Hi everyone. I'm sorry to make this, my first post, a difficult one and also an appeal for help. I'm writing from a shop in Boston, we do a lot of work on import cars but not much rotary work. I'm a former rotary owner myself but never delved deeply into engine work.



We have a customer car here that had a coolant seal failure which required a rebuild. We determined that the seal failure was impossible to fix (it was leaking into the trans bellhousing) and this was affirmed by a friend of ours who is experienced with rotaries.





Anyway, we had an engine built by Rx7store and shipped to us. We did very little to it in terms of modifications, simple bolt on intake from HKS and an exhaust during the re-install. I should mention that while our rotary experience is limited that we're an extremely careful group of techs and by that I mean that I don't think that we made any mistakes (ie: dropping foreign objects into the engine etc..) during the install.



Last night we filled the finished motor with fluids, filled the transmission and PS reservoir and decided to sleep on it and check it over once more in the AM. This morning we went over everything once more, turned the engine over by hand (something we always do with piston motors to be sure there's no interference) and everything checked out fine.



After this we started it and ran it for about 8 seconds. The car ran fine and the shop was filled with a little more smoke than we expected. We shut the car off to get back under and inspect for leaks. After lunch we went back to the car and turned it over, started it again and it ran again, this time making a loud clunk which prompted our tech to shut the car down immediately. We went in with a wrench to turn it over again and now, turning the engine in the Clockwise direction it turns fine, but in the CCW direction (which is the motor's natural direction, the crank stops at the same place on a mechanical stop point every time.



The clutch is pressed in, the transmission is in neutral. We feel like the interference is in the motor as the "feel' is more pronounced through the wrench which turns the crank as well as the dull thud noise that accompanies the mechanical stop.



Finally, and this is a long post, I apologize, there's a leak coming from what seems to be behind the turbos, leaking coolant through the exhaust gasket onto the ground, as if it were coming out of the engine and into the turbine housing.



We turn the motor in the clockwise direction with the intercooler boot off and we can hear a slushing of water resonating through the pipe.



Please help with guidance on potential problems, maybe some tips on how to narrow the problem down and how we should deal with this with the engine vendor should it turn out to be their fault.



Thanks



Alex Grabau

www.dentsport.com

Well first off the smoke at start up can generally be dismissed as the buring off of the assembly lubes. The engines are usually packed pretty well with Vasoline and oil when they assmeble them to keep the parts from grinding on the intial start up till oil pressure is built.



The coolant leak is hard to say. There are a few lines around the back side there that might just be loose. I would check them and pressure test the coolant system.



As far as the engine not cranking over. I couldn't say. I have not done enough installs to know if that is normal or not. I would guess that it should only turn in one direction once you have the trans and drive shaft all bolted up.



I will say that I had a similar noise once after installing an engine in my car and it turned out that the clutch slave cylinder poped out of the boot and was boucing around in the bell housing. That was a simple fix. The slave cylinder is located on the drivers side on the bell housing just above the starter. You can pop off the trans inspection panel and have a quick peek.



Anyway best of luck.

I am a little confused on the clockwise/counter clockwise thing, putting a wrench on the main pulley facing the engine, clockwise is it's natural direction, it shouldn't rotate backwards or counterclockwise, very well at all.

Guys, thanks for the fast replies. Our present status is that we've removed the intake manifold as well as the spark plugs. After removing the plugs we see that when turning the motor over by hand that coolant shoots out of the spark plug holes. where's the smiley for that... umm.. https://www.nopistons.com/forums/pub...IR



So one question, there's probably a couple of potential problems, one that a seal was left out of the engine or something, two is that we made a mistake and hooked up a vac line to a coolant line or vice versa. We were looking below the oil pressure sender at what looks to be the heater core hose exit from the engine and thought that it's the only possible hose to "mess up" Can I get confirmation that the hose on the engine right below the oil pressure sender is for the heater core? We're like 99% sure. Any other suggestions would be helpful. We called RX7 Store and they've been very cool so far.



Alex

Yes that line is heater core. You guys got a **** engine from the way it sounds now.

I suspect so too at this point. I'm very reluctant to come out blaming other people so I was hesitant.



http://www.dentsport.com/wit.avi

yeah, that aint normal



just for ****'s sake, you didnt pour coolant down the oil fill neck did ya?

Nope. Believe me we didn't rule anything out.

I agree about the **** engine. Buying rebuilds from places is hit and miss. Honestly you should have done some research before purchasing a motor. I know alot of people have had some problems with rx-7store.net and its owner. I sure hope you can get it fixed or get another motor free of charge.



Good Luck

You guys would have been best off to buy a reman from Mazda.

What's the price of a reman? We may ask for a refund after sending this one back.

Looks to me like one of the side housing could have cracked or broke. Which would not be the installers fault. It would be from using faulty parts in the rebuild. I have seen that happen a couple of times from motors I pulled apart to get good parts from. Good luck in dealing w/ the rebuilder. I hope they treat you the correct way.

I've seen them around $2,500-$3,000

Guys, to follow up on this about a month later, we sent the engine back and the company took good care of honoring their warranty. They completed the work fixing what they told us was a cracked housing, that they missed during the first build. The engine is back, in the car and running.



I have one question now. There's some good smoke on warm up, not blue like oil but more white, like coolant but it doesn't smell like coolant. The smoke subsides once the car is warmed up. The car is catless and I wonder if this is the normal behavior of the rotary since I'm experienced with piston motors moreso than rotaries.



Finally, we set the boost to a conservative 7 psi now after porting and doing the sequential turbo elimination until the car is tuned with a Power FC. After being on the boost and letting off there's a substantial amount of smokescreen for about 5 seconds. The turbos were visually very worn, no shaft play persae but the turbine housings were cracked and they both looked quite worn. I wonder if the seals on the turbos are failing and causing both smoke issues. Any thoughts? Engine issues again? Just paranoid.



Alex

How the hell do you miss that?!?!

There is usually a little smoke from rotaries at start up. Especially if there is no cat. Just make sure its not coolant. It sounds like the turbos to me as well on the other smoke issues. Glad to hear they did you right. Good luck.

The smoke at startup is normal expessaly if you live in a cold, wet climate. During the fall and spring it happens to me every startup.

Thanks guys. I think everything's fine. We "missed that" because we didn't build the engine and something was cracked in the waterjacket, something that's not visible from the outside of the engine.

"U" refered to the place that built your motor. It should never be a hit and miss as mention when buying motors , most companies I see are even half assing ****. This should have never happend, people should be paying careful attention to a motor they are building...

Yeah, missing a cracked housing is like pretty rediculous.



at least they honored their warrentee

Its no wonder so many rx7s blow up.............

I get smoke on start up also until the engines warm and under heavy acceleration while on boost.