Why you MUST Pre-Mix.

[RX-8888]

nobody who has replied on this thread has any experience in building cars other than driving them,correct ?,sourced this from hitting the \'search\' button,okay,apart from haywood who has a shop,but nothing on the scene,so you all qualify as \'readers\' as well :cheers,not that i own anything dramatic but i read too :rollin

I guess my experience as a Mazda Parts Manager (Retail Dealer) along with my great staff on being awarded the states largest and most successful Mazda Spare Parts outlet in South Australia where I was fortunate to win a sales campaign and travel to Japan, go through the Mazda Ujina and Hofu plants was a great privilege. A few years also working at Mazda SA (Part of now Mazda Australia) in wholesale and direct communication with the factory helps also.
On top of that doing warranty claims for Rotary Rebuilds taught me little also.
And an owner of the latest RX-8 helps too.

Yes, Knowledge is good.:Thumbs-up

[RX-8888]

Here are some posts from a new member at the US RX-8 forum, (Sleepy-z), he owns a Nissan Z, but works in the new Mazda Trained and owned re-manufacturing plant in the US...
Although having never owned a Rotary, he regularly updates us on any news or comments.

Sorry guys, I was just refering to him being upset over 40-50k miles on it and it breaks down, its not designed to be a dd commuter that goes 100k miles with zero problems. You shouldn\'t buy a rx8 expecting the engine to last as long a a corolla or mazda 3, you bought a sports car and if you pile miles on it then you will have to deal with the rebuilds more often then a non sports car having problems. You should always do your research and know what your buying before you get your hands on the car, I knew I was going to be paying $1500+ for 60k mile services on my Z and would have to dremel the hell out of the intake manifolds to replace fuel injectors and limit my driving and bought a cheap dd so I wont have to face the problems as often.

BTW We shipped 380 rx8 rebuild engines this last month, we only built 360. They are estimating 450 per month in the summer, how we will build them....lots of OT which is fine with me. People are driving the rx8\'s a lot more then rx7 were driven, not to mention they sold a lot more of them apparently.

I know the engines are fine for dd, I borrow one week a month and dd it and its fine, its just risky if its your only ride unless you dont mind rentals when it needs a rebuild.

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I haven\'t heard any #\'s for the expected lifespan, I just saw about 1000 engines that came in with mileages on them under 70k probably 90% of the time on the tech sheets. Maybe its the owners I dont know, all I heard from work at the beginning from supervisors was a manual was going 100k tops and AT was around 60k miles for the engines coming.....once again though this was based on what we got in, maybe there are owners with higher miles out there and they know how to keep it going but those are just what I saw and they found from data received from the other facility.

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Well if the engine was put in before last september then it came from cat reman not mazda reman to start. The new parts can vary, housings are only replaced if they dont meet specs, you may get 1 or 2 new housings per motor. Rotors are brand new, stationary gears are used but new bearings installed on them, eccentric shafts are used 95% of the time, new oil pan, flywheel/counterweight on a AT is used but its not that important. Its just that people who buy cars view on a engine replacement is usually negative, the life of a rebuild usually wont outlive the life of the original unless there was major issues with the original build thats all.

[RX-8888]

I have seen maybe 3 or 4 100k engines come in from 04 but I haven\'t been doing receiving anymore, moved me to main assembly and wherever they need me until the new person is trained, today I built 4 then I moved over to top assembly(prep for test run) attatching all the sensors/electrical/manifolds.......I hate top assembly  . Had to vent a little.

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There is no difference in the engine/parts internally up to 2008. We inspect the parts and reuse what we can, we probably replace at least on of the housing per engine and as of right now every engine we have built has brand new rotors also. We haven\'t reused a rotor yet since they had issues with both our soda blaster and paint booth. We replaced every single bearing on the front/rear stationary gears also unless it was a very low mileage engine that had something like gasket failure. Simple rule on the bearings is if there is any copper showing its replaced. As of if there good/better then they used to be, its too early to say but the other place had too many small issues like oil leaks in weird spots and gaskets missing so they had a lot of turn around on there engines for small issues that are costly. We run the engines/compression test also and leak test them before they leave the facility. We even bought a 2004 and one of our engines in it to see how long it lasts, its still running fine with our motor.

[RX-8888]

Info here from a Mazda Trained mechanic who presently works in the Service Department of a US Mazda Dealer as a mechanic.
He owns RX-7\'s...His name is Kevin and user "teknics"

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premix from new will eliminate a large factor in the most common non-detonation or other internal "catastrophic" event. The motor obviously still has limitless ways of blowing up as someone above said, the variables are nearly infinite, but premixing will help make some of those variables harmless.

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The same rule applies to premix that applies to fuel. You want good clean premix. The oil will not clog your fuel filters, the oil can break down into just as small a particle as fuel, and is easier to push so it puts no excess strain on the pump either. Nevermind the fact that the ratio of oil particles to fuel particles will be at least near 256:1 if not above. Hell there are tons of 2-stroke engines out there that HAVE to put 2-stroke in their gas, and generally in much larger ratios (16:1 etc)....they dont have special fuel filters why would the rx need one?

Carbon deposits do NOT occur because of premix, they are PREVENTED by premix. The premix does NOT BURN, if it did you\'d get tons of blue smoke. I\'ve gone into detail about it before but basically fuel is 100x more combustible then premix oil. If the temperatures and conditions inside the combustion chamber are able to ignite the premix then something is seriously wrong. All the premix does is fully coat the rotor and rotor housing surface in a film of oil so as to PREVENT carbon from being able to cling to any surfaces. Again reference the fact that there ARE 2-stroke motors in the world, none of which suffer from carbonization problems internally and again they run larger ratios of oil:gas.

nevermind the 30+years of rotary enthusiasts running premix and not noticing either symptom you mention as a regular cause of premixing. I\'ve been premixing my vehicles for 10 years now and have yet to see one downside of premix. Hell i love cracking open a motor to rebuild or refresh after a few seasons and seeing a bright shiny housing surface staring back at me rather then a blackened, carboned, burned surface which will need replacement or if not replaced will result in loss of compression and therefore power.

Nothing except possibly the system i described, can beat the results of premixing, nothing.

edit: and in addition, robrecht is correct, injecting dirty, burned, used, and basically damaged 4-stroke oil into your motor is a bad thing. Nevermind the fact that the way it is "injected" is by dripping small drops into an engine spinning up to 9k rpm, thats 54,000r/sec try dripping a little droplet of water on something spinning that fast and tell me what type of distribution of fluid you notice, ill tell you right now it\'s going to be a thin, undistributed line of fluid, the same results you see on the interior surface of the rotor housings when rebuilding. Add to that people trying to stretch oil changes from 3k to 5k+ miles and the situation quickly deteriorates into havoc. The reason your motor oil turns black is because there are contaminants in it and it has been broken down, when this oil goes into your motor and is heated the oil survives, the contaminants burn into the rotor housings and rotor itself. Transference of contamination is the technical term.

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hopefully it helped understand the benefits. There\'s a lot of "fog" and "mystery" around premix, mostly cause as everyone has said, no one likes adding fluids to their car nevermind pouring some "mystery miracle" into their gas tank.

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Speculation? a metal seal against a metal sealing surface with insufficient lubrication on said metal surface will cause loss of ability to seal over time. This is a fact.

All Mazda OMP Systems have provided insufficient quality and insufficient distribution of lubrication of the rotor housings in ALL rotary motors. This is a fact.

Premixing 2-stroke equally distributes a protective oil layer along the entire rotor housing surface as well as the rotor and it\'s seals. This is a fact.

If you\'d like to argue the above facts I can begin snapping pictures of non-premixed motor\'s rotor housings vs. premixed engines rotor housings after tear-down. The evidence is easily visible, although I\'d prefer to show it to you in person so that I may bear witness to your head jumping up your own ass.

as for the "expert" comment....I have my official mazda rotary engine and rotary engine management systems certification, do you?

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the squirters are the fundamental flaw in the whole thing, they "drip" oil into the chamber leading to clean/lubed areas on the surface that are only a few mm\'s wide. Look at any used rotor housing that wasn\'t premixed for like 40k, youll see a bright chrome line from where the oil injectors are and the rest of the housing will be toasted.

Until the squirters can actually fully mist the oil they will not work good enough, sure you keep adding stuff on top and they\'ll work better, but theyll never do it efficient or safely until they are actual injectors.

[RX-8888]

It is incorrect to suggest the MOP engine oil supply that weeps or drips into the housings "cools" the internals of the seals as there is just not enough oil to accomplish this, as the Service Highlight say the extra nozzle is for Lubricity, just like the original 4 nozzles.

Yes the Engine Oil works in a combination with your "coolant" cooling system to cool the internals of the engine, this is why we have (like every other rotary) oil coolers in the front.

Interestingly the US Manual RX-8\'s always had 2 oil cooler radiators in the front, where our Australian Spec RX-8\'s only had the one, like the 4 port lower power Auto\'s also only had the one oil cooler radiator.

The new 2009 Manuals now all have the 2 left and right hand oil coolers, but the Auto still only has one?...this one I just don\'t understand Mazda as the Auto\'s now have the 6 Port High Power engines only (although maximum RPM is limited lower than manuals).

[Brett]

nobody who has replied on this thread has any experience in building cars other than driving them,correct ?,sourced this from hitting the \'search\' button,okay,apart from haywood who has a shop,but nothing on the scene,so you all qualify as \'readers\' as well :cheers,not that i own anything dramatic but i read too :rollin

That\'s a fairly sweeping statement, a fair few of us have a little engineering experience in one field or another :Giggle

[iaint]

What actual info don\'t you like to hear...

Whatever info you post about RX8s doesn\'t matter to me one iota I own a 7 and have no personaly investment in the 8 - all information is interesting but people just asked you to back it up with some fact which you\'ve now done!

No need to be in my face about it either, I was just asking for some real information to back up the claims!

That Mazda USA REMAN Plant are now doing 380 units a month...

That MY Dealer In Australia has done 14 engines.

That center Apex seal wear is showing up in RX-8\'s, that is why there is a new EMOP system in 2009\'s?.

That 2 stroke will help to lubricate?

None of this is anecdotal .

Actually it\'s all anecdotal until you posted the actual information from Mazda highlighting the R3 changes to the lube system.

Clearly Mazda feel the lube system could be improved on - i see 4 changes on the R3 in the PDF you supplied one of which relates to the oil nozzles (up to 3 from 2).  It\'s not evidence that there is a critical flaw in the system but that it could be improved on.

We also know that a manufacturer would only do things if they gain from it (less warranty work, more performance, better sales).  The lube changes can only be for reliability and the cost of the change (which would be large!) must be driven by a desire to see less failed units.

It certainly implies to me that there may be a problem that reveals itself under some circumstances but the numbers of remans you\'re talking about doen\'t seem all that high for the total number of 8\'s in the US or your area of OZ...

[Brett]

Does anyone have any pics to show the wear surface?

[steve garbutt]

Does anyone have any pics to show the wear surface?

Im about to pull one apart next week Brett as we have replaced an engine with the very same problem.

Ill get some pictures up when i do.

[Brett]

Thanks Steve - I\'d be interested to see what the width varience is form end to centre as well

[Rotaryguru]

Fella .... is just reading readily available information.
What people do with that info is up to them and there views.

as they say you can lead a horse to water. looking forward to hearing all the apologies from 5 pages of head in the sand comments from members who have no technical knowledge, nor have ever seen inside their engines.

[Rotaryguru]

Im about to pull one apart next week Brett as we have replaced an engine with the very same problem.

Ill get some pictures up when i do.

hang on, your business partner carl said he hadn\'t come across this? maybe you need to let him see this engine?

In my local dealership they have quite a number of RX8\'s that are over 150,000 miles on original engine\'s that are not running premix. They have had only one engine failure out of over 400 RX8\'s sold,and that was due to the car not being serviced from new for 14,000 miles.Not really Mazda\'s fault.
 Most of these cars are early ones with two oil metering feeds to the rotor housings.

[steve garbutt]

hang on, your business partner carl said he hadn\'t come across this? maybe you need to let him see this engine?

Sorry maybe i should replace the word problem with the symptoms.

The engine hasn\'t come apart yet so all we know is it was a failed coil pack that limped home and 10miles later the front rotor failed.

[steve garbutt]

Oh and Carl has never stated that hes never come across it.
He was just stating some Mazda dealership facts.

[clive]

Thank you to all of the people who have contributed very constructively to this thread as there has been very useful information that has been posted and will remain for future reference,

Sadly we are now witnessing people from other clubs looking to score brownie points and potentially goad people into arguments which as you will all be of aware is not welcome on MRC, so sadly this thread will now be closed before "guests" degenerate it further.