Warming Up an FD

[nikp]

I think that\'s pretty solid advice however gary: erring on the side of caution os no bad thing! It certainly won\'t do any harm, whereby turning off straightaway may do damge.

I should also notee that I don\'t turn it off straightaway after giving her a massive blast! I drive her gently on the way after wards! I just don\'t let her run sat in the driveway. The heat generated by the engine will just re-heat the oil anyway! (Have you felt some of the majoy components in the engine bay after a hard run? Wow! They are hot! So hot it\'s almost impossible to stick your hands on them for long periods of time!!)

[MillSpeed]

but switching the engine off will remove the heat - the engine itself will no longer produce heat, and all components will begin to gradually start to disipapet their heat to the air around.

So why does the temperature go up then? When you switch the engine off there\'s still a huge anount of energy stored in the system which now has nowhere to go since the coolant is no longer circulating. Granted, there\'s no more heat being introduced to the system, but it\'s also not being extracted either (not at any appreciable rate anyway). Don\'t forget the most efficient method of extracting heat from the system is through the radiator, into the cool air flowing through the radiator.

[jinx]

T-Rex  - you seem angry about other people’s choices by suggesting that people are excessively cautious or ill informed about the best way to cherish their car. They might be wrong but by posting their methods and experiences, they inform the browser (me) about choices owners make - the same way your reply shades the opposite view perfectly rationally. Concise, accurate answers are the province of expert opinion and books rather than the internet. This post can prove that.

Changes in the pattern of use are probably the biggest killer of old cars and most RX7’s are getting a bit long in the tooth. Add the fact that nothing dates quicker than a prestige sports car and some will have already been through the hands of owners with insufficient money to maintain them properly â€" some may be with such owners now. (It’s not a criticism - you don\'t always have the budget for your passions.)  On this basis it seems reasonable for people to exercise whatever sort of care they think works.

Does it scare people off to hear such things? As a browser myself I find it interesting, not a cause for flight. It will always be the differences that ensure the minority appeal of the car - not lack of information about how normal it is. Any non-mainstream choice, like a rotary, is harder to make. If people don’t get past the scare stories it is most likely because they don’t care to look further.  In fact if you DO look hard enough at any car/engine it can start to appear fragile. (Aston blocks ‘always’ crack between cylinders.  TR’s ‘must have’ a bigger oil pump fitted and Jaguar engines need to have oil leaks.) Like all good stories there’s a grain of truth in most of these ‘well known facts’ but they (like the 60k rotary threshold) were never meant to be universals when they started.

As to the modification thing - it is possible that so many owners have always had cars/engines with an electronic gateway to more performance, that some of the basic mechanical concepts do get passed over as givens. I’d agree that it is best to get what you already have running (and stopping) properly before ‘improvements.’

For any specific enquiry (putting aside the internet’s reputation as a storehouse only of truth and accuracy) I’m sure one of the engine builders on the site would give you an informed answer to your questions â€" off line.  Once on-line they might be a little wary that any figure they quoted would become another “well known fact”  (Albeit in total isolation from any other factor and quoted out of context for ever more until one day someone posts that their engine blew up...but its oil pressure was ‘spot on’.)

[TRex]

Jinx no need to bring my name back into it.
Seems you know not much. as for being angry, you do not know me as I am far from that.. If you paid attention on the thread you would see that because of my \'anger\' this thread has taken off and alot of good information has come out from people and it\'s a fantastic debate going on, not \'anger\'!
 rgds

[TRex]

BTW whats your post have to do with the topic..
 \'Warming up and FD?\'
 
 rgds
 Mr Angry

[TRex]

Sorry m8 you just wound me up, the debate was going fine and different views and infomation was coming out benifical for everyone and you had to divert because you are angry for something..  

[gsb876]

Sorry m8 you just wound me up, the debate was going fine and different views and infomation was coming out benifical for everyone and you had to divert because you are angry for something..  

It appears this is easy to do.

[zevans]

Play nice, chaps...

The 8\'s manual recommends idling for 30 seconds or so on a cold start, to give the oil a chance to get round all the trick bits, and that must go double for turbo cars.

And cooling down, like several have said, you need airflow for even cooling really, and it\'s not just the engine - brakes, drivetrain, cat if you have one. It\'s not just the heat-soak that\'s the problem, it\'s hot-spots developing because the parts fully exposed to cool air will cool faster than the parts in the heart of the engine bay, and that\'s how cracks and warping happen. (Esp brake rotors.)

Rotaries don\'t really do idle either, so much healthier all around if you drive off-boost (or off-aux-ports in my case) for the last few miles.

[nikp]

Don\'t forget the most efficient method of extracting heat from the system is through the radiator, into the cool air flowing through the radiator.

Sorry - not quite with you there. Don\'t take it the wrong way - just bit confused as to what you mean.

Basically a radiator is a heat exchanger. Is exchanges the heat from the coolant to the cool ar surrounding it. That\'s one of the reasons why the stock intercooler is not so good - because it is located after the radiator where only the hot air is - and that\'s why there is ducting introduced, so that the can try and get as much cool air into it as possible....

I\'m just waffling now! :p

[MillSpeed]

Ha ha, fair do\'s TRex, this place would be a lot less interesting without you around to perk people up a bit from time to time! Keep it up you crazy mofo!  

[RobbieRX-7]

SO to warm up an fd.here`s what i do.

start car and get ready with your seatbelt,cd`s and so on... takes about 30sec. Drive under 3000rmp with no boost for 10mins. After this time gradually increae boost to blow all the **** out the cat and engine.

To cool down after heavy boosting i take it easy for a good 2miles with no boost at all

 with air con switched on and the fan switch mod turned on (this way 2 fans are blowing through the rad)

after the steady drive home i park up and switch off because i know for sure that the engine has had a good cool down period.

this procedure has done me well since owning the car on the original engine with no water leaks.

[zevans]

Robbie-RX7 for president, I say!

[MillSpeed]

I was just saying that you\'re gonna shift more heat from the system by circulating coolant through the radiator and fans, than relying on convection and radiation to remove the heat from the block/turbos after you\'ve shut it down. Hot air behind the rad is good,  (well, not for the intercooler) it show\'s the rad is working. zevans made a good point, you don\'t want your coolant getting too hot after you shut the motor down, otherwise you\'ll start to get localised boiling and hot spots developing, which is defo not a good thing for a rotary. Sometimes you\'ll hear the b*stard bubbling after you shut it down.

[RobbieRX-7]

like you said before, it would be best to have an electric water pump, but on the other hand i dont fully trust electric motors for doing the job reliable ennough,SO it would be great if you could have a mechanical water and oil pump, but when you turn off the ignition, the electric water+oil pump kicks in to keep things circulating nicely..problem is that with an electric oil pump pumping oil through a non moving engine sounds a bit risky..perhaps pumping oil through the turbo lines would be better.

[Jake]

haha, yeah I\'ve got to agree with that one.  TRex posting and appearing to be slightly miffed off got me involved in this thread and I\'m glad that he did.  So thanks TRex :wave

When I was last at WGT I was speaking to Pip about the issue of cooling a rotary down after driving.  He basically said that if I\'ve been going hell for leather for a long period of time I definitely shouldn\'t just park it.  Best to give it about 5 minutes of off boost running at about 30mph if possible and then about a minute of idle before shutting off.  If you\'ve just been driving but nothing too crazy then just a bit of idle to take a bit of heat out of the turbos should be fine.  He also warned me not to overdo it as too much idling would just lead to heatsoak and do more harm than good.