TheAMAZINGNorad

Note: edited this to clean up the bullets per suggestion below.

So I want to chime my 2 cents in here as a NASA Engineer (although I don't claim to be a fluids expert). For background, my Renesis is dying from a coolant seal leak and I am trying to put together a list of the best upgrades I can do to make the replacement motor last as long as possible. Also its late and I am tires so forgive me if I make some incomplete sentences (Yay Government shutdown and furlough. Without it I would not have the time to ramble on about this).

1. So lets go back to pump 101 and remember why fluids move - pressure gradients. I'm going to postulate that a good amount of the forcing function that drives oil injection in our engines is in fact suction in the combustion chamber. I say this because the oil injectors appear to be on the top where the intake "stroke" occurs and also from reading an article on RX-7 club which discusses the purpose of applying vacuum to the oil injectors. For reference, this is the link: https://www.rx7club.com/3rd-generati...d-open-846007/ (Note I am assuming our system works on a similar principal. I've never taken a Renesis apart so I don't know.) This makes sense for several reasons to be as I will describe next.

2. If this is true, I also postulate that the function of the OMP is less to "pump" but more to prime the lines and also to supply the right amount of oil needed to be "sucked" into the combustion chamber. If we following the KISS formula, why not just provide high pressure engine oil to the injectors to be ingested that way? Well, that would provide a positive pressure gradient from the oil pumper (via a negative suction controlled by combustion) which would introduce too much oil - by using the metering pump, we not only reduce the injector line pressures to prevent excess ingestion, which would also prevent injection of oil when the engine is OFF but there is residual pressure in the oil system, we also smooth out the effects of oil pressure transients, can add extra oil during starting, and also reduce temperature of the injected oil (Not sure how oil atomization is affected by temperature. Would be interesting to look that up.) In short, by using the metering pump to feed the injectors only the amount of oil the engine should try to "suck in," you solve several engineering problems - it really is an ingenious solution if I am on the right track with my idea.

Why then, you might ask, are there videos of folks pumping oil by spinning the OMP with a drill and filling up cups! Refer to 1 please - pressure is higher than atmosphere, so the oil moves! As I will cover below, flow at that point is dependent entirely on the length and composition of the lines from the pump to the injectors assuming constant dP from the pump outlet.

3. With this in mind, I am proposing the following - If you can use Series 2 housings in a Series 1 stack-up to get the third oil injector, complete the mods described above to provide additional OMP oil flow then tee the third injector into the nominal lines for each housing - since the driving function for the oil injection is primarily suction, we should get very uniform oil application through all three. Note this assumes similar tube lengths, low viscosity (we can argue why that doesn't really apply later if needed), no/equal friction between all branches if the tee, and similar pressure gradients between the OMP and combustion chamber. It also assumes EVEN PRESSURE across the apex seal, and not some sort of bell curve shaped gradient (Which very well could be the cause, but actually will probably be OKAY! Why? And why do this? See below...

4. Using my wife's research library access, I have requested SAE papers 2014-01-1664 and 2014-01-1665, the latter dealing with "Rotary Engine Oil Transport Mechanisms." From the abstract: "Oil transport from both metered oil and internal oil is observed. Starting from inside, oil accumulates in the rotor land during inward motion of the rotor created by its eccentric motion. Oil seals are then scraping the oil outward due to seal-housing clearance asymmetry between inward and outward motion. Cut-off seal does not provide an additional barrier to internal oil consumption. Internal oil then mixes with metered oil brought to the side of the rotor by gas leakage. Oil is finally pushed outward by centrifugal force, passes the side seals, and is thrown off in the combustion chamber."

I think adding the third injector, even if the exact amount of oil injected can't be perfectly metered, will only serve to cool the center of the Apex seal and then aid in side seal cooling/lubrication. And if pressure is LOWER in the middle, it will only help to draw MORE oil into the middle which should, hypothetically, be evenly distributed to each side of the rotor.

On a side note, from SAW 1664 abstract, "The dominant cause of internal oil consumption is the non-conformability of the oil seals to the housing distortion generating net outward scraping, particularly next to the intake and exhaust port where the housing distortion valleys are deep and narrow. Simulation with housing transverse waviness shows that increasing spring force can lead to an unexpected increase in internal oil consumption." This applies primarily to Brettus as I know he does FI applications, but this makes me believe that increased pressures inside the engine during combustion in FI applications, and aftermarket apex seals with stiffer springs, might negatively contribute to what I am imagining as "oil blow-by" - I need to do more research, but can oil that moves too fast fail to provide necessary lubrication? I'd say yes based on my understanding of Navier-Stokes equations - in a nutshell, if you move oil too quick, your shear gradient is HUGE and the thickness of your boundary layer is small. I'd again postulate that, as somebody who is NOT a lubrication engineer, that there is an ideal layer thickness to provide thermal and friction protection. Perhaps boosting the RX-8 kills engines early via older 13Bs because of the change to the location of the intake / exhaust ports and increased oil blow-by and reduced effectiveness as a lubrication agent? I won't know until I get the full paper, but I'd hope a 2014 paper would use a Renesis and not an older 13B or 12A design....Anyways, I am done rambling for the night. On a side note, does anybody have a good VIDEO of an OMP tear-down or more detailed photos of how the cam interacts with all the parts? I have a descent idea of how it all works, but until my Model 3 shows up from Tesla I can't tear the thing apart as my 8 is my Daily Driver.

G2barbour

G2barbour

from what I can tell, the output of the OMP is not synchronized in any way with the intake cycle of the engine. Oil is simply pumped to the injectors at a certain rate and made available for the next intake stroke where the engine then draws the oil in. To be clear, the OMP most certainly is a positive displacement pump. The engine has the capacity to draw oil from the injectors but does not draw it through the lines. Also, a common misconception is that we hook up a vacuum line to the oil injector manifold, and this is simply not true. It is the engine intake stroke providing vacuum on one side and atmospheric pressure on the other, as the line to the oil injectors is before the throttle body. The only reason for this line to exist is so the air drawn past the oil injectors has passed over the MAF first, or it would be unmetered air. The function of the intake vacuum on the oil is not as much to pump it in as it is to atomize it so that it isn't just dribbling out of the holes. *this is probably one of the major reasons the renesis does not have a good reputation for reliability under boost. The oil injectors were never designed to be used in that way. I believe that you were saying the same thing I just clarified in paragraph 2.

And as for paragraph 3, I've been thinking about the exact same thing recently!

Some great info thank you. FYI the bullet points play havoc on quoting you in replies.

Also, I have many pictures of the OMP torn down. If I can get Admin to approve my posts, I will upload them. This morning I I actually uploaded a reply to an earlier question about where I tapped the OMP for the internal pressures and it hasn't been approved yet

NotAPreppie

IIRC, the air line we connect to the oil injectors should be just a hair under atmospheric pressure. It connects to the accordion tube between the MAF and TB so any pressure drop will be most due to the minimal restriction of the air filter and air moving across the hose port.

G2barbour

That sounds right but that slight vacuum would be incidental to ensuring that the air is metered through the MAF. The important thing is that, relative to engine intake vacuum, it is a positive pressure, not a vacuum.

For all practical purposes, atmospheric pressure is being used to atomize the injection oil.

I guess my point is more semantics than anything, but it is important to keep things clarified

kevink0000

My understanding of the OMP injectors is that the oil is injected into a stream of air provided by the vacuum of the intake stroke, through the injector and one-way valve at the upper portion of the injector, with back up air provided by the small plastic manifold connected to the intake tube.
So the oil travels into a stream of air, probably of decent velocity, but not really under vacuum, because of the check valve in the upper banjo requires some pop-off oil pressure greater than the vacuum it is blocking from draining the oil lines at low manifold/rotor chamber pressure.

Mazda saw fit to put a check valve in the upper banjo, because vacuum was not only not required for oil delivery to the engine from the pump, it also was unwanted because it could cause siphoning of oil out of the lines themselves during high vacuum conditions. However vacuum is used to provide a high velocity stream of air to mix with the oil and provide some energy to hopefully disperse it within the chamber.

kevink0000

Hopefully you are able to post those SAE papers, I would like to read them. Thanks.

kevink0000

I have some S2 housings and extra injectors that I am going to use for an s1 build soon, in exactly the way you describe.

I am very glad to see so much hands-on info on here about this topic now. Thank much to all involved for taking the time to run these experiments!

TheAMAZINGNorad

Sorry for being AWOL; I had some international travel after the government shutdown ended and am just getting back to this.

G2barbour - I see those pictures now and have a much better understanding of how this darn thing works! Thanks!

Thinking more about things, and doing some additional reading, I understand now that the OMP is indeed a positive pressure pump. I found some information providing pressure specs on the Series II OMP and it lists the various operating pressures so it makes sense ours is similar. This leads me to think a few things...

1. I still see no reason we could not adapt Series II housings with 3 injectors and have it work. I think the best way to approach this would be to Tee one supply line to both outboard injectors then feed the middle injector with the remaining line; I'm still trying to get ahold of those SAE articles, but based on the abstracts I think we will find that the engine itself is going to throw the extra oil we are injecting into the center outwards, still providing a net increase to lubrication across the entire set of seals. And assuming a fairly uniform pressure gradient across the seal, and short lines of equal length after the Tee, flow should be almost identical between the two "teed" lines.

2. Why not retrofit a Series II OMP into our cars? It seems like a lot of work was done mapping the OMP output to rpm and, looking at Brettus' graphs above, we seem to understand output per ECU demand setting. All we would have to do is get an Arduino to act as the middle man between the Series I ECU and the Series II OMP so we can send the right signal to create the right pressure / flow for current demand. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if the command signal to the newer OMPs is similar to the commands sent to the stepper motor in which case we might be able to send a converted signal with a simple electrical circuit. Assuming we can mount the darn thing somewhere, could we use a Sohn adapter maybe to block off the oil ports then feed the Series II omp with a Sohn reservoir? I'm betting I could even emulate the stock stepper motor so to not throw a code.

Anyways, this may be a whole bunch of work to get no improved benefit to engine longevity. I also have no clue what we can mix and match between engines since I've never done much to this card other than suspension R&R and basic maintenance. I just go the Model 3, so I am hoping to pull the UIM off the 8 this month and get a good look at things while I send of my injectors to get checked - maybe I will get some additional ideas then.

G2barbour

1. If you do the mods above to increase flow that would probably work. I had considered this. Remember that these pumps are controlled volume, so adding a T would diminish output to both of those nozzles. Maybe if you found a way to bridge all 3 with a proportioning mechanism of some kind.

2. This is the method I think about often. The series 1 ecm is easy to trick. Just leave the wiring hooked up to the OMP. The series 2 OMP is supplied by system oil pressure (or at least some meaningful fraction of it). If you could meter the pressure to it and then use an arduino or something like that I don't see why it couldn't work. (I'm actually a bit fuzzy on the series 2 info as I only read one thread about it but I should be at least 80% correct)

TheAMAZINGNorad

Thinking about the Tee method, if you absolutely wanted to make sure you split the flow evenly you could use a pressure compensated flow divider from hydraulic systems to equally split the flow. As an example, see this one on amazon: https://amzn.to/2N0jqTz

With the increased oil flow done from the mod described earlier, I think you would be OK splitting the flow the question is just what injector would get full flow? To those who have torn down a bunch of failed Renesis engines, do you see side seal failure more prominently on the exhaust side of the rotor? I wonder if the injector on the exhaust side of the housing should get full flow and split the other omp supply leg among the other two injectors.

TheAMAZINGNorad

Jackpot. Got all of the papers plus a few others (I e-mailed the author directly and he responded pretty fast). They are in a Google Drive folder which contains the following.

1. Oil Transport Cycle Model for Rotary Engine Oil Seals 2014-01-1664
2. Modeling of the Rotary Engine Apex Seal Lubrication 2015-01-2035
3. Visualization of the rotary engine oil transport mechanisms 2014-01-1665
4. Predicting Gas Leakage in the Rotary Engine—Part I: Apex and Corner Seals 2016/6/1
5. Predicting Gas Leakage in the Rotary Engine—Part II: Side Seals and Summary 2016/6/1

Here is the link: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1P9...NOMZ7SKFhRJVIC

Let me know if you have issues getting into here. I'll be off reading these during lunch!

kevink0000

Thanks so much for these documents. I have some s2 housings that are going into a build soon, and I am going to use all 3 injectors per housing, with the two outputs per housing T'd to the 3 nozzles, with a s1 pump running with modified capacity as detailed in this thread. My concern is that the slightly different "timing" of the center nozzle vs the other two might have some effect on the oil output, because the apex seal's sweep will open the T'd system up to 2 chambers at once for a few degrees of rotor rotation. This may cause some problems due to pressure differentials. If anyone has input on that particular concern, I'm all ears.

200.mph

iTrader: (9)

mazdamaniac did that years ago. i had a long talk with him at a dyno/tuning day about it but i dont think he ever documented it here

TheAMAZINGNorad

So I have started to digest these papers and have come to several interesting conclusions. I don't have time to put them all on here tonight, so I will try to add a little here and there. From Visualization of the Rotary Engine Oil Transport Mechanisms




So a few interesting things to note here I think.

1. At around 3,000 RPM oil can stagnate in 2nd land, area between the side seal and cut off seal, which can lead to excess carbon deposits. I don't know about you, but with stock gearing I tend to cruise around 3500 rpm on the freeway. I am wondering if that was a poor choice to prevent carbon buildup and why the "a redline a day keeps the rebuilder away" train of thought tends to work.
2. Surface tension and shear are negligible - centrifugal and gas forces dominate. So that means oil weight probably is not contributing much to the wear on the sides of our rotors.
3. Once oil has passed through the side seals, its basically wasted and burned off / exhausted out. I'm wondering, then, if adding MORE oil really won't help but instead my exacerbate carbon buildup?
4. I've read some articles from late 200x on here where people where trying to make the side seal clearances TIGHTER on the Renesis. From reading this article, I think that is a VERY bad idea. You need that gap so you can get oil to the side of the rotor. I'm wondering if the larger tolerances were to get more oil to the sides and to counter the extra heat in that region caused by non-peripheral exhaust ports?
5. In Summary, if we are going to continue down the path of adding MORE oil to the SIDE deals injectors, I wonder if the Sohn adapter really can be beneficial by providing cleaner burning oil? Tomorrow I want to discuss something I read about metered oil injection finding its way into the crankcase oil, which may cause other problems with the Sohn adapter, but we can digest that later!

TheAMAZINGNorad

So its time for Part Deux of my ramblings on these papers. I hope this is useful to somebody, and that those smarter than me on the 13B can come up with some meaningful modifications, so here goes based on my readings of Oil Transport Cycle Model for Rotary Engine Oil Seals:

If you are interested in this, I'd suggest you go read the entire paper (it gets a bit technical even for me with an MechE degree, the math is a bit much to swallow without trying to work it out yourself, but still fun to try to digest nonetheless). In general, I find it interesting to see that internal oil seems to be leeching OUTWARDS at higher RPMs due to waviness of the side housings and distortion in general. If you couple that with information found in the previous paper I discussed, at around 3,000 RPM and above centrifugal force dominates and oil that has gathered on the side housings is just going to make its way out radially until it is exhausted or consumed via combustion. I postulate the following.

1. Housing distortion is bad. Not only for the obvious reasons, but because it contributes to internal oil consumption and makes the oil seals less effective.
2. Side housing uniformity and smoothness is important.
3. I wonder if the excess carbon buildup mentioned earlier, coupled with housing distortion and surface roughness, is contributing to early demise of side seals. Racing beat offers a side housing re-surfacing and smoothing service which might be worth something here. I also wonder if some sort of mild "doweling" or "studding" would also benefit those seeking the longest lasting N/A RENESIS. Goal is reduce wear on the side seals!
4. I'm further convinced dumping excess oil at the side seals isn't going to do much. I think focusing on lubrication of the apex seal, via possibly a third injector using Series 2 rotor housings, would be more beneficial. I think all we are going to accomplish by increasing stock OMP rates is dumping in more oil to get consumed / exhausted and not really add anything in the way of lubrication.
   1. Caveat: below 3,000 rpm, add more oil as exhaust gas is a driver over centrifugal force and your not getting the oil "seeping" from the crankcase to help lubricate the side housings. Isn't this what Mazda did with their OMP re-flash campaign (add oil at low RPM)?

Vict0rv3g@

This is my engine metering pump exposed

Nee used engine no oil metering pump visible
I have a 04 rx8 renessis and water whent up the air intake and my engine messed up so i bought a new used engine .t.the mechanic i hired knowticed that on the engine i bought the oil metering pump is not there so whats going on .im new to rotary engines

Kimura

That's an s2 engine sorry bud...

kevink0000

These papers are certainly interesting, and in my opinion show that the focus of Mazda's recent research is primarily emissions reduction based, not longevity related. The small amount of oil that they are concerned with losing past the oil rings is only significant to reduce HC emissions in my opinion. The later flash Renesis engines were consuming a quart every 1500-2000 miles depending on driving style, with functioning OMP pumping crankcase oil into the chambers. I think what they are interested in is controlling the amount of unmetered oil that gets burned, so they can pass all the emission regs in the EU and USA again, hence the papers.

In the small sample of one Renesis engine that I have a history on and have torn down, the side seals were lubricated adequately and would have continued well past the 186,000 mile service life of that engine. The apex seal sides were worn the most, not the faces, the sides. This caused one seal to chip, and the engine had lower compression across two faces, but it still started hot or cold and would only run rough below about 2500 rpm, above that, it did not feel uneven or "lopey" like at low rpm. It eventually failed catastrophically.

There was wear on the rotor housings, with evidence of recurring metal-metal contact, (chrome highly polished in areas, and worn down to steel liner in places) and the faces of the apex seals showed lots of wear, but not as much as the sides.

There was very little carbon anywhere in the engine, other than the APV runners. The PO used GTX 5-20 for the entire life of the car. Bearings looked good, iron faces that were not gouged were within re-use spec, and side seal clearances were large, but they did not show face wear. Many of these engines were put together with very large side seal clearances from the factory, so I think the large clearances I was seeing could have been due to the old factory assembly spec, not necessarily wear.

I feel that this engine needs more oil in the chambers than it gets from the factory system. I think that even the S1 omp system can deliver better oil flow to the apex seal if the amount of oil is increased. I don't think all of the increased oil flow will go to the side seal area, I think it would get swept by the apex seal in a wedge and get distributed more equally on the housing than it does with the current very low factory OMP settings. In fact, I think this is more likely than excess oil simply dripping downward into the side seal area when the engine is running.

Of course, the S2 injector design is more optimal, especially if you are trying to remove as much excess oil in the chamber as you can, so you can pass emissions.

Just my opinion, if anybody wants to chime in.

Brettus

iTrader: (2)

Based on what I've learnt from this thread plus experience gained from my own exploits plus that from working with race cars here is the map I have devised for an NA.


...
And here is the stock map for reference :

kevink0000

Brettus,

Mm, mm look at all those 3s on the stock map. Almost no oil for most normal driving conditions. It takes decent throttle to get above 10 on the stock map. Any cruising at all, even at highway speeds, is in single digits, and mostly still at 3 if you are trying to feather throttle to conserve fuel. I was not entirely surprised when most of my commute was spent at 5 or below on the stock map. This map was one of the reasons I bought a used OMP before I even had a running 8. I thought mechanical modification would be a smart thing to understand first.

Thanks for posting your modified map.

Brettus

iTrader: (2)

Kevin ... if you look at the output chart on page 1 and compare , I'm adding about 50% in lower load ranges tapering down to 10% in the higher load ranges.

Kimura

Is there any point in modifying the oil injection throttle table? Does anyone know when what table is used?

Brettus

iTrader: (2)

I usually add 10% to that table (keeping all values below 60) as well ..... I think it only activates in the first second or so after you activate the throttle .

Brettus

iTrader: (2)

Just noticed that my oil level rises now that I'm 100% premixing (https://www.rx8club.com/series-i-tro...2/#post4884901 ) . Which has got me thinking about how I could make the omp work for me again.

My reason for going 100% premix was twofold :


1/My apex seals were bending and housings wearing at high boost with just the omp . Note:This happened after moving to a high % of ethanol.


2/ The omp got in the way of fitting a decent sized intake to feed the turbo.

But , relative to premixing at 100:1, the omp uses way less oil at low load, about double the oil at NA WOT loads and about the same amount at 1bar boost.

So........................... how would I make the omp satisfactory for high boost on ethanol ?
some possibilities
1/ use both option 1 and 2 on first page
2/keep omp stock but add premix at 150:1 or 200:1
3/use option 2 with 200:1 premix
4/keep premixing at 100:1 with no omp and live with rising oil level
Thoughts?