (3)

Hey Marcus,

You probably don't remember me but we spoke a while back when I was running stock twins. I was going to promote your turbo setup about 2 years ago.

Anyway, since then I have had many mishaps. I blew about three motors for stupid reasons, just unlucky I guess. First motor blew when I was trying to tune it, my and speednyc decided to tune off a greedy air fuel gauge. ($1500 mistake ) Rebuilt it, went with another one that one blew since I overheated the motor on the way home from work, was not paying attention since I had the music blaring. My radiator popped and that was it. ($2500 mistake since I had to replace a lot of parts) Then I have a new motor, all new parts and I blew this on in under 3 weeks. I changed my oil and somehow left my drain plug loose. that motor locked up on the way to work. (another $2500 mistake) None of the parts were good. Had to replace everything.

I then rebuild the motor, took the car to Atco and ran a 11.5 first time back out! I was happy again!!! I knew I could easily run 10s now.

Next week, on my way home from work, I'm playing with a mustang, dump the clutch at about 9K rpm's and get the most wheel hop I have ever seen. My engine mount was broken at this time as well and did not change it. I am not sure if I broke the other mount when this happened. My steel braided fuel line touched my starter cable positive and I sat there and watched my car burn to the ground. I lost over $30K there. No money from the insurance company!

I was about to jump off a bridge at this point and then I posted on the forum and I got a lot of support from the members. T and R decided to help me, Judge Ito gave me a hood. Al900R also offered parts. Guys on the forum were offering anything they had to help. Before you knew it, the car was coming back together. Its now 2 am and i just finished some more work on the car so I can get the car ready for the season. I have a beautiful daughter as you do, a home in the suburbs as well as a lot of other responsibility.

Was I frustrated - Yes
Did I want to just give up - definitley
I had great friends that helped me. Lean on your friends for support. The forum members gave a lot of support, that helped me a lot also. I still get PM's on how the car is coming along.

I didn't make any quick decisions. I just let the car sit for a while over the winter until I squared away a lot of things and I am back in the game again.

My advice is to take your time, sleep on it. Think it over. I have been following your car for a long time. About a month ago, you posted you were going to the track, I made sure and follow that post to see how you did.

Whatever you decide, good luck with it but I would really like to see your rotary head down the track again!!!

Anthony

RICE RACING

Hey Marcus

I after reading Anthony's post and from knowing chris for a little while know that these guys along with my self (11 years now) have been going through many downs, but the UP's are worth it man. Especially when you consider the community of guys that are gust on this board! let alone out there in the general rotary community.

I may be wrong on this point, but I think you may be hard pressed to find this in other groups of enthusiasts. Just think man, expand on your logic and events that have happened to your race car? From what you have said it could have happened to ANY type of engine, not just a rotary.........

When you have crossed the line there seems like no way of going back, I even without ever realy having any engine failures thought about getting out of rotaries just for a change! We all think crazy **** some times, you just need to listen to crispeed and what us others are saying. take stock, sit back and reflect on what the real "issues" are. If you find that you are right and you want a change then follow that path. But please don't make a emotional decission based on LUCK & Experimentation instead of a true engineering short coming

If I realised rotaries are realy ****, I would have given up on them despite what people may think of me from my history on this forum.

Marcel Burkett

TRuE DAT brothers , TRUE DAT........!!!!!!!

HN

give the car a rest for a couple of days come back later and take a new look ,you will probably change your mind.

relvinnian

Amen to that!

I would also like to add, that I have always thought your car was one of the most beautifully crafted pieces of engineering. The rotary community needs a person with the kind of resources that you possess!

relvinnian

One thing is for sure! He will either have to **** a golden brick, or use a coupla truck turbos instead of those fancy DBBs .

93 R1

Hell yeah. You can't leave. You are one of the guys we ALL look up to. Your car is badass, and you are willing to go out on a limb and try something new just to see how it works. Thats great.

Theres alot of posts in this thread from some of the rotary people I look up to the most(you, Rice, Crispeed, and even Anthony ). I've spent hours searching around reading topics and posts and you guys have all taught me alot, indirectly. If you call it quits I think we would all lose a valuable asset to the rotary community.

Reguardless of the outcome, I wish you well

Justin

fdracer

marcus,
have you thought about building a piston rwd modified or pro class drag car? unless your name is abel, it's pretty hard to get sponsorship to even just campaign a rotary these days. look at how much dennis the menace put into his fd, and he still doesn't have the sponsors to campaign the car.

20B Junkie

Dam, and i really love your FD. The paint job is awesome, engine is amazing. First time i seen it, i couldn't wait for you to finish it and get it on the track. I feel really bad for you man. I hate it when you put so much into something, and you little or nothing out of it. Just keep trying man, unless you're financial postion at the moment isn't looking to good. Again sorry to hear that

Scalliwag

Marcus is obviously a little burned out on getting burned. That is very understandable. I would keep the car. Step back and take a breather.
Go mess with some of your machining projects and do some work for some other people. After a while that itch will start coming back and the sting will have subsided.

We're all rooting for you dude!
Mike

turbostreetfighter

thanx for all the support guys, and some of you REALLY understand what i am going through and the rest of you can only speculate what is happening, this i not my first rodeo!! it is my second race car, i have been building cars and fabbing turbo **** for almost half of my time spent on earth. my first race car was a bitch also except for at least i got a season of decent passes before it went to crap (same type ****). i am sure that ALL of you know somebody that no matter WHAT they do **** just does not work..that person is me. this is not a methanol issue , a lack of tuning issue a step back and take a break issue or anything like that. **** HAPPENS and believe me i know this. Ari has offered to step in and either buy the car or support it since he cannot run in the NHRA circuit in his normal car. this sounds great guys but what happens if i join forces with him and the same ol **** continues to happen ( which it will) ?? then Ari and i will be at ends and i dont want to lose friendships over material things, i would rather just sell the car to him or anyone else and watch my baby go down the track. it has been 2.5 years since i started this project and guys there is another scenario that some of you do not know....i am married with a 3.5 year old daughter!! so imagine what your significant other thinks when you **** off this much money on a dead end for two years!!! SHE HAS HAD IT and i cannot blame her. the mustang deal is just an opportunity for me to do what i love, I LOVE SPEED,BEING AT THE TRACK AND DRIVING!! I dont care what is under the hood.

all of the ideas that i try work, there has been no failure due to what i have done. when it breaks it is always stupid *** cheap **** or something that i had someone else do ( Mike lowe in fl). it would not matter if i switched to gas or changed anything for that matter...i am a freak of nature when it comes to situations on my own personal ****. i never have problems with other peoples **** working , only mine!
i just completed my schooling for CFT and that business is picking up all i have to do is tell people what to eat and how to work out and i get paid 50.00 per session! i have 8 clients that i train three times a week so my time is short. this is a crossroads for me and i have to make a decision..either chase this pipe dream and lose my family or stabilize my new career and have peace at home. what would you do?


MWW

streetpower

...just my luck....Marcus i will be back in houston end of April i actually need a body and chasis.... i will stop by..
But as the big guys say .....no pain no gain...keep on rotoring
sean