You need to go back and check again.

 

Jedi's RX-8 is not daily driven. I can think of quite a few So Cal members who have had engine failures.

 

Atilla is on his 3rd, for example.

 

Any more info on this? I'd like to see where my reman came from.

Otherwise I'm guessing it's just a serial number for Mazda's reference.

 

That tag is from the Virginia Reman plant. The cat engines had a coin type thing attached to the engine that said re manufactured on it IIRC.

 

Good to know, so without getting too much off topic Virginia remans were better/worse? (speculatively?)

I had seen they coin type on another 05 reman, though it looked like a junkyard coin/ much like what LKQ does. Though I can't remember if it said LKQ on the coin like they tend to.

 

The remans 'production' has covered a wide enough range of time now that it's not going to be easy to pin down quality info between plants. Remans are generally better now than they were, but you can still end up with complete duds. You can see the mess they made of one guy's engine that was posted ... yesterday?

 

https://www.rx8club.com/series-i-tec...0/#post4516660

 

I believe my Virginia reman has ~20k on it from 2009.

Not sure if I want to see compression numbers, but in 2010 it put down 178RWHP on a dynojet. Since then it's "felt" the same.

I didn't see the post. Link? Section?
Whoops, just saw it.

 

Well, there is no definitive data on that really. But Sleepy-z (plant employee) stated that the plant was built due to the contracted rebuilds being sub par. But it was probably for a few reasons and I am sure cost was a major factor. But, plenty of VA remans have died for various reasons with well under 50k on them. My last one had a faulty coolant seal at 30k, my buddies died at 30k from a loss of compression. My first reman lasted 75k.

The reliability of them really depends on many factors I think and some of the issues are just out of our control, as mine and my buddies were both meticulously maintained. Environment probably has a big influence on it I am sure.

 

Just curious what Texas brings for average(or ballpark) coolant and oil temps when rolling, since the temperature is considerably warmer and consistent versus WI where it varies greatly.
Today we're pushing 94*F with 72*F dewpoints.

 

this doesn't even account for how many were rebuilt by other shops outside of mazda contract.

 

this is true! we used to shine a flashlight in all the remans, and the florida built engines were pretty ****, rotors with chunks missing, they would paint right over the grease, etc. apparently a lot of the new parts that were supposed to go into these engines left out the back door, because florida...

then they moved it to AC delco (or cat?) and those guys put all the counterweights in one bin, so those engines had a huge failure rate, because they were just built wrong.

so IMO, this virginia reman plant was a step in the right direction, although they still aren't where they should be.

oh and a friend of mine has a 2012 VW eos, and transmission #2 just died, he's out of regular warranty by 1000miles (but in by time), and they are not covering it.

 

Sounds like Mazda tried to cut corners and get remans done as cheap as possible by using shady repair facilities. Yikes! You'd think since they address most issues they'd want a decent reman out there after they're relatively high failure rate.
Perhaps the greed of customer pay engines was they're intent.

 

Coolant temps can vary depending on the condition of the radiator and airflow. In 90F + degree weather I could maintain approx 197F to 200F at 80 MPH with the A/C on. This was with my stock unit. My oil temps are pushing around 189. The temps will fall off slightly with a reduction in load. My new aftermarket radiator is putting me about 5F warmer than my stock one did after some tweaks to the air flow. I'm guessing I could probably get it down to stock levels by tweaking the airflow a bit more.

 

Agreed.

I run about that.
Stock oil coolers and radiator, no shields(bug/stone guards). Opened the slits in the oil cooler splash shields a tiny amount.
RB reflash.

I typically see 180-195*F Coolant, oil usually floats 10*F(+-) than that depending on load situations.

One time I got trapped in stop-and-go traffic(~90*F day) for 20 minutes prior to the RB reflash and my coolant got up to about 230*F and oil up to 240*F. I babied the **** out of it till I got some air flow going.

Really makes me want to get a weatherproof fan on an oil cooler for situations like that.

 

I think your sitting temps are way to high! You may want to check your fans and make sure they are functioning at 100%. After 9 years mine needed replacing.

 

make sure ur coolant overflow bottle seals tight.

 

Anything higher than 220F on OEM coolant seals and you are asking for a coolant seal failure. Something ain't right.

 

They work great, running on low @ 188-190ish, and high on at 195ish. Additionally they run after the car shuts down too.


I've been fortunate enough to not have any sealing/cracking issues with my overflow bottle. Coolant changes done regularly.

That was engine #1. I've yet to see over 220*F on the existing reman. Agreed though. I was about to **** a brick in traffic.
I had also seen an oil cooler line seeping a bit on engine #1, which was fixed during engine replacement.

 

I dont know that i would agree with this statement. I think the failure rate picked up quick and mazda had to do something to greatly ramp up the number of builds. I would guess that Cat stepped up and said they could take on the huge work loads quickly. I would also venture to guess that Mazda saved themselves money when they set up there own facility.

 

True, but anytime you sublet work - the quality of work can be jeopardized.
And any time there is a high demand for efficiency, quality tends to drop.

 

It is a known fact in the off-road community that people have been using rotary engines for a while, especially for rock crawling.

This is because rock crawl buggies are so small and lightweight, so the rotary engine is a great platform.

But don't they need a lot of torque for rock crawling? Yes, but in the off-road world it is a common practice to add super low gears in the axles and transfer case. Many of them have two transfer cases. That means that you have a significant drop in gearing - which certainly affects the torque produced by the engine - before the power even gets to the wheels. So having an engine like the RENESIS with low torque is not an issue when you have so much gear reduction all the way across the driveline.

With sand buggies you don't need all the gear reduction, but still can benefit from a small, lightweight engine that produces relatively high HP for its size.

Here's one article from a rock crawler boggie: Hallenbeck’s Rotary Rocket - Off-Road Adventures Magazine

And a few videos. The typical "rotary" sound is noticeable. Gotta love the sound!!

 

I wondered how a rotary swap into my Jeep XJ would turn out.

 

I think it would be awesome...if you actually are into off-roading

I actually thought about a swap in my older Tacoma pickup.

The point is that it has been done already by others, and that this forum is in no way an accurate representation of how many renesis users are out there.