hoffdaddy

Hello everybody! I have an 07 model rx-8 that I traded for a beater Honda Civic. Definitely traded up, but the car had a cracked radiator and it blew white smoke and you could only roll start it. We got it up and running, it was staying cool but we had to drive it home and the cel started flashing about 20 miles out, car shut off. It suddenly overheated and burnt the oil out of it.
It is in the shop now and we have begun fixing it. The oil straighter and oil baffle were burnt to a crisp, oil pressure sensor ruined, knock sensor ruined, and we replaced the oil level sensor also. Now we have oil pressure and the car wants to run, but it has no compression. After the radiator was temporarily patched and the coolant system flushed, water pump checked, and oil coolers flushed, we tried to start it. Our worst fear was true, the car has no compression and the water seals or square seals are shooting water out the side of the engine.
I assumed it was needing a rebuild when we got it, judging from the white smoke, also it has over 150k miles on it so I'm replacing apex seals and maybe corner seals and side seals and whatever else is bad. So here starts the rebuild process, now I need help. So first, before we open it up, Is there anything I need to be aware of, anything to check, any tips?
Thanks!

niteshade247

With all you've stated you might need to just get a reman and send that one in for the core. All the damige that you've listed and all I've researched would sujest your roters and housings could be warped and out of spec. Irons might be done in too. With the oil system cooked the Eshaft is more than likely toste along with all bearings. I very much suggest having a pro look at it.

Khurram

+1 with Niteshade

but If you just bought it and drove only 20 Miles then you may as well return it. Shouldn't you be covered under some consumer protection law like if anything goes wrong you return the car within 30 days or so?

04Green

iTrader: (1)

How much did you pay for it?

Likely though, if it exploded in 20 miles,

From what you described, things likely went very wrong inside. You may have very few reusable parts. A rebuilt short block might be a heck of a lot easier.

Guns28sks

You can get reman for around 3200 which is way cheaper than fixing the damage that was done to your overheated engine. If you try to rebuild it, it could snowball really fast.

hoffdaddy

The civic I got for $1300 and I traded straight across, the lady needed wheels fast and she knew nothing about the car.
I am not buying a short block, I'll sell the car as a roller before I do that. I have gotten to look at the e shaft, oil pump, and water pump and they all looked brand new. However I only got to see the e shaft from taking the oil pan off. All the oil burnt out of it because the dipstick read add when we took off, we didn't want to put any money in it except to fix the cooling problem. It ran like a million bucks until it failsafe shut off due to no oil. I would not be surprised if a few bearings need replaces, but I doubt anythings warped. I know the water seals were on their last legs, it kinda acted like a piston engine would with a blown head gasket but ran down the road amazingly.
I will check everything though, myself, I can't really take it anywhere because I'm on a budget and I live in BFE. How do I check if anything is warped?

200.mph

iTrader: (9)

how did you see the e shaft by dropping the oil pan?

04Green

iTrader: (1)

++^^ if you can see the e-shaft from the oil pan, something horrible has happened.

If you are in for $1300, you got a lot of flexibility. Verify you cannot see the e-sharft from underneath, then go for it. There are videos and guides on the net. Go slow and share how it goes. Probably hold off on the parts until you get it apart. If you get it apart and it is completely trashed, I would bet you can part it out for what you have it in.

hoffdaddy

I don't know if I saw it or not I guess. I think it was looking up the passage of the oil straighter I saw a shiny rod that appeared to be in the center of the engine. It could have been part of the oil pump, I'm not an expert and it's been a month. Oil system is fixed and the car turns over normally just with no compression and there is normal oil pressure, I'd assume whatever I saw isn't broken, nothing appeared out of the norm looking up from the pan.

Loki

iTrader: (1)

Personally, I'd pay a bit more to get an engine built by a pro and reasonably expect it to last a while, than attempt a shadetree rebuild and have to redo it soon after.

It sounds like this engine has been through hell and while you COULD reuse parts from it, not sure you want to risk it unless you want to do another rebuild soon. Overheating = warped everything, oil starvation = scored/overheated bearings and e-shaft. 150k miles = wear and tear on the combustion chamber coatings that you cannot fix at all. Make a coffee table out of it at this point, it's not going to be a happy engine ever again.

So. I dunno man. New engine with in-spec parts ready to put in and drive or tons of your time and money replacing individual parts, possibly all of them, or using out-of-spec parts and rebuilding again in a year. This is really not like a piston engine that you can just throw new rings on and go.

But you make your own value judgement. Other things to check regardless of which way you go:
- catalytic converter health. The honeycomb must be pristine, no cracks or missing parts.
- ignition coils, leads and spark plugs. Dead coils are a leading cause of Renesis deaths, don't put old ones on your new engine.
- flush out the oil coolers. I don't know what that car has been through, but some of it is still in the oil coolers. You don't want crap in your new engine.

There are reliability mods you can make on your new engine:
- RE-medy water pump and thermostat really help with cooling
- BHR or other quality aftermarket radiator since you have to replace yours anyway.
- Sohn adapter for the oil injection system, so you can inject 2-stroke oil instead of crankcase oil.

Lots of info about all those things around the site. If you're going for a rebuild just go slow, do it right, or you'll have to do it again soon.

200.mph

iTrader: (9)

stupid question but could it be flooded? where is coolant leaking from the engine? can you post a pic. it sounds like a rebuild is in order which means replacing all seals, gaskets, oil control rings etc

hoffdaddy

I'll check the cat and I do know the spark from the coils are fantastic, spark plugs have some miles on them, but we were going to do a tune up when we got home, the car had other plans. Oil coolers are clean it's had new oil put through it and filled again with synthetic, plus we flushed the coolers and hoses. It was all very clean.
It ejects out of the places between rotors on the spark plug side, like in the crack between the rotor housings and the middle iron.