I'm curious. I'd like to know how many of you guys that have had the foamy gas smelling dipstick issue have had your engines flood. The reason I ask is because I saw a small spot at Rotary Performance's website under the unflood procedure for RX-7's back to 1979 (see it's not new!). I'll just copy and paste it below. I have left out an entire page so this is the very last little bit:

"Once engine has warmed up completely and battery has had some time to charge, turn engine off and restart. Engine should start normally. It is highly recommended to change the oil as soon as possible. Oil becomes heavily gasoline contaminated from the flooding." -Rotary Performance

I'm not quite sure why but is there any correlation for any of you guys? It just makes me wonder.

 

I have the foamy oil, I never smelled it, but I never flooded my car. It's in the manual about flooding and my dealer actually warned me about starting it and shutting it down immediately. This was in August.

 

Mine smells like fuel but I have never flooded. There are a couple of threads about the fuel apparently getting into the oil. Something about the oil being used to lubricate the apex seal as I understand it.

 

I was just seeing if there was a possible trend with their statement. Apparently not.

Oil does get injected into combustion chambers where it mixes with the air and gas as well as lubricating the seals. However I just don't see how gas would get back into the oil system since it isn't injected into it anywhere. There is obviously seepage around seals somewhere.

 

Mine has the foam on the dipstick, gets driven short distances in cold weather, and I think I read on an RX-7 site that those two are correlated.

My oil has a weak gas smell to it and, unless the dealers flooded it before I bought it, its never been flooded.

 

The oil in my piston engine smells like gas. Most of the problems being mentioned about the rotary happen in piston engine too am I wrong? But some problems are unique to rotary and piston engines. Every "Throw a Rod" in a rotary, its pretty common in pistion engines. Recently for recalled their truck with the new ford diesel in the because of defects they would seize the engine. Whay are people over looking things like this and just focusing on the "problems" in the rotary. There are the same amount of problems with pistion engines and there are with rotaries. People are letting this technology scare them because it is different so they point out the problems in it and for get to look a the problems that they currently use.

 

Heres my 2 cents....

I read somewhere that a rotary has something like 90% less moving parts than a piston engine (one of the rotary history websites) the technology is pretty amazing... a smaller engine with less moving parts can create an enormous amount of power... Im sure if they went into mass mass mass production and every car came with a rotary, the price would be a lot less than piston engines because (from how I see it) it would be easier to make them, and I saw a video of them putting one together and it didnt take to long... The rotary is not being created to its full potential... and with 3 or 4 rotors it can do wonders... its a new/underdeveloped/ technology, give it a chance, to expand and grow and become a more stable technology

 

jniamehr

I agree with you 100%... I want more rotaries

 

Mine smells like gas, and never flooded (unless it happened before 9 miles on the odo). It does however smell just like my Miata did a few hundred miles after an oil change... so nothing that concerns me. After do my first oil change next week I'll keep checking to see how long it takes for the gas smell to get into the oil.

 

I'm just curious how you skewed off on this tangent since this thread isn't worrying about the problems with the engine. We can't throw a rod, drop a valve, or break a piston. It would be cool if someone ever threw a rotor though! There are far less things that can go wrong with a rotary and I for one am not scared by the rotary at all. I'm just curious if the fuel in the oil smell was related to flooding since not every car has it and not every car floods. That's all.

 

I once had a '70 911E. When I first got it, the injectors leaked like they had syphylis (sp). It had a mechanical fuel pump and the injectors came on & sprayed an umbrella spray at an exact pressure and shut completely off at another pressure. So anyway, mine didn't and had to be replaced ($50 each x 6 cylinders = $300 ) and was a main reason why I overhauled the engine. The engine oil totally reeked of gasoline.

The seals refered to above, my guess, are not to be relied on as having 100% sealing effectiveness statically. They are dynamic seals and should not be relied on to keep gas out of the engine oil. Flooding will cause gas to seep past those seals and dribble to the bottom and into the oil.

I've always wondered if that foaming was gas contamination...

 

I apologize for that on reply. It just kinda upsets me that people point out problems on the rotary and don't think about the problems on pistons engines. To me the gas smell seems normal of a engine that burn..well gas.

I hope you could see my point, and I hope is didn't upset you or anyone else. The main problem I can see with rotary is it is under developed,It just kinda disturbs me to see people stay away from it because it is differnet. I love the rotary due do its simplicity, it seems more economical to me because their is only three moving parts. Now I think I will brush up on the lubrication system of the rotary to see if i am missing something.

 

Yes, I have seen the foamy oil on the dipstick and during the colder months I have found that the oil occasionally smells like gas. Though I can't say that the engine has ever "flooded" and refused to start. When the oil smells like gas I make a point of getting the oil changed. I can't imagine that it lubricates as well when it has been diluted.

I have noticed that if you drive the car hard for a few minutes the foamy oil goes away. So it seems that the cooling system may be too effective for our New England winters.

 

@1500 miles - no floods, no foam but gas smell in oil.

Checked the oil at the dealer when I picked it up w/7 miles and brought the gas smell to the attention of the service manager who said no problem.