just blew up my rebuilt engine!!

[John Yorke]

Yet another thread that has gone off the rails, reading through this it started as a warning about after market alarms and the affect this has on the ignition system and all of a sudden we have people comming out of the woodwork poo pooing the proposition, modify any engine / car and the manufacturer will not honor the warantee so why should it be any different for an engine builder / tuner?
I have been around this forum from the beguining and seen it grow to what it is today, sometimes it seems to me there starts a witch hunt, for whatever reason which is why I have always maintained that it is better to resolve any issues in private BEFORE comming on the boards kicking up dust for all and sundry that have thier own axe to grind.
I for one can see the logic in what Max and CJR are reporting and we prehaps should maybe paying some attention to what is being said and hopefully save a few more engines going west.

[maximtaylor]

..... are implying (from what richard is saying) that a poor current to the coil pack has caused a lean condition.

This got mis-communicated somewhere in the translation

We\'re talking about a possible problem with the alarm causing an ignition misfire, nothing to do with fuelling.

[Jit]

hence why i was choosing my words carefully max....no witch hunt here....just thogutht that if thats what reworx were saying, then it sounds like crap!

[stuart wizy]

what happens to an engine when it runs rich?
what happens to an engine with a weaker spark?
overheating on any engine,
this could cause det over time.

[stuart wizy]

back in my old pushrod n/a engine days with carburetors, a weak spark would make the engine pink and overheat, run the carb to rich and it would pink and overheat after a drive,  this pinking on a turbocharged engine is  detonation.
Its the same principle

[TRex]

My question is still not answered...

 Is the 90% or so FD\'s in the UK or the world for that matter that has got an Alarm fitted, are they in dire risk of bombing?



 Like the chap above, I ain\'t shooting down anyone, a question is raised and I think needs addressing as it\'s possible hundreds if not thousands of cars are at risk of losing their engine!

 So instead of thumbing us down, just explain in simple terms for everyone the fact of these claims!

[stuart wizy]

ive never seen an alarm wired up this way so i wouldnt worry to much, you could test with a ameter or multimeter the difference what the coil pack is receiving with the alarm wire and compare it to normal wire fd, u need to measure what ampage the coil pack can draw.
It makes sense to me if the wire is smaller, the engine builder is not to blame.
The problem is the guys fitting the alarms fit them in less than an hour sometimes, and just snip away not thinking why the wire is 4mm!!!!

[stuart wizy]

also to much current draw through a small wire can cause fires!!
the wire gets red hot drawing the max it can and can sometimes melt.
My mate re wired a wiring loom on an old zodiac and it set on fire cause he used the wrong size wire, all the loom melted and set the dash on fire!!

[iaint]

My Clifford alarm allegedly disables the car via 4 different points.  Something like Fuel pump, coils, injectors and something else!  I can certainly see ho there could be problems from a 1mm wire vs a 4mm wire.

As for members and guests calling Max a liar in his recounting of his EXPERIENCES mapping many FDs - please back this up with something concrete.  

I\'ve known Max since I first got my FD and he\'s one of the most decent blokes I\'ve had the pleaseure of meeting in the scene (and there are a lot of decent people around here).  I don\'t believe he\'s dishonest or prone to exaggeration and would take what he says about this as a likely issue.  Well worth keeping in view when modding our cars.

[rx7veilside]

i think the full circumstances of the blow need to be stated ie under boost or after being on boost as a ignition misfire is more likely under high load or rpm which is why twin power kits are added to high boost engines to provide better/stronger spark but if the engine popped under no load/boost then this wld not indicate that ignition missfire wld be a prob.most good quality alarms wld maybe not use 4mm wire but wld doubt they use 1mm wire as clifford is pretty thick wire in their syst.detonation is highly unlikely in a off boost situ so maybe we could have a accurate account of the exact details that the engine popped.

[BlitzBoy]

Hopefully only the the tips need replacing, cant see why the housings will need to be changed if changed recently.

Anyway we dont know the real cause until the engine is stripped.
One failure I had was where the oil injection on the rear rotor failed and caused the tips to warp and lead to loss in compression, intially I though it was det that caused it but I was wrong , so fingers crossed for you mate that only your tips need replacing

[dr3]

I had an engine blow up after an reworx rebuild and mapping session. They suggested it was due to the alarm, it actually turned out to be due to the wastegate actuator bracket being bent (engine came from written off car in Japan) therefore not opening it fully and cuasing a boost spike!
They helped me out big time at Reworx with the rebuild and rewired my alarm for me for free too.
I still can\'t get my head around how interfearing with the coil pack makes the engine run lean, but Geoff does know his stuff, so he must know something we don\'t!

[nikp]

I still can\'t get my head around how interfearing with the coil pack makes the engine run lean

He didn\'t say it ran lean! He said it misfired! And he did say people were also mis-reading what he wrote.

[antnicuk]

Hopefully only the the tips need replacing, cant see why the housings will need to be changed if changed recently.

Anyway we dont know the real cause until the engine is stripped.
One failure I had was where the oil injection on the rear rotor failed and caused the tips to warp and lead to loss in compression, intially I though it was det that caused it but I was wrong , so fingers crossed for you mate that only your tips need replacing

if it did detonate it may have caused damage to the housings as the tip makes it way of the engine, and it may damage the turbo also.

I had an engine fail for exactly the same reason, oil injection failed and jammed a tip....

I\'m afraid pulling the engine apart is unlikely to show what killed it,  if it detonated it could be for so many reasons,   coils, plugs, injectors, vacume pipe, map sensor, air temp sensor, too much boost, cheap fuel, wastegate, boost controller.   Unless while stripping it you find a pipe to the wastegate off or something as obvious, then you wont find out what caused it,  but Richard needs to check all h can before he justs rebuilds it to ensure it doesnt happen again.

As for the alarm,   its seems quite straight forward to me,  all new alarm wiring i have seen is very thin,  but this may not be the only problem,  the alarm box that cuts the power to the coils also makes the connection to enable them to work, if this connection is made through a small circuit board then it just wont carry the current. It should be run through a decent relay.

 We all know RX7s need massive ignition current compared with other cars, the stock FD ignition needs uprating over about 1 bar (generally).  If your car runs rich then it will get hotter,  you can see the EGT\'s go through the roof if the car is running rich and the turbo will glow red more than usual.

On the 20b FD the ignition was failing at higher boost on the rollers, so ReWorx replaced the wiring on the alarm to the coils to cure it.  That is a brand new clifford.

It is so easy to kill a rotary engine running high boost,  if you were building an engine would you give a warranty when the owner wants it as fast as possible and there is little knob on the boost controller next to the stereo that will tweak the boost just a little cos they think it will make it go faster and cant make that much difference...............   these things arnt like a piston engine, there is no margin for error.  Any changes at all to my car, and i have mapped,  :WaveBye

[Laeeq]

Guys, the more i read about this alarm wire killing your engine, more im ****ting myself.  Could someone here tell us all; what and where this time bomb wire is so we can all check and may replace it.....:mad: