Rotary Engine Failure Discussion Discussion Of causes, diagnosis and prevention of engine failures

Yep...I'm 0 for 3.

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Old 04-22-2008, 12:05 AM
  #11  
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Got any data logs? What did the egts say? No sense in tuning again if you can't find the problem, if you end up building another engine. Goodluck.
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Old 04-22-2008, 02:27 AM
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SWEET RIDE
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Old 04-22-2008, 07:41 AM
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is your motor pinned?



if its done incorrectly, that could be a problem.



i love that ignition set up! wanna post up a how-to for that?
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Old 04-22-2008, 08:17 AM
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Originally Posted by 1Revvin7' post='899048
SWEET RIDE




Thanks. It might look good, but that's all it's got...Too bad it can't back it up.





Originally Posted by sen2two' post='899058' date='Apr 22 2008, 08:41 AM
is your motor pinned?



if its done incorrectly, that could be a problem.



i love that ignition set up! wanna post up a how-to for that?


Nope, no pinning or studs.



Thanks, I might do that. The ignition setup might be for sale soon, along with the rest of the parts of the car.
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Old 04-25-2008, 09:48 AM
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You have to dowel the motor, you are putting all the power through 2 dowels, 500hp through a surface area of 1sq cm, it's not enough. We dowel nearly everything especially anything over 300rwhp. We have only had one failure with a dowelled motor cracking and it didn't crack where yours cracked it cracked from the stationary gear hole up and down 70mm per side, a hit with a hammer split the plate in 2 vertically through the centre. The clutch slipped and the motor over reved and the rotor hit the housing.



Get a good dowel job and never worry about it again.
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Old 04-27-2008, 12:22 AM
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so i just built a motor, and checked tdc, and the "factory" marks were WAY off, like 30+ degrees. it looks like an untouched factory pulley assembly, but all the e shafts are the same, so it cant be.



2, if you're flattening springs its detonating....
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Old 05-14-2008, 06:15 PM
  #17  
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Originally Posted by Comitatus' post='899028' date='Apr 21 2008, 03:17 PM
Looks just like the last one (this pic is from the other thread):





No misfire that I know of, it was too loud for me to hear. I know Chris had his ear protection on, so I don't know if he could hear anything.



Probably mid-300's at 11psi, give or take.



One part in question right now, is the Mazda Racing 6-rib pulley. I'm going to compare the timing marks on it to those on the stocker.



I just don't see the timing being that off, because the car ran fine to that point. Even the night before during the same pulls on the highway, no issues.


I have little skill with boosted engines, and it is a shame to see such a huge amount of work go up in smoke. I have been able to break out a front dowel hole in a 12A NA engine, and there are few people around who can say that. I notice that you have an AN fitting in the vertical gallery adjacent to the dowel hole. Is this a boss and "O" ring fitting, or, a tapered pipe fitting?



The tapered pipe fitting is not used because of the likleyhood of cracking out the hole from stress developed when the fitting is tightened.



In my experience it takes more than a little bit of detonation to break out a dowel hole. However, just one or two preignition events will do it every time at full throttle. I would look for the lead (low voltage) wires to the coils to be separated and run from two locations as far apart as is possible. Could even be run through some dash 4 stainless braid covered hose, with the braid grounded to the chassis. The coil wires should be inductive to help limit RF radiation. The coils should be spaced apart. The high voltage wires should be kept as far apart as possible, and well away from the low voltage wires.



When there is good cylinder filling the amount of energy required to fire a plug goes way up. So one way to prevent a misfire in any kind of system is to gap the plugs real tight. My race plugs are gapped at .010" with dual MSD-6ALs. Never a misfire

up to 9,600 RPM.



You can build a TDC setup like mine and check the timing marks on the pulley and remark them as required, and even better,

bolt on the counterweight and flywheel and add the timing marks to the flywheel teeth, for a super precision timing system.

Make up a cover that has a timing pointer attached.

They do that on aircraft installations for easy timing, standing next to a spinning prop. Done on Cosworth engines as well.



My guess is that you get an occasional induced hit 180 degrees out of sync for that housing.



Another thought. One of the airplane guys uses nitrous to get his amfibious plane out of the water. He shuts off the trailing ignition to prevent detonation during the nitrous. When you think about the definition

of detonation, you could deduce that too much split on the timing could look like detonation to the boosted engine.



On a night after a hot day, the humidity is high, and the oxygen count is low. In the morning after a cool night the dew is the water vapor condensed out of the air, and the oxygen count is high. More power is available in the AM.



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Old 05-14-2008, 06:23 PM
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In my experience it takes more than a little bit of detonation to break out a dowel hole. However, just one or two preignition events will do it every time at full throttle. I would look for the lead (low voltage) wires to the coils to be separated and run from two locations as far apart as is possible. Could even be run through some dash 4 stainless braid covered hose, with the braid grounded to the chassis. The coil wires should be inductive to help limit RF radiation. The coils should be spaced apart. The high voltage wires should be kept as far apart as possible, and well away from the low voltage wires.



I should have stated here that the low voltage wires for the coils should be in individual braided hoses, never run together in the same hose.





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Old 06-01-2008, 08:56 PM
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You have two possible causes IMO:

1. detonation witch will not happen at 11 afr unless your timing is way off for the bridgeport. Verify the pully to the stock one, timing lock and unlock. U can run well with very retarded timing next time to eliminate that.



2. Missfire from being too rich, bad cas, or more likely RFI as Lynn said. I had oil on my wires once and it missfire like mad, put new wire on and it got ten times better, moved them to different position and it went away.



Week later I got one missfire at 3rd gear wot 18psi, then several more the next time b4 I cracked back dowl landing. Don't know 4 sure if it was a progressive problem then finally went or one real bad hit...btw I was at 10.5-11afr as I have run for 2 +years and thousands of boosts.



I am rebuilding it right now and found my cas to have a pretty wide gap compaired to others I have looked at-I'm hoping that is or was part of the ignition problem being so sensitive. It also doesn't help that I have a FC1000 amp too. Sometimes I would see a jump on the datalogs.



I have been told to make sure the engine will rev perfectly b4 boosting as it is a decent test for irradic firing. Data log it too for being smooth.



Also those housing look like the holes ar in different locations lol.

Was the engine fully warm when you did it in the morning?





I feel your pain. Focus on the ignition and give it another try.



Scott
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Old 06-10-2008, 07:18 PM
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What plugs were in it?
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