Need help troubleshooting - Pettit Supercharger and multiple engines
 

Moderator note: I moved these posts out of the reman quality thread in Discussion, as it seems like rx8whitten is looking for troubleshooting help. I have advised him to be more clear and specific to receive more accurate help. See post #10 from getemslough for a more complete description of what is going on.
The short story is a poor S/C install blew the engine, was traded in, bought it with the engine still blown, car lot it was purchased from keeps buying engines that keep blowing.


Not true. I can't get a motor to last over 2000 miles. 3 blown motors in the last 3000 miles.

Well, clearly you have something wrong OTHER than your motor, or your motor rebuilds are really sub par quality.

For example, did you know a faulty fuel pump can destroy a motor? And then destroy the one put in to replace it? Not the motor's fault then huh?

Had it tuned by the best and everything was fine. Probably just the motors are junk

Wouldn't a faulty fuel pump show up during a tune?

Yes typically it should, not so sure if the pump is only failing when warm though. I've had a fuel pump that would only fail once the car was running for an hour or so.

Who is this tuner that you say he is the best?

Kane

I'm pretty sure its the crappy reman engines. I did notice the last couple times I drove the car that the fuel pump continued to buzz for about 5 minutes then made a pop sound and stopped

No, a faulty fuel pump would not usually show up under a tune. The typical failure method for our fuel pump is "works completely fine until it suddenly stops due to overheating". Other methods are possible.

Is all this tuning by Kane on an NA motor? Because if you are pushing FI through it, then it becomes quite a bit harder to blame the motor, especially after they keep blowing every 1,000 miles. Sure, remans aren't the best quality, but the average is quite a bit higher than 1,000 miles. Common denominators for your engines needs to be looked at.

Yea its pettit supercharged. And I had moon come to my house the last engine change and make sure everything was hooked up right. My airfuels were good every time I looked at them

So if I sum up your posts:

A) You are supercharged
B) Your fuel pump makes odd noises
C) You keep blowing engines
D) Your first two posts on the forum are in Mazmart's engine thread, which are NOT the engines we are discussing in this thread. Mazmart puts together great engines without theh poor quality from Mazda remans. If you are buying Mazda remans then you are just compounding your problem.

While I'm not going to tout the high quality of Mazda remans, you CLEARLY have something else wrong with your set up, and placing the blame on the engines is inaccurate.

This time it seems like a rear main seal and bearing. Sounds like the crank is moving around and it has had a leak from the back of the motor and bell housing from day 1 on the new motor. Now its pouring out. I got remans because it blew up just after I bought the car and the lot wouldn't pay what mazmart wanted. The car blew up before I bought it when someone was test driving it. Then within a week of me owning it then it lost compression. Lot bought me a reman. I broke it in right and had almost 2000 miles on this one and now oil pouring out and making a racket. I'm ready to drive this car off a cliff.

more info on the pettit car in question:

the original owner sold it to the dealership with low compression because he had no clue what he was doing and knew the car was on its way out. (should have seen the hack job on the blower install which is why we had moon personally button things up)

that motor blew due to low compression and idiots going for a joy ride without properly warming it up and doging the shit out of it.

dealer had mazda put a reman in it. mazda did a shit job of the install and gave the dealer a very hard time because it was boosted. manifolds were only finger tight when o got my first look at it and they hooked all the vacuum up wrong and it was blowing oil into the maf housing. it was run like that for a while before whitten got it and then we found out that the mazda tech reflashed the ecu to factory specs when the apex seal disintegrated at 40mph on a mild uphill pull in 5th gear.

dealer bought another reman that WE installed very carefully and correctly
the reman engine we installed was broken in properly per moons very precise instructions. we didnt even have the belt on the blower until it was time for the tune.

the tune kane did was amazing and afrs were right where the needed to be

car was running fine other than the small oil leak whitten stated. we never could really locate it so he was being easy on it because it is his dd and he has a 45min trip to work everyday.

motor popped and stalled and started vomiting oil during his trip to work under normal cruise between gears. afr was still ideal during the whole catastrophe

fuel pump probably should be replaced though

i believe the first two motors were destroyed due to ignorance and negligence befoer we got to the car the last one i felt was down on power from the get go because it never felt any better than mine (80,000 on original motor) before the belt and tune.

my diagnosis is bad luck with a shit reman. whitten and i are by no means noobs... we have been working on cars together since highschool and we know what we are doing. i have had my 8 since it came off the lot and i obviously how to maintain a rotary.

now that whittens claims are backed up does anybody have any REAL advice?

That does explain a great deal. I'm not sure what you are looking for though. This is a thread discussing the average life span of a Mazda reman under normal driving conditions. I don't think a boosted 8 with an original hack job install on the S/C plus a Mazda hack job engine install that you are working to correct qualifies for a data point on the Mazda reman quality. Too many other factors that are well outside the normal operating conditions and monkey technician errors that destroy perfectly good engines.


If you are actually trying to solve problems with your S/C install and are looking for advice, I highly recommend you start a thread in the Major Horsepower Upgrades subforum, and when you post be VERY VERY thorough, even more so than the last post. rx8whitten's posts aren't very clear or descriptive of what is going on, and he isn't going to get much useful help unless he can accurately describe what is going on.


My apologies if I come across like an ass, but the series of posts about this car in this thread isn't a very good way to get troubleshooting assistance. The more effort you put into details the more help you can get in reply.


Edit: Actually, I'm moving the posts to a new thread with a preface for you... will link it in a moment.

Posts moved to a new thread, continue discussion regarding your car here....


Edit to include the good guy thread for Moon that includes more information: https://www.rx8club.com/good-guy-bad...6/#post4288089

First things first you guys need to save up for a QUALITY build from Mazmart, Mazdatrix, RB, BHR. SOMEBODY.

That way you can 100% (well 99%, shit still happens) count the engine out as a failure point. Then start from the bottom up, diganostic all support systems: fuel, spark, ect.. Then once you are good to go, slap the Pettit on there and get a good tune.

Sorry to say but when you purchase an abortion like this, you never know how bad the hack job is. Got to dig to the bottom, cause odds are nothing else on the car was babied either. Luckily you have to pull the engine anyway so should give you plenty of time and space to go through the fuel pump, injectors, coils, plugs, cat, water and oil temp/pressure monitoring.

My apologies if I come across like an ass, but the series of posts about this car in this thread isn't a very good way to get troubleshooting assistance. The more effort you put into details the more help you can get in reply.

No offence taken. Matt got to the forum before i did and i am sure his posts were purely out of aggravation. in fact he was so mad that when i showed up at his house to look things over he had disappeared to an undisclosed location to go fishing... with out me:mad:

back on topic i took his car for a drive... yes Matt it started for me lol. everything felt peachy i even did a full 1/4 throttle pull to redline in 3rd gear with no misses shutters or noise. about a mile later i found out what the problem was. once fully heated the rear rotor lost all compression and power, so bad that the car would stall while rolling at 60mph if i pushed the clutch in. it felt fine at coast but if the throttle was even feathered it the affected rotor would grind and misfire.

i limped it back to the garage and it cut off as i coasted in. i then decided to turn it over for a few seconds using the "deflooding" technique. instead of chika chika chika chika chika chika i got chika chika chika chuk chuk chika. so obviously another seal failure right?

when we opened the crate on that reman there was a tag on the rear housing that said low compression rear rotor damaged housing and end plate. so that leads me to believe the rebuild was not successful.

not to rule the fuel pump out Matt did mention one fuel pump code coming across the accessport but it never repeated so he figured it was a fluke. so the fuel pump could have sped the failure process along.

although everything was monitored and broken on properle there is no saying that something wasnt damaged from before. any other ideas are more than welcome!

my plan of action would be a walboro 255 and a properly built and ported motor from one of the aforementioned vendors. and ofcourse a follow up tune from mr. Kane

thanks guys!

Hmm, the reman crate had a tag SAYING low compression?


You (well, Matt/rx8whitten) isn't the first person I've heard of that has obtained a Mazda reman outside of the warranty process and the engine was dead on arrival. Actually, I haven't heard of a single person buying a reman from Mazda and it working fine out of the crate.

I don't want to accuse Mazda of deliberately using customers that can't claim warranty to unload poor performing rebuilds, but.... :dunno:

I don't really see much leverage to really get an answer from Mazda about the health of the engine they shipped you, or even if they shipped you a reman or if they shipped you one that was coming back to be rebuilt. But something fishy is going on there. All the more reason to never buy a Mazda reman. If it's under warranty, you are covered somewhat, but outside of that and it's playing roulette with your bank account (or whomever is actually paying). It's cheaper in the long run to just get a quality engine from a reputable builder. But I know you guys realize that the hard way now :sad:

Sorry for all the trouble the op is having to deal with. I would be frustrated too.
I have a friend that just purchased a mazda reman--but instead of installing it --he is having Mazmart build it for him.
The good news is the reman did have 2 new housings and rotors in it! But, the oil pressure regulator was loose and the side seal tolerances where WAY off per Rick.
I would not buy a reman to install in my car. Much less for forced induction.
Live and learn. Sorry for the hard lessons.
Just remember a LOT of things can lead to a blown engine--bad gas, to high temps, bad ignition system, to much exhaust backpressure, low fuel pressure etc etc.

thanks guys! we were told that tag was saying why the reman was rebuilt but who knows. thats exactly why my car never goes to mazda to be worked on. im sure mazda made sure we got the worst reman they could after all the shit work we called them out on. lol. we didnt want to get a reman in the first place but the dealer wouldnt pay for anything else... so atleast all the motors that have blown have been free.

Thats what I get for listening to Jeff (MazdaManiac) :suspect: Glad I replaced mine with an Aeromotive anyways.

What a clusterf#$k.

I would start at square one with an FSM and double check everything before you assume the engine is FUBAR. Oil puking is likely do to excessive crank case pressure and that could be due to a few things. Step 1 is to stop driving it until you figure out what the problem is. Use the FSM.

Thanks for the help guys. The fishing trip took a little stress off haha. Like getemslough said when rolling at 60 and press the clutch in it stalls but that's been a problem from the start with this engine. Expecially with the AC on. I've gotten used to leaning my right foot over and tapping the gas back to idle at stoplights. Is that a sign of anything?

And the motor is definitely gone because I hear knocking and stuff when you start it now

Inability to idle can be quite a few different things. O2 sensor failure, MAF failure, vacuum leak, low compression, ignition failure, or fuel trims off.

You have had at least a couple of those :)

Post up and idle log, and some cruise logs if you can get some. But chances are you ruined this motor by not addressing the issue properly and promptly.