What modifications can I make to my car to make it last longer/more reliable??
Sounds like a silly question but I really want to keep the car but it has a s**t load of miles on it. Im not totally bothered about more performance as there is pleanty for me.
I was thinking things like Bigger radiator, blow off valve, catch tanks (Si is doing the bulk buy with these) etc - anything that helps. Is there any more things I could do?
Thanks (still a novice with no clue!)
First things are to change oil regularly,3000 miles or sooner if possible.Filter too.
Allways warm engine up very well before revving it hard.
Change spark plugs every 6000 miles.
Up grade radiator.
Of course there are loads of other things you can do but these are pretty important.
Kind regards
Carl
1)Dont drive it unless the sun is shining and the road is dry
2)Never ever take it to a car park
3)Never ever let it get wet
4)never feed it after midnight.
5) Only give it mineral oil and shell optimax petrol.
^)never turn the ignition on.
7)leave it in the garage all the time, use the wifes MX5.
Thanks Carl and . . . urm . . . .thanks Cycaduk! No I see what your saying though - I use it as my everyday car as I already have a toy - That said I do sod all miles a year anyway!
I had it parked undar my mates car port the other night as I have done quite oftern. Always very careful at backing out but last night.... well I could have cried, I scraped the front left arch :( . It didnt go down to the metal and i suppose its not that bad but I was gutted! Filled in the gaps where the primer is thin and will have to paint it back if I can get some of the red paint. :( :(
To be honest you can go through all the so called safety mods etc etc but at the end of the day safety mods or no safety mods engine will go at the same kind of mileage all the others do.
rgds
QuoteOriginally posted by BNA_ELLIS
To be honest you can go through all the so called safety mods etc etc but at the end of the day safety mods or no safety mods engine will go at the same kind of mileage all the others do.
rgds
I don\'t believe that to be true,
Much of how long the engine last\'s can be directly attributed to 2 things,
1 how well you maintain it.
2 how carefully/hard you drive it.
Kind regards
Carl
QuoteOriginally posted by Carl
I don\'t believe that to be true,
Much of how long the engine last\'s can be directly attributed to 2 things,
1 how well you maintain it.
2 how carefully/hard you drive it.
Kind regards
Carl
I didn\'t say anything about maintaining or driving, what I was on about is his question about safety mods to make the car last longer with or without them the engines only last a given range of mileage.
rgds
hi there
from my personal experience i must say that mods do extend your engine life.having built quit a few race winning rotaries back home in south africa the first thing is to get your engine temperature as close to 80 degrees celsius.boost your oil pressure for more lubrication also helps.we used an oil additive which actualy worked!the 330 horsepower periphal raced 7 full races winning 4 of them.we kept on going with the engine to test the endurance of the motor.end of season i just took the bearings out for inspection.there was no white metal left!but the engine was still running smoothly ,strong and started up first time.
greetings,matt
QuoteOriginally posted by Cycaduk
1)Dont drive it unless the sun is shining and the road is dry
2)Never ever take it to a car park
3)Never ever let it get wet
4)never feed it after midnight.
5) Only give it mineral oil and shell optimax petrol.
6)never turn the ignition on.
7)leave it in the garage all the time, use the wifes MX5.
Crikey, apart from number 6 and 7, that\'s scarily similar to how mine is treated. :rollin
I really should use it more, but that will have to wait until April when hopefully the weather improves :D ;)
Richard
a more drastic and costly mod and one that every car in theory should have is to lighten and blueprint/balance the whole assembly.works especialy well for rotaries!
matt
Hi Matt!
Welcome to the club,and another builder too!
I have built engines for racing like yours that have lasted ages and only the tip seals have got slightly worn.
You will be well aware of what race driving and revs can do.
Glad to have you on board.
Kind regards
Carl;)
This has got me thinking....
Would it be possible on the turbo rotaries to fit new BOV(s) that are remotely operated? E.g for normal everyday driving you could run at very low boost, when you want a bit of fun raise it back up to standard?
Is such a thing possible?
QuoteOriginally posted by Brett
This has got me thinking....
Would it be possible on the turbo rotaries to fit new BOV(s) that are remotely operated? E.g for normal everyday driving you could run at very low boost, when you want a bit of fun raise it back up to standard?
Is such a thing possible?
Hi Brett,
A blow off valve or dump valve does not control boost pressure,the wastegate does.There are many systems on the market now that enable you too run a different boost setting at the touch of a button.
The "E Boost" is one such example ,it can even run different boost in each of the gears!It is made by Turbosmart.Of course you need a decent wastegate too.
Kind regards
Carl
I was thinking wastegate, but for some reason wrote down BOV?
So would such a device require a new ECU?
I\'m most liekly going to get the thing a new ECU before long anyhow, but TBH there are times when I really dont need 260+bhp, and much prefer to keep my apex seals and housings in shape for a bit longer too!
Brett,
Assuming we are talking about a 3rd gen, a common reliability mod you may want to do is replace the plastic air separator tank (AST), old brittle ones have been known to split and dump coolant. They are usually replaced with an alloy AST. In the US it seems that the tank is frequently just eliminated but I\'m guessing that Mazda did enough research to justify it being there.
Kevin
Thanks Kevin,
It is an FD, but its got around 48,000miles on the engine so I suspect its going to go pop before too long anyway, once that happens I\'m going to go through the engine bay with a tooth comb and replace all the dodgy/old hoses and components with new ones, so its likely I\'ll do the AST then. Unless of course it starts giving my gyp, in which case it will be rectified.
:)
I think this is all good advice. Kevin is right, the easiest, cheapest, and most important mod you can do, is to replace the plastic AST with a metal one.
I believe the perceived 60k lifespan for an FD engine is codswallop!!!!
Now, it seems to me that you are taking reasonably good care of your car, and therefore its unlikely you thrash it and abuse it.
I think a new FD, driven sensibly, and properly maintained, unmodified (except for perhaps the AST) will last 100k.
Of the engines that we hear of going bad, how many were standard cars? I\'ll bet not many.
I too, used to race an RX-2 in South Africa, and here\'s what I modified - - -NOTHING! And my engines, that I built myself, lasted 5 years, and I am no mechanic!
Take any car, bounce it off the rev limiter regularly, do lots of burnouts, dont warm it up (and down) gently, start fooling around with the fuelling/Turbo/Inlet system/whatever... would you really expect more than 60K?
I think you have a long way to go before a rebuild :-)
Martiny,
I hear what your saying, but I\'ve only owned it a few weeks, so theres no telling what sort of treatment it was given in Japan. But the lack of mods on the vehicle is quite heartening.
So the AST can cause major problems then, was this fault rectified on later models?
Welcome to the way of the Rotor!
Ok, the AST is the Air Seperation Tank, and its part of the cooling system. The plastic ones eventually split, then coolant loss - BIG problem on a Rotary - dont EVER overheat it - not even once, the housings get damaged, and its rebuild time.
It is a little tank holds maybe 1/2 litre of water. If you stand looking into the engine bay, find the Intercooler - a radiator looking thingy, sort of in line with the headlights, - mounted on the top right of the Intercooler you should find the AST. See what its made of.
I dont know if Mazda updated them later on, anyone? What year is your car?
You can get a metal one from maybe ReWorx or WGT Autos. I suppose around £150 or less.
The FD is an R2 made in November 1994, has an Apexi CAT back exhaust, other than that its standard. Theres no sign of stressing on any of the tanks and expansion bottles at the mo\' but I will get a metal one made up all the same. (Because there is no way I\'m going to pay £150 for £5 worth of stainless steel and £25 of labour!)
QuoteOriginally posted by Brett
The FD is an R2 made in November 1994, has an Apexi CAT back exhaust, other than that its standard. Theres no sign of stressing on any of the tanks and expansion bottles at the mo\' but I will get a metal one made up all the same. (Because there is no way I\'m going to pay £150 for £5 worth of stainless steel and £25 of labour!)
Hi Brett,
the replacements are usually Alloy.
I can get them cheaper than that price.
Kind regards
Carl
QuoteOriginally posted by Martiny
I dont know if Mazda updated them later on, anyone? What year is your car?
Hi there, hope your pleased with your RX!
Just got my new RX, a 2002 Spirit......the AST looks exactly the same as on my 92 RX I just sold! So I guess it has never been updated by Mazda.
I might say, when I bought my 1st 3rd gen (UK), 5 years ago, it was a very close call as to whether we would actually buy one or not, after reading about the unreliability etc associated with these cars. We decided to anyway, after seeing one - looked fantastic close up! It is a quick car anyway, and we didn\'t want to have it as a money pit, so we decided to keep it standard - the only thing having been done to it was the 1st pre-cat removed, a K&N panel filter added instead of the Mazda paper one (therefore std airbox), an extra cold air pipe fed into the airbox, and a switch added to turn the fans on after the car was off (to blow cool air through the engine bay).
And to be honest, the car had been superb. It had originally gone to 82K miles before low compression, and on the rebuild it had covered an additional 40Kmiles before I sold it on. One dead battery and thats been it. Started 1st time, everytime, hot or cold, winter or summer. Never missed a beat, as they say! Over the 5 years we had it, it had been a paragon of reliability!
As Martin says, as with any vehicle, surely if you abuse it, it will fail far quicker than if you use it wisely, and enjoy it occasionally. I guess it boils down to how big are your pockets - if you can stand regular repairs etc, then reliability is maybe not a high priority so therefore abuse away! We kept ours pretty much std, and looked after it, and its still going strong today! Co-incidence? Who knows........!!
Anyway, good luck with yours, and hope it carrys on for many more 10s of Ks!
Cheers,
Andrew
QuoteOriginally posted by andrewrx7
Hi there, hope your pleased with your RX!
Just got my new RX, a 2002 Spirit......the AST looks exactly the same as on my 92 RX I just sold! So I guess it has never been updated by Mazda.
Cheers,
Andrew
Just ammended my post!Meant the replacment AST tanks,not later Mazda ones.
Kind regards
Carl
I think you gentlemen have covered it all! I have a decent fan setup on the Egi which I will copy onto the FD, it keeps the fan goins until water temperature is down below 75deg.
Carl,
How much are your AST tanks then?
The problem wasn\'t directly the ast tank it was the amount of pressure the system was pressurised to. can\'t remember jack at the mo due to serious lack of sleep but 1.2 bar I believe it was on from late 94 onwards mazda kind of did a recall of some of the bodges on earlier models and made them .9 bar.
As far as I am aware there has been no exploding ast tanks on fd\'s at this pressure but i\'m suspect some unlucky soul out there will post and prove me wrong.
rgds
Hmmmmm...mines late \'94, when I get it off of this island and back to the mainland I will get it in the workshop and hook a pressure guage up to the AST entry, and check a few other areas too. If its 1.2 I\'ll get a replacement asap, if its .9 I\'ll hold on for awhile.
Hmmmmm...mines late \'94, when I get it off of this island and back to the mainland I will get it in the workshop and hook a pressure guage up to the AST entry, and check a few other areas too. If its 1.2 I\'ll get a replacement asap, if its .9 I\'ll hold on for awhile.
the water sytem cap will have the pressure rating on it. I think it was 1.3 and changed to 0.9 bar.
I have yet to meet an FD with a genuine 100k on the original engine. Unless someone has bought it from new or has a very comprehensive history then you will never know if it was rebuilt early on its life. 60 k seems to be about the avg.
There seems little point in leaving the fans on after the engine is off as this will only cool the air in the radiator and the water will not circulate around the engine, the only time this is worth doing is if you have an electric water pump. I fitted one, they are a very good mod and allow you to turn the ignition on (and the fans) and cool the water temp down extremely quickly. (from 90 to 60 degrees in a minute or two). Good for queing at the pod!! or stand still traffic jams. Only down fall with them is the constant worry it may not be working, ie fuse blown. Sometimes not worth the paranoia as once its over heated its fduk\'d and a more expensive rebuild than normal. I suppose it may cool it down a little if the cooler water in the radiator drops and draws hot water from the engine but not a lot a would think.
Hence thats why I do a slow mile before getting home, lots of nice cool air and no load on the engine. Then about 5-10mins at idle to cool the turbos down before shut off.
I think one benefit of leaving the fans running (even without an electric water pump) is to reduce the amount of residual heat build up. IE - reduce heat soak after you have stopped the car. This would help prolong the life of the vacuum tubes, and I suspect many other things, too.
I just open the bonnet for a while if I stop after driving it hard, or after a long trip. You can force the fan to stay on by leaving the key on, with the Aircon button on.
QuoteOriginally posted by Martiny
I think one benefit of leaving the fans running (even without an electric water pump) is to reduce the amount of residual heat build up. IE - reduce heat soak after you have stopped the car. This would help prolong the life of the vacuum tubes, and I suspect many other things, too.
I just open the bonnet for a while if I stop after driving it hard, or after a long trip. You can force the fan to stay on by leaving the key on, with the Aircon button on.
Appreciate antnicuk\'s thoughts about the fans not doing anything - but what I would say is Martins comments are very true! OK, so the water is not moving through the engine, BUT with the fans running, you get an awful lot of hot air coming out of the engine bay and out from under the car. The air that is moving is absorbing heat energy, and carrying it away from the engine. As Martin suggests, this must help reduce heat soak - simple physics really. Guess in the grand scheme of things it will not be anywhere near as efficient as an electric water pump etc, but it must surely be better than nothing!
when i switch off my car at about 80deg water temp. the coolant temp rises slowly and sometimes can reach 99 deg. i always lift the bonnet and leave the key in the ignition so the fans can kick in . i am still to mod the wiring to the fans so thay work independant of the ignition switch. i was thinkin bout a elec water pump on a manual turbo timer to work as an over run pump. so so paranoid about coolant temps.
scott
The water temperature will always spike when you turn the engine off, its no longer getting a flow of air through the radiator/engine compartment, hence a nice coast home tends to ensure you\'ve cooled everything down well enough before handing things over to the turbo timer.