Finally built my first Renesis 13B-MSPRE motor today. It's out of a customer's car from Houston. Other than clean-up and new parts, it's totally stock w/ no porting work. The tear down was a couple of weeks ago but today was the day to get it all together. I have to say I am very impressed with the changes made on this motor over the older 13B's, notably the all metal gaskets (no paper gaskets to seal), the thicker iron housings w/ REW-style thick dowel lands, the o-ring lands being relocated back to the aluminum housings ala 85 and older, as well as the integrated water pump housing and front cover. Just a good engine all around and I predict it to be quite a nice powerplant in the future once more R&D from the community comes about.

Here's a link to the photos:
http://bdc.cyberosity.com/v/ProjectC...ngineAssembly/

Here's a couple of them from the link:









B

 

Nice pics.

Ahh, new housing ... yum ...

 

I don't want to speak too soon but Brian is a stand up guy. The car (not mine) was literally dropped off on his birthday, which happens to be dangerously close to Thanksgiving and Christmas. Despite all of this he's had a pretty quick turn around, faster than others on the forum

I heard that the way his engine died was pretty unique. I'm pretty sure you are trying to put the car back together in time for the holidays, but perhaps after the holidays any chance you will do a write up?

Since I'm involuntarily volunteered to pick up the car I'll probably talk to you about tuning and porting when we come up.

Edit: A picture says a 1,000 words or something like that:

 

The picture of the iron in case you're wondering -- that is baby-fresh scented petroleum jelly. I use it on the side plates. The baby fresh scent is more of a joke. When you first fire the car up, it'll smell like talcum powder for about 15-20mins as it burns off.

B

 

Ahhh, got any pictures of the tear down? I'm more interested in the side seal issue. Also I doubt anyone drives their RX-8 more aggressive than Nick so a quick discussion on carbon build up and wear in general would be nice.

Most of the tear downs on the forum have been from casual drivers who babied their car. While he did proper maintenance this Engine has been through hell. It also has a little more than 100,000 miles on it.

 

So what died? Did you do new housings...or was that just the strip cleaned old ones?

 

Nothing died really. The oil control ring casings were worn out; same with the outer scraper rings. Four of the 8 oil control ring o-rings were "plasticized" and broken up into pieces. Results from heat probably from the constant high RPM stuff while beating on it on Auto-X day. Otherwise, nothing major wrong.

The housings aren't new and surprisingly they're in really damn good shape given its abuse. Makes me curious about how long these things will actually last in the future. The irons looked terrific, too.

B

 

I'll have to pull my old core apart. It had about 60 hours of hard track time on it....

It had almost no carbon in the intake......but it had low compression when I pulled it

 

sweet

 

Very nice pics....oh how i would love to tear one of these bad boys down.....but not my own haha....

 

How did the spark plug holes look? Any cracks?

 

I'm sure that you now know how wrong you were in saying this is only another iteration of the basic 13b

 

Nope. Not a bit. The only thing goofed were the oil control ring o-rings and only a few at that.

B

 

Nah I'm not wrong about that. It is a generational change to the 13B. It's still a 13B. It uses 2nd and 3rd gen parts (lots of the same part #'s). Same displacement. Same exact rotor cast. Same rotor housings sans machining for the peripheral exhaust ports and a few other small details. Don't get me wrong, it has improvements that IMO I think are great but it's still a 13B built upon the previous generations.

B

 

the rotor castings are different

 

I was just poking fun as I've seen you have to try to explain this to some others around here.

Howerver, like zoom said, I know for a fact the rotor castings are different. Actually the entire casting process is much different than the REW rotors. They had to make major changes to achieve the balance upon pour that they couldn't with the older rotors. The machining is all done to a much much finer precision on the Renesis rotors as well. It's really quite good.

 

It is still a 13B. It even has that 13B word on the housing itself

It shares a lot of parts. but some parts are diff even tho they look the same.

for example : Rotors are diff :P

 

Interesting! I did not know this. The rotors look identical side-by-side in terms of raw shape. It made sense that they'd be the same cast but machined differently. Where'd ya find out about this?

B

 

I tell you what, I'm really impressed with this motor. I know some folks awhile back (few years ago) gave it a bad rap but after looking at this thing more closely I really like it. A part of me wishes they'd make a 4-port version of this but this one will do for now. I like the refinements done on it. It seems they addressed the problems of the older engines when they made this generational jump forward. Although I am highly optimistic, only time will tell how it will pan itself out as a higher-powered engine in terms of longevity and reliability.

B

 

I think they talked about it on the official site. like the new machine process and stuff.

 

Your kidding me right? LOL

I've been using Baby scented vasoline since I started building Rotaries almost 10years ago. If I cant find the Baby scent, I go to another store to find it.
Its been kinda a trademark of mine.

I was damn sure I was the only one doing that hahahaha.

Great job Brian!

 

As far as shape goes you are spot on. I didn't get as extensive with the REW rotors initially but the Renesis outer geometry looks to have the same multi radius shape as the REW rotors. Initially I thought the REW rotors had a single radii but when I got further into it that wasn't the case.

You can take a look at the pics you posted and see there are no machined balancing "dimples" on the faces near the apex's such as in the older rotors.

Also, weigh them. The Renesis rotors are a couple of tenths lighter than the REW's and/because the casting is thinner in some places. Not to worry, it looks like - assuming no other limitations - the Renesis rotors are still good up to ~800hp type of cylinder pressures just from initial figuring.



Research and Development.

 

New bearings?

 

04-05 automatic cars came with a 4-port renesis.

 

... are you serious? You do the baby-fresh scent too?! I thought I was the only one! It started as a joke 'bout 5 years ago when we were doing a friend of mine's 13BT motor. Sent our friend Eric off to get some petroleum jelly and he came back w/ the stuff that had the purple dinosaur on the front. Smelled like talcum powder when we started the motor the next day. Totally hilarious. Been doing it ever since. It's a joke I do with customers -- I don't tell them about it and hope that they notice it when they first start it.

There's also lavendar and chamomile but I've not tried it yet. :D

B