I have a older z32, I would never daily drive that, its a monster to work on since there is no room to work....I would take a rx8 over that anyday for daiy use. The rx8 is out of my price range, the wife is in her first year of med school so we are already 20k in debt. She let me keep the Z for the weekend drives, its already 18 years old though.

 

Yeah so just wait until she graduates. $Cha-ching$

 

just found this thread... thanks for the cool pics and info, man!

someone should drop a z model into their engine being sent for a reman with a note attached "see, the 8 eats z's for breakfast!"

i'm also happy to see these things are being run on a dyno prior to being shipped back. the previous testing model seemed to be to let the customer drive off the lot...

is Mr TT back in the country? I'm a bit far away but I might make the drive down if you put a meet together. I speak a little Japanese as well..

 

Yeah sorry guys life has been a little busy lately and I haven't been online too much. TT and his master went home last week, we gave them a going away party. We got them a framed pictured we all signed a note on and my boss got them a t-shirt he had made for them, also got them a cake. TT ended up giving me his mazda company magazine from japan that had a article on his master that was a few years old, he knew I had my eye on it, when I get the time I will see if I can get a translated version of it, there is also a article on the rx8 in it but I have no idea what it says. Anyways we just shipped out remanufactured engine #1 to Las Vegas, its a AT and our engine #'s will read off as MR 08-0001, they shipped out 3 motors 1,2, and 3. They moved me to the dyno room for a few weeks to catch up on finished motors, I get to run them prior shipping them and check for leaks/inject something(secret) into the motor to seal it. So far out of our 200 or so first built we have about a 95% pass the dyno. I have yet to have a failed motor, worst thing I had was one of the dyno assembly guys put the drive belt over the wrong groove but it was a obvious mistake after doing 18 a day he was bound to have a slip up. Its all good though, the engine does not get shipped with the belt anyways. Gotta get ready for work

 

Many thanks for bringing us up to date!

The failure rate of 75% is surprising (to me anyway). I suppose some, perhaps most, of that is due to the learning process. It's must be a disturbing statistic for the amateur builders without a dyno to test their rebuilds. What has been the main problem with those engines that don't pass the dyno test?

 

Hmmm ... super secret sealant?

 

Oh that is just all too funny. To bad we don't know Who in Vegas .
Thanks for the update.

 

Did I miss something?
Maybe I mis-interpreted. I do see "49/50".....and "200", but I took that to mean that they have only dyno'd 49 or 50 of the 200 they have so far, not that only 49/50 out of 200 is all that have passed. That really would surprise the hell outta me as well.
Sleepy-Z........please clarify.

 

I understood it as a 49/50 rate, like 4 didn't pass out of 200.

 

+1

BTW if you forward me a scan of the magazine I can try to translate it (if you don't mind waiting a while )

 

Yeah, that could be. Like saying 49 out of 50 passed. That would be much more encouraging, for sure. I interpreted the statement as 49 or 50 passed out of 200. Oh well, we'll just have to wait for clarification.

 

So, sleepy, your #1 theory as to loss of compression is use of low octane gas?

Also, is there any way you can tell us other specifics, even if you aren't 100% sure, such as which model years have more problems, whether AT or MT or more likely to suffer the failure, and maybe even what % of 8s have been affected so far?

I know you probably don't have precise figures. I'm just curious about general feedback from someone who is actually is the supply chain.

One last question = would fuel treatments like STP or what have you, which claim to reduce deposits (basically mineral spirits) do more harm or good (they do remove carbon build up, but I'd worry about the seals)?

Thanks.

 

I dont know a thing about the fuel, they say use premium I would stick to premium, we use premium to run the tests and I dont think I ever said use anything less but I honestly will stick the premium, remember I am just at the bottom of the chain working on the line but at the end of the day I represent the company still so if the manual says premium thats what I say.

Trust me outside of building the motor you all know a lot more about your car then I do.

I corrected the fail rate of our tests,it came out to about 95% pass, I meant 49/50 as in 196/200....sorry broke it down but that was a initial estimate since I was mostly in assembly prior to last week and I just heard the numbers.

As for the failed motors, we only have AT so far, we converted some AT 6spds to MT by changin out the rear housings and those were brand new motors so there are 85 people that if they get a MR 08-???? MT motor there is a chance you get a brand new motor but honestly we cant ship anymore until the previous place who builds them is out of motors.

I will post the magazine articles when I get pic, I took one before but it wasn't clear enough to read.

Gotta go to work now, later.

 

Thanks for that clarification Sleepy. Now I can sleep tonight.

 

Thanks sleepy.

All ATs so far?

Wow. That's interesting.

Thanks again.

 

Phew............me too, even though it's morning!

Kinda funny how many ways the original post could have been taken. From the downright scary, to the not so scary, to the not so bad at all.

 

Yeah, the English language is sometime less than clear. In math, a forward slant "/" signifies a ratio, as in 49 out of 50, which is what Sleepy meant. In language, the same symbol is usually (at least in my experience) used in place of "or", as in 49 or 50. Then it is occasionaly seen as "and/or" in general usage. As in, this and that or this or that. Nuff said.

 

BTW to clarify one more thing we converted the 6spd AT motors to MT, they do have the correct exhaust ports but we just need to change out the rear housings, had to note that before someone jumps on me about that. I need to take a pic of the articles, as of right now I am in the middle of moving and I am not too sure what box I put the magazine in, it might be a few days before I get to it.

 

Just interested to know how you replace the rear (Cast iron) housing in an assembled engine, when in normal building of a rotary one builds up from the rear housing first, then each layer, rotor housing, intermediate cast, rotor housing, front (top) cast housing.
Do you use a special engine holder to do it? Thanks

 

We have stands designed specifically for the motor, it bolts to the front housings studs and build the block front to rear first.

 

I'm sure there has been plenty of octane discussion on this forum before. But the slimmed down idea of octane is resistance to pre-ignition. The higher the octane, the higher the temp required to ignite it meaning that you can run higher compression before it will ignite. Typically higher compression engines require higher octane rated fuels because of the temp generated by the pressure.

And as we all know, early detonation pretty much turns the rotary into a hand grenade.

A simple google search for octane rating will yield what you need for the technical know how.

 

 

I'm glad he revived it, I had missed this one.

 

Epic resurrection..for...a point I don't know where it's coming from

 

I think its interesting you have time to make fun of the time frame. Thought I'd make my contribution since maintenance and "whats best" for the Rx8 always comes up in other threads.

So, again sir, I thank you.