97gpGT

If anything, this break in and oil change procedure seems to err on the side of caution, which is definitely what I would do if I bought a $28k car. Can't hurt to be too careful...

Yves C.

now if you are all in doubt on what kind of oil to use on our new RX-8 you should of kept looking around. if you were interested in mazdaspeed at all you would look and look and look until you had found what i did. mazdaspeed makes the only rotory engine oil and it is for sale. Now i can't remeber exactly where i found it but i'm sure you will if you look hard enough. I think that would be the best oil to use when i receive RX-8.

kidmarc

Are you sure?

Fluid Tuner

Peace
marcus

Yves C.

i stand corrected. There is two companys that produce it then. either way. there shouldn't be so much confusion about oil if there are companys that make oil for rotarys.

Quick_lude

Does Mazdaspeed have its own refinery and chemical lab that produces additives and oil formulas? I'd like to know exactly what makes this oil "Rotary approved" and how does Mazdaspeed create this special oil?

Digisan

I think Quick_lude has a good point. I bet it's just rebadaged.

Quick_lude

Here is an answer from a molecular engineer and tribologist that posts on the "oil board" about how easy it is to create your own oil. This should parallel the needs required to create your own "rotary approved" motor oil. This is why most dealers and people like Mazdaspeed sell rebadged oil.

"Q: "Seems like theres only a few manufacturers of base oils, and the additive market is limited also. So how hard is it to create a high quality synthetic?"

A; It is rather difficult to create a full synthetic PAO or ester base oil from scratch. First you need raw materials for the PAO or ester, and then you need reactor vessels and catalyst chemicals. It gets expensive. If you go to synthetic base oil suppliers, you had better be willing to purchase 55 gallon drums at a minimum. An education or educational background in organic chemistry, tribology, mechanical engineering, and physics is a must.

Q: " Does Lubrizol have standard "packages" of additives to be mixed with the base oils?"

A: Yes, as does Ciba Geigy, RT Vanderbilt, Ethyl, etc. Many additive companies may supply a complete package or specialize in one type of additive or additives. ATF adds, for example, usually come in a package specifically designed for your base oil(s) and the ATF type, except for the new Chrysler ATF+4 catagory.

Q: "How much customization is available from the additive companies?"

A: How much do you want to pay and how many non-disclosure agreements do you want to sign?

Comment: "Seems like some of the oil marketers dont have much in the way of labs; used more for quality control rather than "research"!"

Response: Labs are used for many purposes such as for formulation, formulation analysis, testing, qualification, statistical analysis, etc. The smaller formulators may use outside labs for testing and qualification.

Creating an oil for a niche market can get expensive. It is not for the faint hearted."

hairyfrog

This thread must take the prize for most boring, ****, get-a-life thread on the whole site!

Just swap the damn oil when mazda tell yer and concentrate on DRIVING the thing!

RX-8 Zoomster

Hairy"toad",

I find this thread rather interesting. The only thing boring about this thread is reading your lame-*** comments.

By the way, GET A LIFE, away from this thread.

Efini 8

when I asked him, he was breaking in a black rx-7 3rd gen on the dyno, that had a new engine and twin turbos on it

and 2000 MILES not KM!

the post about all the technical stuff I have no clue what the hell molecular stuff means...typically oil needs vary upon rotary engines... the FD3S compared to the Renesis (forgot code its S360 or something) different applications use different oil. It may be better to use a certain oil on a Forced Induction vehicle and change the oil frequently because oil is soooo crucial to rotary engines as well as say turbo chargers for example. I know no one can for sure say you must do this about the RENESIS, but when I do get my car and will be sure to visit xs-engineering so they can check out the engine first hand and perhaps tune the car. Since I am going F.I. soon, I am going to be extra careful with oil, it after all is the blood of the engine.

Quick_lude

Efini, the point of my post was this: motor oil can be basically broken down to two parts, base stock and additives. There are only so many places you can get the base stock, the refineries. Then you add additives. That's it in a nutshell. The problem with many dealers and aftermarket people is that they don't have the facilities, infrastructure or money to develop and design their own oil. Especially NOT Mazdaspeed. So they basically buy from a bulk supplier and rebadge as their own. So unless Mazdaspeed asked one of the additive suppliers to develop a custom oil designed for the rotary, (highly unlikely) they're just selling rebadged oil.. the easiest way to tell what exactly is in the oil is to do a virgin oil analysis in a chemical lab like Blackstone or Dyson. This is done all the time by people on the oil board. If someone here is willing to get a sample of this special rotary oil and send it off for a $30 analysis then we will know what exactly is in there.

Efini 8

I realize that, its like what they do with gasoline (to an extent) I did not say there is a special rotary oil, but I believe some additives can be harmful to an engine's performance

cruxader

as I posted in another thread then found this one to be more relevant:

my dad and his co-workers forumulated the leading synthetic and one of the nonsynthetic motor oils out there (you can probably guess which one) and he tells me that there should be ABSOLUTELY NO reason that synthetic would not be better or equal to nonsynthetic for this car or any other.

in fact, most synthetics out there are actually a blend of nonsynthetic and synthetic motor oils, and chemically the only difference is that synthetic contains less particulates and debris. SAE grades both types of oil identically also, and you can mix the two at will w/o any adverse effects (besides lowering the boiling point and raising the pour point).

If anyone knows a GOOD reason for not allowing synthetic motor oil other than "the manual says so" please tell me.

ohh and whomever made that point about synthetic not sticking to porous surfaces as well...i'm not sure where you're getting your information from b/c thats not true.

The additives in synthetic and nonsynthetic for an identical brand are going to be pretty much the same, just in different amounts. So why you could use say...Castrol nonsynthetic and not Castrol Syntec would be completely beyond me.

Also, remember the last time everyone trusted Mazda about rotary engines...we got the hell-forsaken RX7 which breaks on you every 5 blocks, even with "preventive" maintanance. So until they prove otherwise i'm sticking to the engineers i know i can trust.

Efini 8

ok, so what oil are you going to use?

zoom44

it has to be burnt and the prevailing theory against synths is that they don't burn as well as the dinos






Learn about a subject before you make statements like that or you will make your self seem less than intelligent or someone who is trying to provoke an arguement.

cruxader

I would use mobil1 like i would use in any other vehicle unless someone can point out to me why its bad.

Why would motor oil need to be burnt? Thats usually a bad thing (causes deposits, carbon buildup, etc.)


As far as knowing about RX7s, i've had plenty of friends that have owned one and have had major problems with them. The ones that still have them have relegated them to track only vehicles b/c they can't afford to have a daily driver breaking down on them as often as it does. The rest of Mazda doesn't seem to have a great record either, with more reliability issues than any other major japanese car manufacturer. The Miata seems to be one of the few good vehicles they have produced, but even that has had the infamous bearing problem. If you believe otherwise, good for you. I'm just stating the opinion of me, my friends, JDPower, and other reliability statistics.

zoom44

the interior of the rotor housing is sprayed with oil for lubrication. if it doesn't burn off properly then you carbon buid up, which as you said is a bad thing.

and how many of those freinds knew what they were doing around a car? ask toadman about his seven or any of the other 1st 2nd and 3rd generation owners on this board and others who have hundreds of thousands of miles on their NA sevens. no more problems than regular cars. yes there was a problem with over heating in the twin turbo which caused Bad Things to happen. but those were corrected and mazda built them for 7 more years with no problems. and many of those actual problems stemmed from people who didn't know what they were doing trying to tweak even more power out of it.

aaarrgghhh ..... someone else want to take this? i got work to do.

wakeech

cruxader, your posts are becoming more and more trollish as you go. watch it.

the reason that oil is burnt in the wankel is that it's needed to lubricate the seals on the apices of the rotor: it's metered in through a pair of bungs in the rotor housing for the RENESIS. because the oil is dragged around the inner circumference of the rotor housings, it is burnt up during the combustion cycle.

the factory, in both race and production capacity, does not recommend the use of synthetic oils as they can contribute to carbon buildup in the engine, i wouldn't risk it.... not to mention the fact that if mineral oils get the job done, why the hell would you spend the extra money on synthetics?? with a 7L sump, that's a huge difference in cost per change... why not just use the recommended oil and change it more often, rather than waste all that money unnecessarily on synthetic, be it marginally better for the engine, or quite a bit worse...??

StealthTL

iTrader: (1)

Think you have it settled in your mind now?

Not so fast.....

We have seen the manual that clearly states "5w-20 dino".

And now if we all turn back to the page that East-Moon san posted a while back, we find the clear statement "10w-30 only" in the Japanese manual.
.
.
.
doc

cruxader

it would seem like cleaner oil would burn more cleanly and leave less deposits. Plus less would burn due to the higher boiling point, and it seems like (though I'm not familiar with the operation of the renesis) that would be a good thing since burnt oil doesn't do any good in lubrication.

For most of us, synthetics are the same performance wise as nonsynthetics. But for ppl who autocross or drive our cars hard, the higher flash points and cleanliness can make quite a bit of difference.

I don't want this to be a discussion on RX7s. I'm just stating what i've been told. Most of my friends have kept their RX7s completely stock sans maybe exhaust and intake, and took their vehicles into Mazda dealerships when problems arose. These are mostly the last gen RX7s in turbo configuration. Maybe the heat in TX has something to do with it, maybe it was the dealerships. I don't know. As far as being a troll, I'm just stating my opinion just like everyone else. I think i'm entitled to that and if you don't like it then ban me.

1stRX8

I got my RX-8 last week 7/17.

I have not been HARD on it but I have done a few heavy starts and a number of 8k revs through 2nd, 3rd, 4th. It now has 600+ miles and certainly feels good. I am taking it to the dyno in a few days to see if the break-in rule bending really affects the car.

How critical is the break-in period?

Sputnik

Please keep us posted on the dyno run.

And if the results seem way below what you should get, make sure you try a run with the DSC completely defeated. Someone recently made a dyno run and got well below what they should have gotten. There is some speculation on the DSC interupting (because the rears are spinning but the fronts aren't), and some speculation that the ECU is holding back on the power until the mileage reaches a certain level.

---jps

XUrotaryrocket

Do some homework. NA RX-7's are very reliable. I've had 3 and put well over 100,000 miles on each with no problems. A friend has a 1st. gen. with 250,000 miles. Now, the TURBO models are a different story. The added heat/cooling issues tend to cause mucho problems.

Also, Mazda makes good cars. The Millenia is rated as one of the most trouble free cars on the road. I've had many Mazdas. The only trouble I've had has been from the two FD's. The first one was at 80,000 miles and the engine was on it's way to the grave. The one I have now is fine, but I'm having some problems getting all the kinks worked out as I modify the car. The only thing that has broken on it was a power window switch and the clutch.

The main problems that RX's have are dumbass owners who don't know how to properly care for them.

vudoodoodoo

I'd change the oil every 2K miles and use dino oil. Dino oil costs less.
No break in. Drive it like you stole it.

draco067

I recently read this article on piston engine break-in:

http://www.mototuneusa.com/break_in_secrets.htm

getting past the strange and rather unprofessional format of the web page and writing style, it seems that there is a valid point to be had. my question is, does this apply to rotary engines as well? I realize that the apex seal isn't quite the same as a piston ring, but would this work in your favor or cause problems?