j9fd3s

i agree with you 100% brian. at the last dealership i worked at our techs couldnt fix a sandwich, yet we had 100% csi several months in a row, its all about the expectations of the customers. if you tell them we cant fix your car but we can make it worse, and you fix it, they are happy, but if you say we're the best, and arent thats bad.



the other thing that dissappoints me is that i know rob can build an excellent motor, it upsets me that he's half assing stuff. thats a problem with too many of those guys that worked at almaden & oak tree in the 80's. paul is another one, but you NEVER see that kinda stuff from the other guys, brian wright, comisha etc etc

Dramon_Killer

And people wonder why the rotary engine has such a bad rep when it comes to reliability.

banzaitoyota

Well, If you believe what is told to you by PR, only ROB does the porting, AND he (ROB) is ALWAYS in the "porting room" when you try to call with a problem.

Judge Ito

Thats exactly my point. And thats the reason I have decided to help the online community. I have learned to build super reliable engines. weather they are an extended port or a wild and crazy port and still pull many good years of reliability with the right tunning out of my engines. Sometimes you have no control over bad tunning or a failure in a different aspects of the vehicle(like low fuel pressure causing a lean condition) but atleast the engine is not falling apart because the ports were not properly made and checked for proper seal clearance.

jspecracer7

WOW...I'm not the best engine porter in the world, but DAMN...that's some terrible stuff I see in those pictures.

Fd3BOOST

Has someone emailed Rob Golden and given him the chance to explain?

I have to assume that this the work of a bad employee.



Either way whomever did the work on that engine is no pro engine builder. I have only ported one in my life and it puts that one to shame.

howracer

it is ironic that the rotary is considered by some to be unreliable. granted there were initial developmental issues with apex seals etc but that was a long time ago and those issues have been long ago successfully addressed. i believe that if properly clearanced and assembled the rotary engine is more reliable than the piston engine. i think most of the root of the rotary unreliablity issue comes directly from the fundamentally flawed fd oem turbo system. it was a great design on paper but it is thermally a disaster on many levels... 72 hoses baking in an oven, 22 pounds of cast iron manifolding heated to as much as 1700 degrees baking the block which is part aluminum. so we have 22 pounds of the most heat retaining material, cast iron, heated to 1500 degrees and transmitting it's heat to one of the most heat conducting materials, aluminum. bake bake bake. in addition, the design of the manifold would make anyone owning a flowbench cry. that's why there probably isn't one oem manifold on an fd today without major heat cracks. chapter 2 of this saga is inevitable. lose an engine from heat, then junk the stock turbo system if you don't want a repeat trip to engine replacemant-land. a step in the right direction but many correct decisions need to be made re fuel supply, boost etc. many opportunities to make the wrong decision. thankfully we have the internet and the incredible resources it conveys...

as i said initially it is ironic that the rotary may be considered as a dicey engine reliability-wise. road racing has been my game. 22 seasons National SCCA racing the last 6 in gt3 running a tube frame mazda rx3. i built around 30 of my piston engines. 4 cylinders, 2 valve head, overhead cam, big weber dcoe sidedrafts... w grafted exhaust ports we made 210 hp from 122 cu in/2 liters. in order to do that we had to run a huge cam (w trick roller followers) and the valve to piston clearance was almost zero... (in order to fill the cylinder). if a valve spring were to fail at 10,000 rpm, or any valve float at all, you just can imagine the carnage that would ensue. pistons rods pieces of valvetrain all over the place.

the rotary has none of that! it just needs fuel, timing and a good port job. in 6 years of racing i had only one rotary engine failure and it was sort of expected as we elected to shorten top gear a click for qualifying making the engine run 10,300 instead of 10,000 at the bottom of the hill at the end of the road atlanta backstright. we lost an apex seal but not the motor. another telling example of rotary durability is the 24 hours of daytona. at the end of the race the piston engine cars that are still running pull in the pits and are unable to idle under 3-4000 rpm as they are completely shot... valve guide are leaking etc etc. the rotaries come in and most mazda drivers make a point of getting out of their cars and letting the motors cool down by idling... and they idle just like they did before the 24 hour race. i really agree w Judge Ito that if properly fixtured and tuned the rotary is more reliable than a piston engine and everyone in SCCA that races against the rotary knows that to be a fact. this thread is about building them right and is valuable especially if it separates the good from the shoddy builders. my point is that if you build it right and put the right support pieces on the rotary should outlast lots of highly modded piston motors.

one other point re making power w the rotary. Crispeed made a huge point recently... he said that turbo'd engine builders don't spend the time they should optimizing airflow and harmonics that NA builders do. most hp gains in NA motors come from using (air)flow benches and dynoing on engine stands so as to ascertain runner length/harmonics. most turbo guys are just looking to turn up the boost, which is o k but missing a huge amount of the total hp picture. the same harmonics, charge air coming to a halt as the intake port closes etc etc apply to the rotary.

howard coleman

j9fd3s

ive been driving rotaries for 10+ years and i have had 1 engine die on me, and it had 211k on it. my fd has 93k on the original engine, the turbos have never been off the car, neither has the upper intake.







judge: how many trannys did vosko break? 3? how many rear ends? 5? how many motors? zero? i rest my case

banzaitoyota

Rob Golden has been given many chances to correct. I choose not to have him "correct" his mistakes anymore. I still have not found evidence of the "STAGE I" oil mods I purchased with this engine. The only remedy that is acceptable to me is another engine (With a DYNO SHEET to prove it makes more than 120HP) arriving at my doorstep along with the receipts to help prove everything I paid for the FIRST time is on the engine he sends. He can also include another tranny with ALL the mods I asked for originally and he "forgot" to include.

BDC

Correct and I agree wholeheartedly here, Ito.



There's no excuse for some of the stuff I'm seeing here from these so-called "pro" shops.



B