GuitarJunkie (Dave) claims that if "the secondary ports are smoothed and radius cut the edge it eliminates the side seal impact associated with the port closing edge. This can infinitely increase the life of the side seals and eliminate the compression loss associated with their early wear." I'm still trying to figure out rotary configurations. How else does porting help the Renesis?

I ordered the GReddy turbo kit and was thinking if it would benefit the motor if I street-ported it.

 

Although I have personally seen and played with a housing that did in fact have the side seal impact, there is no proof that every engine normally does this. The one I saw was blown up on a dyno from forced induction. This edge should be dealt with regardless but to say that porting an engine will or will not increase the life of an engine is just speculation.

The biggest thing that porting does to help the engine is to let it breathe better.

The Greddy kit was designed to work with the stock porting. While you can port it and still have great performance, the ecu tuning will be all wrong. It will have to be redone to minimize the risk of blowing it up. If you get it right, it would be damn fast.

 

As rotarygod points out everytime...tuning is the key. If you tune an engine just with a turbo it will be fast, if you tune an engine with just porting it will be fast (I'll see that soon) and if you do both will it be more difficult to tune RG? Of course it'll be hella fast but I'd like to know, as many others would I'm sure, if it's any more difficult.

 

In my opinion any performance oriented modification done to a car will shorten the engine's life span, if not directly then because it is being modified for a reason: to go faster. If the side seal issue is a real problem and is resolved by guitarjunkie's porting then theoretically yes this will lengthen the life span of the motor. Realistically I doubt the motor is going to last longer because the people that will get this modification are not doing it to increase the longevity of the motor, but to increase performance. The longest reported mileage on a 3rd gen RX-7 I have heard of was 200,000 miles. This car was an automatic and entirely stock. She must not have got the memo that porting the engine would have allowed her to get 300,000 miles out of it when everyone else was getting 60,000 :D

 

Let´s say like this... Yes, porting the side seals of the renesis MAY increase the longlivety of the engine due to the fact that it breathes better. This is ofcourse the case if you continue driving the way you were BEFORE the engine was ported. As for the second thing. Installing a turbokit without porting will surely decrease the longlivety of the engine due to the fact that no matter HOW you drive the car, the turbo puts more stress on the engine. BUT porting a turboforced renesis will increase the longlivety of the engine IF you continue to drive it the same way as before porting. The easier the renesis can breathe the less stress it put on it. Simple as that... So it all comes down to the driver really. There´s no way of saying that porting or FI will decrease or increase the life of the engine. But then again - Who installs a turbo or ports the engine and continues to drive it like it was stock? Based on this I´d say, YES, both porting and FI will shorten the longlivety of the engine.

 

But if we're trying to be technical and logical, the type of person who would be willing to purchase FI or port probably drives the car hard in the first place or he wouldn't do it. The logic you are all saying is someone who first does not drive it hard and then through divine intervention drives it rough AFTER modding the car. Whereas I think someone will be consistent before and after. Still all depends on the driver

 

Hmm..

I may get a good street port for my Turbo 8...

 

Fixed your typo...

 

:p :p :p :p

seriously.. I am thinking about it.. but that's about 6 months down the road.

 

Seriously? I bet you won´t be disapointed if you do... I´ll get the GReddy-kit this spring, and then it+ll be ported a couple of weeks later - for free! :D :D :D
WOO-HAA!!!

 

yeah, I'm serious.. the thing is I don't want my car out of commision for a week or two while they drop the engine, port, polish, and put it all back together.. not until I can pickup a beater to drive around until it's finished.

 

Thank you all for your thoughts and opinion. Since the e-Manage is locked with a security code I think I should just leave the engine alone. (Thanks RG!!!) Even though GReddy is in my backyard they wouldn't tune the e-Manage for me (no favoritism)...

 

I bought a beater for Christmas, specifically for this purpose Jon; cuz the stereo setup I'm having done is going to take a month or so. The in-laws cut me a great deal on their 94 Accord. Of course, as soon as we brought it home, I started thinking about all of the things I could do to it; that is, until my wife started beating me about the head and face. :D

 

As RG said, it is case by case. A less aggressive port would probably be the route to go on this... right now. For you philo, I would start doing research since FI is out now. Look for shops that are over-enthused and go this route to make a performance 8. Since, in the end, that is what you are going for, (albeit the street model) it would benefit you highly to wait for other people to make mistakes and say 'I wouldnt do that if I were you...' Remember:

A dumb man never learns from his mistakes.
A smart man learns from his mistakes.
A wise man learns from other peoples mistakes.

 

Oh believe me, I'm going the cautious route with this. I want to push the limits of the Renesis, but want to do so in baby steps. Turbo first.. porting 2nd..

I just want to make sure the car runs fine with the 7psi I'm running right now. Then go to a more aggressive A/F map, then hit the porting. By the time I'm ready to do it, I am almost certain others will have street ported their engines.

 

Awesome . Let me know how it goes... as I will probably be bringing up the rear with a turbo and port job . Gotta keep up with my bro's S-10

 

Congratulations, you've found the silver lining in blowing engines...its a great excuse to do the internal stuff! If a few weeks or months from now we all hear about some mysterious glitch causing your boost to rise and your motor to blow we'll know you just couldn't wait for it to happen naturally :D

jds

 

I thought MazdaManiac stated that on the e-Manage that came with the kit, it was idiot-proof aka password protection. Excuse my french but isn't that the c_ck-block. Do you think we are able to fine-tune because of that feature?

 

there are two options.. find the password and edit the maps.... or, you can clear out ALL maps and start fresh, you wouldn't need a password then

Personally, it's a PAIN in the butt to make a map from scratch. I'm not doing my tuning until I get about 500 miles on the kit, so I have a month or 2.


Also, please post any questions about the GReddy kit in the other estalished threads.. that way people don't have to look 5 places to get an answer, and your question may already be answered Thanks..

-Jon

 

this is what i was talking about.
i thought it was a myth (for the renesis anyway) until i actually saw it!

 

Wouldn't believe it till you have seen it in person would you?

 

I still don't think anyone REALLY knows what that means though, do they? At least, no one who is talking. What caused that wear, how prevalent is it under normal use, and what vintage of motor is it (i.e. an old one or a newer one...if its really showing accelerated wear under normal use, given that the solution appears to be a pretty easy and mild porting, I would have expected Mazda to make a quiet running change to deal with it on the sly).

jds

 

are there old and new renesis motors?

 

Well, I guess that's the question. But manufacturers make small running changes all the time, so it wouldn't suprise me if that were the case here.

jds

 

the more i read my writeup, the more i dislike it.
yea, i'm trying to sell it on the website, but it's a little much i think.