New to the Forum and to Rotaries - Have Questions...

[speedjunkie]

^That and being boosted. NA rotaries tend to last longer. The FDs have a superheated engine bay for sure though. Radiator and whatever else you can do to cool the engine and engine bay. Dual oil coolers help too.

If you really want to sell the REW I'd like to take a look at it. I might be doing a rebuild again soon LOL, and I'm not sure what my parts will look like. They shouldn't be bad though because it doesn't have that many miles on it. I have a few things to figure out and see if it's actually the engine but I'd still like to have an extra engine rebuilt and waiting.

[boosted12a]

i need rotor housings, iron and rotors. if u have any of them PM please. I just opened my REW engine last weekend and everything is toast. my Turbo 2 lost compression in both rotors. I need parts!!!

[vierte]

Also, once you get under the MASSIVE intake manifold there's like nothing to these cars outside of the engine or in it. I'm really intrigued by these things and excited to have them. I hope I can stick with these cars better than I have in the past.

They are fascinating engines. Speed junkie and walker pretty much nailed the REW reliability issues. I also take issue with the overly complicated turbine control system going on... but a single fixes that.

As far as swapping to a newer motor.. I don't know much about 1st gens.. but it should be fairly simple. I believe the motor mounts are located differently between series tho. For EFI.. I would go straight to a standalone ecu... a megasquirt for the budget minded and knowledge hungry individuals. The stock ecu's in my opinion are pretty awful and the 20-30 year old crispy wiring harnesses don't work worth a damn... especially after the strains of a swap.

[boosted12a]

turbo 2 getting engine pulled for the 2nd time in less than 3 months ,

[ZackTheKack]

Boosted, speedjunkie, got PM's sent your way. I'm thinking I'll pull the complete, "rebuilt" engine apart, redo the o-rings, port it a bit, check everything and make sure it looks good and then I have to figure out which car to put it in. I can put it in the FC and have a second driver or I can drop it in the FB and have fun with it. I want to put a big street port on the FB because I think people would be shocked by the that thumping idle coming out of that car... But I'm not sure where to go from here. Also, for those who are curious, I'm a full time college student after I was laid off and then my business failed, so this is where I'm at, not a ton of money to dump into anything, but a bit to get by with and play with the cars a little bit. That's why I'm nervous about just dumping the engines and/or throwing one into a car I'll regret throwing it into. But I am really glad that I've found all the support here and on a couple other forums... Thank you guys.

D Walker, I'll be sending you a PM shortly... If I haven't. If I have, disregard this warning.

[ZackTheKack]

Oh, vierte, I meant to mention the standalone units. I was actually just talking it out with my friend who happens to be into cars and with one of the techs at BLP today. I was curious what the BEST standalones are. I'd like to control ignition, revs (not having a rev limiter scares the crap out of me), fuel, air (off of a wideband or MAP sensor), and monitor air/fuel, boost if I turbo it, and anything ignition related basically.

Also, I know the OMP that's on the first gens is considered to be one of the best, but is there a way to monitor and control oil injection like there is with fuel? I don't feel comfortable not monitoring and/or controlling it when there's an engine at stake. One last thing, is the oil pump replaceable before rebuild or only with one?

[D Walker]

DO NOT scrimp on the EMS. It is literally twice as important as anything else you will spend money on, because it more than anything else determines how your engine will run, and to some degree how long it will last. Avoid "bargains"- and that includes Haltec, Microtech, and a bunch of others that so many swear by but in honesty are used because of price point rather than performance. AEM, Motec, and a few others get my vote. Mostly AEM...

[D Walker]

The OMP on the FB is mechanical, it doesnt need monitoring at all and the best possible thing you can do is make sure its working (might need a rebuild kit), adjusted correctly- follow the manual, NOT internet legend, and leave it alone. Only the electronic OMP's give issues, and that actually had more to do with end user- meaning owner- and workshop errors more than anything else.

[D Walker]

I will give you some more direct answers-

Oh, vierte, I meant to mention the standalone units. I was actually just talking it out with my friend who happens to be into cars and with one of the techs at BLP today. I was curious what the BEST standalones are. I'd like to control ignition

Ignition is easy, but not really necessary if you stay carbed

revs (not having a rev limiter scares the crap out of me)

No need for a rev limiter with a rotary, nothing to bend or break really. If you really want one any MSD box will suffice.

fuel, air (off of a wideband or MAP sensor),

So the way it works is, almost any standalone can and will run a rotary at least passably well. You will need the following sensors- TPS (yeah I know Haltec says you dont have to but as usual, they are wrong), Coolant temp, Air Temp, and CAP (crank angle position), with just those you can run the engine in Alpha-N with almost any EMS out there and it will run OK, but not awesome. This is great for race cars which are either on or off throttle, but sucks for street cars where you are steady state a lot.
Speed Density, which is what I would prefer for both NA and boosted cars, will add in a MAP sensor for engine load. The OEM ecu's more or less work this way on the FD.
Adding a wideband is fine, and on ecu's like the AEM will allow open/closed loop operation just like an OEM ecu which if used properly (90% of the time not used properly) will give near OEM performance, reliability, ad *gasp* fuel economy.

and monitor air/fuel, boost if I turbo it, and anything ignition related basically.

hope I already answered this.

Also, I know the OMP that's on the first gens is considered to be one of the best, but is there a way to monitor and control oil injection like there is with fuel?

Short answer is not really, longer answer is yes, on a 13B you can convert to an S5 or newer front cover and OMP and use either the ecu to run it if it can, or there was at one time an Aussie company that made a standalone OMP controller. Honestly this is a lot of mental masturbation. Stick with the mechanical OMP, rebuilt it or buy a new one, adjust it, and if your really frisky, modify it for an external feed to use two stroke oil instead of crankcase oil, then forget about it other than to top off the tank once an awhile.

I don't feel comfortable not monitoring and/or controlling it when there's an engine at stake.

if your really paranoid about it, pre-mix as well as use the OMP, we do that with the 13B Renesis motors and it works awesome.

One last thing, is the oil pump replaceable before rebuild or only with one?

The oil pump is easily replaceable without rebuilding the motor. You have to pull the engine accessories, oil pan, and front cover off but I have pulled and inspected oil pumps with the engine in the car on FC and FD's. Once again, if you have solid oil pressure (on a verified gauge, the OEM senders can be a bit off) I would worry about many other things first. The oil pump on a 13B almost never fails unless it literally swallows half an engine bearing or other debris.

[ZackTheKack]

I was actually considering the Motec units. I want to kind of steer clear of AEM just because I have heard that they've been having a few issues with some recent products. Although, by the time I've got the cash for a standalone they'll probably have everything worked out. I basically want to rewire the entire car if possible and get through it so that I don't have those old rotten wires risking fire and/or breaking every time I have to unplug something. It's on my to do list. Just as redoing all of the vacuum lines and rubber hosing is.

[ZackTheKack]

Didn't have this refreshed when I wrote the last reply. That actually answered a plethora of questions I had. I really like the idea of the OMP using 2 stroke oil so I'm going to look into that. Until then, I'm going to run some premix at the typical 1oz:1gal ratio unless there are objections.

Also, right now, I'm running early EFI, not a carb, considered the carb and bough ID725's instead. I'm going to research Motec and AEM heavily to figure out which I would prefer.

I've also sent everyone messages who I said I would, but I'm not seeing any in the outbox. If they haven't gone through, let me know here and I'll talk to the admin (unless someone knows if there is a posting limit before messages can be sent?). Again, thank you all I really appreciate it.

[speedjunkie]

Speed junkie...pretty much nailed the REW reliability issues.

Eh, I'm not so sure about this. LOL

if your really paranoid about it, pre-mix as well as use the OMP, we do that with the 13B Renesis motors and it works awesome.


The oil pump is easily replaceable without rebuilding the motor. You have to pull the engine accessories, oil pan, and front cover off but I have pulled and inspected oil pumps with the engine in the car on FC and FD's. Once again, if you have solid oil pressure (on a verified gauge, the OEM senders can be a bit off) I would worry about many other things first. The oil pump on a 13B almost never fails unless it literally swallows half an engine bearing or other debris.

I premix .5 oz per gallon along with using the OMP, and I also have the adapter for the OMP to pull 2-cycle instead of engine oil.

Wait, are we talking about the oil pump or the oil metering pump? OMP can be removed without removing anything else, it is on the FD anyway. But the oil pump is as Don described above.

[D Walker]

I was actually considering the Motec units. I want to kind of steer clear of AEM just because I have heard that they've been having a few issues with some recent products. Although, by the time I've got the cash for a standalone they'll probably have everything worked out. I basically want to rewire the entire car if possible and get through it so that I don't have those old rotten wires risking fire and/or breaking every time I have to unplug something. It's on my to do list. Just as redoing all of the vacuum lines and rubber hosing is.

AEM works and has fantastic customer support. Most issues reported with their products are end user error. I have done some Beta testing for AEM and tend to find issues with their products no one else does, and I still recommend it over everything else and they still like me.
Motec is awesome. And expensive

[RXMiles]

On the subject of standalones, has anyone tried the Adaptronic ECU? It's a full plug and play system.