Big mishap in a small place!
 

Hi All
Well it finally happened. This car was weak on power since day one! Think I found the cause.

So let me start the questioning.
1: Did the side plate "bridge" piece break first?
2: Is there enough carbon in the motor?
3: Why are all the seals stuck?
4: The big gash in the housing....Caused by sideplate missing link?

My theory is that the piece on the sideplate gave way and damaged the rotor,apex seal and housing. Causing low compression, and eventualy the damaged apex seal went to apex seal heaven.

This car had hot start problems. I told Mazda that at the last service. They said it's the coils and replaced them. Same problem remained. They do not listen when I tell them to check the compression!
The carnage happened in traffic at 2000rpm!

This is not my only Rotary powered car. Been playing with them for over 6 years now.
(Beetle with 430+ hp Series 5 turbo engine; RX7 with 300+ hp series 4 engine.)

Some more pics
 

The intake manifold's aux ports looked like this when it came out. Is this right?
Also found some metal pieces in the intake.
Check out the carbon!

There are a few engine builders here that will be able to shed more light on the subject...

But first... you have the engine torn apart... did you take it to the dealer before then? They probably will replace it under warranty.

My guess would be it was the broken apex seal that damaged the side ports, only because the the apex seals are a more logical failure point.

Car is out of warranty. The dealerships here won't swap the motor. When I started complaining they all got this ghostly looks on their faces. Shame....

Just want some info and "expert" opinions.

That warranty extension may be North America only. As far as the side port damage, that was my thought. The apex seal got stuck trying to exit the engine and caused the damage.

Yeah... i should really read where the OP is from before posting. . . my bad.

Thats shounds lodgical to me too.
Yes you do have carbon--good case of it.
What is that stuff in th oil pan--thats not slughe is it?
intake ports look bad--should not look that gummed up/
you do have the devils claw marks on the rotor housing--but it does look like the leading sparkplug hole is not cracked.
Sorry dude -this engine is completly gone.
OD

holy mama !

wow, never thought the side port would break like that !

and whoa ! look at those black stuff on/in the APV and the LIM. lol !

If you look at the one pic of the rotor, you can still see part of the apex seal. The other two apex seals are stuck in the rotor.
And I drove this car properly 70% of the time. (read:"like a mad man!)
The engine had 85000 miles on it.
When the engine went bye bye it felt like a misfire and went single rotor,and I was sitting in morning traffic that day. Note:Never drive your RX8 in traffic!

85000mi? sounds about it.
did all the recalls and stuff?

Yikes, i too would like to know a maintenance history on the car (be honest please). Thanks for posting.

Sorry to see this happen, i know a couple of guys from SA that may help you if you need... this looks like an expensive rebuild :(

This car has full service record. Mazda did all the recalls. My personal opinion on the RX8 engine is that it's built too close to the max. Mazda should have put a turbo engine or 3 rotor N/A in the rx8.

Repair cost is in the region of R25000.00 (aprox. $3400.00)
For us here in SA that's alot of money. So now I'm installing a S5 13b turbo. Will post pics as I go along. I can buy 4 13b turbo's for the amount its going to cost me for repair of the renisis!

The S5 is almost in. Only need to fabricate engine mounts and bob's your uncle. I transfered all the sensors and front pulley toothed plate and the pickup. Going to fit an aftermarket ecu.

I would say that you lost an Apex Seal.
Why?
Good question.
More than likely it was due to a misfire. A misfire could have occurred due to all the carbon build up. Causing an Apex Seal to stick and allow flame front to pass to the next trailing chamber.
This could have caused detonation in the trailing chamber and apex seal breakage.

Dang I thought someone blew an s2 engine.

Check the 13B turbo install: https://www.rx8club.com/series-i-major-horsepower-upgrades-93/series-5-rx7-turbo-into-rx8-197699/

Sorry to do a thread revive.. But to the OP.. You said you were having problems with hot starts?
Like hot weather?
Or you drove the car somewhere, turned it off, came back out a few minutes later, and it'd have difficulty starting?

The last part is the problem I have, and I hope its not going to be something similar to what happened to your renesis, and that its only a starter problem

if the last part is your "problem" then sorry to say but it could be bad engine.

but of course you should always check plugs and coils and wires first. then its battery, starter, and finally engine.

plugs, coils, wires are all new. as well as a new 800 amp battery, starter on 04s are crap, so i hear.. mine may have crapped out.. but i dunno. >200 miles away from 87k miles as well though..

if you have the original starter, at 87K, might as well just grab one at places like Autozone or AAP or Napa or Orelily for 70-100 bux.

hell my updated starter have I think 55K and I already think of changing it. it's cranking slower and slower makes me sick sometimes :)

haha... i doubt they have a starter for my car there.. they dont even have engine mounts there, thank god i didnt need those after all.

and upgraded starters are only for M/T of the 04 model year.. but regardless, a new one from mazda is about $360.. so if that didnt fix my problem... yeah, i dont have any money for finding out if it'll work or not

but according to my father.. it still starts, so its fine.. but its annoying to go somewhere and be done in like 2 minutes, come out, and be forced to wait 5 minutes.. depends. and i'll be humiliated at sevenstock because mine will be like one of the rx7s.. lol

Engine mounts no, because its special parts. but someday they might carry it. consider they don't carry coils for our cars a year something ago. Now they start showing up.

Starters : all of the stores I said have them, it might not be stock at your local store, but it takes 1 day to order them (most of the time)

just sayin' :)

my Rx-7 starts just like the outdated starter in my 8. Im gonna grab a new starter for it probably this weekend or next week. :)

Interesting...! Thank you very much :) I'll be looking up some DIYs for that since idk how to do it.

Also, you think autozone has it? I have to go there tomorrow to get some license plate brackets after a little mishap today..

http://www.autozone.com/autozone/par...mString=search

I 100% guarantee that they can get it for you. Just call your local store with the part number before you go in. or if you can wait a few days, order it from AAP for cheaper (same lifetime warranty)

100% huh? I'm not familiar with AAP..?