OK. I'm off to find a thermocouple...

 

the interceptor will read IAT

..i pinged (or is it panged?) the other night during a little high speed sprint on the highway..something's awry with my boost controller, and it's creeping up very very high. luckily the limiter stopped it at 13psi, but I did get a flashing CEL. car seems fine though, starts easy and runs great. hopefully if the motor ever meets it maker, i'll have enough cash on hand for a 20B.

...yea right lol

 

So will my CANScan. My IATs are always 10°F above ambient when the car is moving. When it is standing still, all bets are off. I've seen 200°F here in Phoenix under the hood when sitting at a light. Its kinda neat to watch it drop 10°F every 3 seconds until it is back to normal. I'm sure all the plastic bits are loving it.

But the IAT is before the turbo. We want to know the temps at the outlet and the IM. That is why I need a thermocouple. I'll just go get a cheap electronic thermometer from Fry's and disembowel it. Hopefully, it will read up to 200°F.

 

or burst into flames or melt...

 

Heh. In Phoenix, anything is possible.
Though, I suspect my temps will be below the 482°F autoignition temp for polyethylene.
Though, polypropylene melts at 375°F...

 

We're all only one ping away from disaster...

I've got my XEDE set up to pull 15 degrees of timing if the boost hits 9 psi & keep the AFRs below 11:1.

I am also mixing 100 octane race gas all the time to boost my octane to 92.5+ from 91.

Still, I am ****-scared of blowing the engine again.

 

#1 - You should pull 2° per pound of boost to be safe. That means 18° at 9 PSI.
#2 - Don't throw money and time away on racing gas (you need 3 gallons of that stuff to reach 92.8 octane). Buy gallon cans of xylene from a paint supply. One gallon added to a tank full of 91 makes it 93 (xylene has a native octane of 117).
3 gallons of 100 unleaded is $21. A gallon of xylene is as low as $5 (though I've seen it as high as $14 - still cheaper and better).

 

yea..uhh..i know..i just wanted to make sure you were paying attention

 

I am no expert, but by reading some of these threads about the renesis and rotaries, it seems that they are pretty fragile engines before even adding boost. I would like to add a turbo or supercharger to my car but am having second thoughts about the whole thing now. From everything I have read it seems that rotaries are disposable engines, except the 20b.

 

Thanks for that. I feel so very enlightened.
Really.
Its as if a shroud has been lifted from my eyes and fresh spring air has lifted me to a new level of consciousness. The depth of my understanding of the rotary is at a new level and I must thank you for that. You must have thought long and hard before coming to that conclusion.
I'm sure your parents are so proud.

If I may be so bold - please, don't think I am being too greedy by asking you to elucidate us again - but what brought you to the conclusion that we needed to be so bludgeoned by the obvious so early in your tenure here on this forum?

 

couldnt have said it better myself

 

Look, no one is trying to be a smart *** about anything. You are right, my knowledge of rotaries is not that extensive, but it seems that they have more than their share of problems compared to piston engines. I know that this is a pretty broad statement, but by looking at the RX7 forums it seems that people have had their share of problems and swap in piston engines for greater reliability. Would this be a wrong statement to make? On top of that I really like my car and the engine that came with it, I would really like to modify it, but not if I am going to worry about blowing my engine everytime I drive it.

 

Pistons Suck.

 

I'm sure people say the same about rotaries, two different types of engines.

 

pistons do last longer generally speaking.

this isn't to say rotaries are disposable motors!

there are ups & downs to both.

think i've mastered how to post a completely pointless, neutral, opinion-less, and spacing filling reply.

 

naw, your toyota 1.6L engine that makes like 130 hp should last like 300k miles.

detune your renesis engine down to 80 hp and see how long it lasts... rotaries are incredibly reliable when you compare the power/displacement, with other engines.

 

Greater reliability for a piston engine that revs to 9k in a street driven car!

How many factory small block V-8's can rev to 9k and still have a factory warranty and be reliable?

 

S2000 comes to mind.

 

There was a statment made a few posts back about the compression not being able to be lowered on the Renisis motor? I was talking with a local shop, A-Spec Tuning, and they told me they can lower the compression. I also heard that the Greddy turbo is a TDO5 unit. If that is true its prolly smaller then the stock turbo on my car. Can sombody send me the specs and compressor map? Do you know what A/R of the turbine housing is?

 

go look on s2ki and see how many of them are having issues with the motor after 100,000 miles...

A well maintained stock renesis would outlast that no problem

 

There's less parts in a rotary but if one part wears out, whole engine fails. Piston engine have more parts, some parts can fail but engine still run. Let's don't start the "who has a better engine" argument.

 

your mom has the better engine

 

How many RX7 guy's are changing there engines for the S2000 2.2L Honda vtech.

Some are going with the small block V8. The rest go with a 20B.

 

Let me interject...while you may have come across a disproportionatly negative amount of information regarding rotaries and modding, you have not been very thorough in your process of evalutating the "reliability" of such efforts. Before you make such a half-assed conclusion you must first find the reasons why people are having problems, instead of just looking at the presentation and instances of these problems. As many have that have come before us in this path, and the ones that follow will continue to iterate, poor tuning is the reason for most, if not all, failures. The creator of this thread has clearly demonstrated that. Also, remember that those who yell the loudest get the most attention. This is why you have and will continue to hear mainly of the problems with people and their RX vehicles. It's only a very small sect of owners that ever get into modding, much less those that make their way into fooling around with forced-induction modding.

I could ramble on for hours. Just try to take an objective look at anything before forming an opinion and then opining in a manner that is only going to draw negative attention to yourself.

 

The rotors in the 13B's could be swapped out to lower compression ones as there were different compression ratio 13B's over the years. The Renesis has only had 1 compression ratio available. You can use Renesis rotors in a 13B but you can not use 13B rotors in a Renesis. Without getting into alot of detail you'll have to trust me on that one. The Renesis rotors are also cast very thin so if you were to machine them to a lower compression ratio, you would severely weaken them. Therefore you can not lower the compression ratio of a Renesis. A-Spec tuning shouldn't be touching any Renesis engines if they don't know this. That just scares me.