Just looked at an R3 to potentially purchase. Cold and hot start were good. But after sitting at idle talking to the guy selling it started to smoke a fair amount, it’s the blue white oil smoke. Had quite a bit when he left but by the time he got to the traffic light it stopped. Not sure if that’s normal. Any advice would be excellent.

 

Rotary engines are designed to burn oil to a degree. It could be a heavy premix the guy put in the tank. I doubt a dealer would premix the gas. You said blue/white? How blue is it? Every now and again mine will do that (more white than blue) but I generally mix fuel treatment in my premix to keep the carbon down.

 

min aware that they burn a certain amount but i haven’t seen much about this. It was typical color for burning oil. The car has a gutted catalytic converter.

 

Normal oil injection doesn't produce smoke. How fast are you burning through oil?
Check if the intake tract has oil in it. Common for blowby to force oil up into the intake on a tired engine.

 

unfortunately the gentleman lives 2.5 hours away and I can’t really check those things with out going to look at it again. Which is difficult for me. The car is very very clean inside and out. Seems very well maintained. He was knowledgable about all the common rotary facts. The cat was clogged and he had it gutted. He said it has done that since the procedure was done. Car has 88k on the odometer and it’s reaching that critical mileage range. So I’m just trying to figure out if the oil metering on the series 2 at idle is building enough oil up to cause smoke because the car isn’t under any load. With a catalytic converter that smoke may be mitigated if it is normal. It wasn’t an insane amount but it was noticeable. I haven’t test driven any with no cat yet. So I don’t have experience with it and don’t wanna buy a car on the verge of a rebuild.

 

Too suspect for me
man. My car has a midpipe and doesn’t do that. I’d just pass on that one

 

Isn’t yours a series one? My hope is that it’s an issue with fueling vs the S2 beefed up oil metering maybe not getting enough fuel to burn all of the oil off. Which might explain why it was only happening after idling and completely dissipated under load. My worry is that it’s an issue with the side seals. The car has good compression. I’m gonna call my local rotary shop and talk to them tomorrow. They open at 10:30. I’ll let you guys know. If it’s a major issue I’ll pass. If it’s something non catastrophic I’ll make a post about it ASAP so that people can search it out and reference it in the future if they run into something similar and I’ll buy the car and make a post about that as well lol.

 

Yeah it’s the last of the series I. That could have something to do with it, as I don’t have a series II I wouldn’t be familiar. I do have a tune that increases omp output but I don’t have that 3rd injector so I premix on the heavy side (closer to 1 oz per gallon)
Sounds like a private sale. Did you ask if he premix? Best thing forsure is to visit a rotary shop as they can give the most valuable opinion. They will probably want to see it
too.

edit: now that I actually think about it, premix wouldn’t matter. It’s designed to burn, hence wouldn’t burn blue per se.

 

This is not a thing. If the car is smoking, something is wrong with it.

That something maaaaay be minor, but at this point I would need compression test results or some other confirmation that it is NOT something major.

Also the S2 injection system doesn't inject more oil, it injects it differently. That's all.

 

This. Don’t buy a headache unless you want to learn to rebuild potentially.

Thanks for Clarifying Loki

 

So in other word it’s a hard pass. I wanna learn to rebuild I just wanna get some time with the car working first. I’m technically minded in general. I’ll have him take the car to our local rotary specialty shop to diagnose if I even consider it at this point. My heart isn’t in it anyway. I want black or white honestly. And I’d rather have blue than red at any rate. They’re just only available in the states in black for 1 year, and importing one from Canada is an option but I need to kinda line up the needed parts first.

 

Normal oil injection will NOT cause smoke.
Below is my modified OMP table vs stock OMP table. On top of that I still run premix ( 250ml for a tank of gas). No visible smoke besides condensation.

 

I have an R3. It has a midpipe and a catback and it's premixed. It does not smoke. It smells, but it doesn't smoke. A little on cold start is normal. But when hot there's nothing. Especially when idling.

 

This isn’t constant at idle. It’s only happened after sitting there running, while hot, for about 10 to 15 minutes. So it’s a hyper specific situation. Also I’ve seen your car listed on car gurus and it’s basically brand new still lol. I’m also in Ohio Dayton area if you ever wanted to meet up for a cruise or something once I get my Rx8 lol.

 

I'm by Cleveland lol. I don't make it out to Dayton with my car. I used to have a 2007 too that I tracked and auto crossed and it didn't smoke either.

 

So I talked to guy and he offered me that car at $6k. I accepted. My local import specialist has a few Japanese 6port engines for reasonable price with a warranty. May go that route. Picking the car up today.

 

well as long as you like the color and it’s clean inside and out enjoy it till it doesn’t want to start anymore.
a little smoke never hurt too much. It might be the fact it’s a gutted catalyst on there. Just look for a used mid pipe or drop the 450 for a new BHR. Might still have a bit of life left

 

I’ve got an agency power exhaust on the way. Mid pipe include. I’ll let everyone know if that fixes or helps at all even. Thanks for the support.

 

Congrats on the purchase.
He has 'a few' 6 port series 2 engines in good condition from a japanese importer? They're not exactly unobtainium, but just double check they're series 2. You can't use an S1 engine.

 

just went to his shop and checked it out. He has 0 series 2 lol. I was just quoting him. I found one on eBay might try to nab that one. Also might sell my bike to just get a full rebuild with all the bits inside lightened once it starts to give me actual trouble. The car cold starts and hot starts perfectly. Still waiting on midpipe to see if that fixes the smoking issue.

 

Does it smoke the whole time? Or does it go away? It sounds to me like a coolant seal. Ask the buyer how heavy he premixed. The S2 doesn't need any premix, but it doesn't hurt. I premix very lightly. Half ounce per gallon of fuel. But some do 1 or more ounce per gallon.

 

No it literally ONLY smokes when it has sat at idle for 10-15. It immediately dissipates when the car is under load. My theory is that the little bit of smoke you normally don’t see is collecting in the unusual chamber of the gutted cat, and isn’t being pushed out because at idle it’s not got enough push to dissipate what builds in that chamber. Hoping the mid pipe I purchased will remedy it. If not I’ll be preparing for an inevitable rebuild. The gentleman didn’t premix at all as far as I know. He didn’t mention it. He just gave me the oil change records from himself and the first owner. Both did their changes at a dealer every 3k or before. All of you guys that have commented have said “I have a mid pipe and mine.....” so I’m still holding out hope lol. He literally had a shop pull the cat off and cut out all of the honey comb inside because it was showing signs of clogging. He was pretty meticulous, the car has 88k and looks almost new. The only clues it’s been driven over like 30k at all are a few rock chips on the front and the bolsters have some wear. I’ll let everyone know once I get my mid pipe.

 

Idling is the devil lol. Mine NEVER idles that long. It idles sitting at a light, and maybe 20 seconds after startup while I put on my seatbelt and get situated.

Letting a car idle till it's warm is bad for every street car, not just rotaries.

And you don't have to rev it up right before shutdown either.

You can shut it off cold.

 

Warm ups are a relic of carburetors. Modern fuel injected cars are better off being driven to warm up for sure. I intentionally left it idle when talking to the guy to see if the fans would run properly when shut off slightly hot. The smoke distracted me too much but I’ve since tested it and they are good to go lol 😅. It hasn’t sat like that since I’ve had the car. The only discharge from the exhaust are the flames I spit when thrashing and a little condensation. I’ve been bad about garaging the car the last 2 days because I can sit and look at it out my kitchen window while I eat lol.

 

Yeah the flames and after fires are fun lol.