Karack

having had the work and engine teardown done by a third party, unfortunately your chances of having it factory warrantied now are zero. if it is an extended warranty company, yes you probably will have a fighting chance even though it looks less than catastrophic to me, minor debris pinched a seal according to the pictures.

niteshade247

How meany miles? A lot of carbon buildup on that rotor.

9krpmrx8

iTrader: (46)

I'm surprised at the carbon build up. You can see where the center oil injectors is hitting and the two outers but the build up seems excessive in those areas.

This is mine for example (failed coolant seal)

beasted

Just quickly guys. Sorry haven't updated, but warranty has agreed to paid out and work is beginning.

I'm also getting a stage 3 street porting her and polishing. Along with d585 coils.

Also got a hire car from the warranty for a week.

Was put down to manufacturer failure.

poacherinthezoo

Wow, that is more carbon that I would have expected. Is it just me or in the last photo posted by the OP (with all the engine dissembled and the parts arranged on a work bench), does the rotor on the left look significantly different than the one of the right? Perhaps it's just an artifact of the photo?

Just to help my understanding, is the damage to the iron(s) shown in the picture most likely the result of the broken apex seal flying around in there? The picture of the rotor housing has a few spots where it appears that carbon (?) was "dragged" along it, causing damage/grooves?

The oil injection pattern is also interesting. The center injector appears (to my untrained eye) to be injecting more oil that I was anticipating - I thought the side seals would shown more substantial oil injection. Perhaps its just an artifact of how the application of oil at the different locations has different (visible) effects.

(I've been trying to "study" re-build threads in my spare time, but the difference in failure method, photography and several other factors have made it really hard for me to try and establish what is "normal,"what isn't normal and why.)

I'm quiet interested in this, as this is the first time I've heard of S2 failing.

EDIT: Edited for clarity.

9krpmrx8

iTrader: (46)

My photo or the OP's? What do you mean on the right?

poacherinthezoo

Sorry, should have specified. The last picture posted by the OP (with everything set out on a bench). The two rotors are standing next to each other on the right hand side of the bench. The rotor nearest the edge of the photo is the one I was referring to as the "right."

9krpmrx8

iTrader: (46)

Oh, Yeah weird, one looks tall and skinny.

beasted

Apparently according to Pettit the carbon is caused by short drives, and the best way to eliminate this is to blast the revs frequently at 7-8.5k revs regularly to avoid this and also with a premix (protec r) also to insure that oil and filter is changed at least every 6k miles. I maintained the car with the oil changes and protec but I do lots of short drives but always warm up and warm down. Just never blasted it enough! Which cause carbon.

The picture of the rotors is just the way it's taken and the first rotor (left) is sitting further back in the pic.

I will be taking and posting a full photo guide of how my engine is rebuilt for my SII.

As for the oil injection I am not sure about that one buddy.

Also I'm thinking when the apex seal dislodged it cause the score mark in the rotor housing.

Just really happy warranty are paying for this and the assessor agreed it was a Mazda failure. Nothing to do with carbon or anything else, just manufacturer fault. As did rotary revs concluded apex seal failure!

Brettus

iTrader: (2)

[/url]

So what is the problem with this apex ? It looks like it might be stuck in the groove ?

9krpmrx8

iTrader: (46)

Yep. carbon, maybe a broken spring. That Carbon build up is pretty excessive. Maybe shitty gas where he is at?

Brettus

iTrader: (2)

He said something about a dislodged apex , but this is the only apex pic. he posted so .................... Trying to establish if the pic was posted because this was the issue................................ or not .

Karack

actually looks like foreign debris as i mentioned in my last post. you can see 3 distinct punch marks on the rotor slot tip, maybe more but i can't see them with that resolution.

it doesn't take much to jam up a seal, the spring tension and centrifugal force can only do so much. it also looks easily repairable.

what caused it could be anything.. it could have even been a crap repair job on spark plug threads, improper plugs installed or debris that went into during a plug change. because the 3 divots are directly in the center of the rotor, right where it passes over the open leading spark plug. could be a million explanations, like someone probing in the housing while rotating the engine would be another logical explanation.

beasted

I think the garage just took a few photos for me of the engine being dismantled, I'm not sure if the actual damage is here!? I will be talking to him this weekend/beginning next week though. He also mentioned there could have been debris that got in there maybe from the aem being fitted but couldn't be sure as any work that was done was way before failure. The apex seal had actually dislodged then snapped!!!!!!! ;( I would love to know exactly what caused this but I may never be sure!?

Karack

that seal is definitely stuck in the rotor in that picture.

JimT

I own a 2005 Mazda RX-8 manual trans. 120,000 mi. religiously maintained. Apex seal blasted at 120,000 on my way to work.

The first thing the tow truck driver said when he got out of his truck was " I tow more of these cars than anything else!"

An acquaintance of mine who is also a mechanic informed me I was one of the lucky ones his seals blew at 30,0000 and also at 60,000.

I still owe $5000 for the Mazda

rotarygod

I wonder how many more years have to go by before people start to realize that nearly all of the carbon buildup in your engine comes from gasoline and not oil metering?

(shhhh...the metered locations are actually the cleanest but don't tell anyone. It's a secret!)

9krpmrx8

iTrader: (46)

Speaking of that, we were just discussing this RG. Aside from using Top Tier gas, is there anything else that can be done to combat this?

BRABENDER

I concur 1,000% with that statement.

rotarygod

It won't matter where you get your gas from. It's all dirty stuff. You can run ethanol or methanol to have a perfectly clean chamber!

rotarygod

When I ported a Renesis, I hit the water jacket on my first attempt at porting the exhaust ports. You really can't do anything here other than polishing it up and very carefully putting a fine radius on the port inlet. You do have some room to port a bit on the intake side but mostly on the primary ports in the intermediate housing. You don't have any room to open them earlier so leave that edge alone. You also can't go towards the oil control rings. That leaves you up and down. Be careful. You've got room but only so much. The secondary and auxiliary ports in the end housings are already huge and they already close at a huge amount of timing. You don't way to go farther here. Just clean these up. Making them bigger is pointless.

Basically you can only clean everything up and slightly enlarge the primary ports. That's it. Don't think you can do more. You can't!

9krpmrx8

iTrader: (46)

What effect do you think an additional quality fuel filter would have?

Chibana

I had water/methanol injection on my 2001 Focus ZX3 with 13 psi of supercharged boost. I had an issue with a spark plug, and the performance shop I have do most of my work (as I'm mechanically clueless) did some investigation to make sure there were no other issues that caused it. They looked inside the cylinders and said that they looked brand new (the car had probably around 80,000 miles on it at that time), and it was due to the water/methanol injection.

I don't have forced induction on my RX-8, and I don't plan to, so getting a water/methanol injection kit would be a bit crazy, no?