13B RENESIS Total Rotary Teardown. 04-11 Mazda Rx-8 6-Port!

What a strange engine design. Looks virtually impossible to work on if one needed to get into the combustion chamber.

Love the T-shirt, for years I used only Zalinsky auto parts “car parts made for the American working man” but ended up switching to Callahan because of the warranty on the box. 😂 Really enjoy your videos, thanks!

I used to have a 91 Rx-7 and I gotta say that it was my favorite driving car ever. Thank goodness someone wrecked it before I had to work on it

You smell like bad gas

No wonder why a regular mechanic would never work on one of these

Bad memories...my not mechanically inclined friend liked these. I did all his work on a couple 1st gen., and an '88 13b. They were actually very good for him..
I bought his 88. Apex seal failed, at 228,455 miles. Not too bad, really. But I was in school, broke, and it was Feb 2000 in PA. So, it was cold.
Bought another crap motor, disassembled both, and made one running motor out of them and minimal new parts. Most work done outside in my parents driveway. But, it ran, and I sold it.
You are right..that front bolt was tight!
I think each rotor had 58 parts to seal it. 50 something.
Perfectly balanced? Absolutely not. Each rotor weighs 11 lb, and moves through a 30mm "stroke" while rotating. Just look at the parts and use your head! And ask why mazda added front and rear counterweights to it. To oppose the imbalance of the rotors, that is the answer. With those, yes it is pretty smooth, like many piston engines.
It is too bad that they need oil injection, 4 stroke car oils aren't really made with that in mind, might leave residue, thus goop up parts.
The combustion event occurs in a moving combustion space, exposing the flame to a lot of relatively cool metal. This is inherently inefficient. Evidence includes the unusually large radiator (for the engine size and HP), and more importantly, the mediocre-to-poor mileage they all get.
The power they do produce isn't the best, they are gutless and feel slower than they are.
It's obvious that I'm not really a fan, but it is so cool that mazda tried something different. I am glad to have had some experience with them, and more glad that it's in my past.
A second generation rx7 with an LS swap would be cool, and they do fit.
Think about that- the engine compartment is pretty full with the rotary....and a 6.0 or bigger LS fits in there. Early LS powered corvettes get better gas mileage, too. Triple the power, better mileage, enough torque to break the mazda drivetrain.....

That was the weirdest teardown Ive seen. Like reverse engineering one of those tictac vehicles the navy talks about

Good job I watched the whole thing nonstop which normally I have a maximum 6 minute attention span

I tore down a 12a rotary around 1988 and I was looking forward to seeing you pull the flywheel. Damn.

What I did: purchase the socket, which I still have, then made a trip to the steel scrap yard and bought about six feet each of stout angle iron and round pipe sized to slip over my breaker bar. Drilled a pair of holes and bolted the angle iron to the flywheel using clutch cover bolts. Then braced the angle iron on the driveway, attached the socket, breaker bar and steel pipe extension at an acute angle, and then stood on it.

It took a substantial amount of my 180lbs standing near the end of that pipe to break it loose.

No surprise: rotor housings were thrashed. Large sections of the chrome facing were gone. Also the end housings weren’t in good shape. So we just bought a used engine and dropped that in. Not so long after, my wife left me, took the car, and wound up blowing the replacement engine.

A video that predates "Blue"?

I want to see the eco diesel. Never seen one of those up close before

We've become a disposable society. I can't remember the last time a shop tore into an engine. "Ooo its making noise!! You need an engine!!"

you think the crank bolt is tight on that try to remove the crank bolt out of an M62tub44v8BMW engine the torque down to 350 foot pounds factory spec at least doing it by hand is a pain in the ass maybe with an impact way easier

Tommy Boy!!!!

This thing gives me VW aircooled vibes the way it is constructed and looks... Trauma!

Wait, wait. Your father was a Mazda master tech?! What does he think about the KL SERIES V6? THEY HAVE MORE IN COMMON WITH MOTORCYCLES THAN TRADITIONAL ENGINES WITH A SPLIT CRANKCASE and pretty much a 6 bolt main with that huge girdle, bottom half of the crankcase being an extremely robust low end. Please, please do an episode on a Mazda KL engine. I've owned a Mazda MX-6 and a Ford Probe GT the GT was KL-ZE swapped. Rev limit at 7500 for a 2.5 v6? Excellent motors. Would love to see even a klg4 from a later 626 anything from the KL family!

What about all the problems of regular engines?

If rotary were used more they could be improved but the us gov banned them using epa

What do you do with the parts ? Don’t you have to have them to rebuild the engine ?

What do you do with them ? Please explain what your business is . Are you just buying old engines and take apart and sell individual parts ?

Idk something about you hitting 300k subs today made me want to come back to the first video of yours i ever saw (i know you wont see this but congrats anyway)

The only use for them is as compressors , maybe

Who gave you the Callahan shirt, Richard or Tommy?

Yep. It’s a Wankel.

Mazda should make a "REAL" rotary engine. A TURBINE. l had a'74 Mazda rotatry pickup, currently have an air cooled Curtiss Wright rotary, going to convert to external combustion, the only practical solution for this engine design.

My first car was a 1979 RX7, loved it while it lasted, lol. Later I got an old 1983 RX7 while I was in the military in the 90's. That car had oil leaks, clutch issues and every other rotary issue. I traded it in for a new 93 Probe and I asked for $500 for it. The dealership wasn't to happy when they took a test drive in it after I already signed the paperwork, lol. They were real quiet afterwards.

Thanks for tearing the WHOLE THING down

Just FYI, the springs on the seals are only there to apply pressure at startup. Once the engine hits compression, all seals, apex, corner, and side seals, are held with compression gasses. Carbon is a sign of not being run hard enough or use of synthetic oil. The oil metering pump deliberately delivers oil to the engine intake to mix with fuel/air so the seals are lubed on the rotor (oil seals at the rotor gears prevent engine oil from getting in). Synthetic oil burns gummy and incompletely, and will easily stick a side seal, which is far more likely than an apex seal. Side seal sticking is probably the most common compression failure in a Wankel.

I had an 06' RX8 and it had 187k miles, the coolant seal went out before the apex seal did

or Martys classic rx7

You mentioned RockAuto -- I will NEVER use them again! I ordered a set of brake rotors & pads for a Subaru -- and the front set of both pads & rotors were the wrong ones (too small). I went through the online return process & their computer interface decided that it was neither their fault or my fault that I got the wrong parts -- so they would only credit me 50%. There is no way of pleading your case or talking to a human -- the machine has spoken! I used to be in the auto parts business -- so I absolutely KNOW that I looked the parts up correctly -- but it was their listing for the part numbers for both the front pads & the rotors that was wrong.

People always rant and rave about how unreliable these engines are, but if maintained and premixed I’m convinced they’re more reliable than 90% of engines produced today.

For a short time, I had a Mazda RX2, Most unique design. Fun for a while anyway.

A Mazda rotary with 90k milse? That almost never happens.

Thanks for showing this.
As an engine man for 50+ years I wanted to poke my eyes out because I never saw the inside of a rotary.

I've wanted to build a 6 rotor rotary engine for use in a boat. Mainly for in the bay or large lakes usage not open ocean.

Rock auto gives you alot of choices. You can get oem or whatever.

What, no "test", no dipstick thrash? Heresy I say! Great job Eric.

Tappa Kegga Beer TKB

Only series 1 automatics are 4 port, and so are some of the manuals.

I have an 04 RX-8 6MT. Just looking at all the vacuum hoses stresses me out! 😬

I had a 1973 rx3 with a rotary engine fast as hell. But overheating killed my engine. But it was under warranty.

Fascinating!

Whoa, you really got me now
You got me so I don't know where I'm goin'
(Oh yeah) you really got me now.🤕

There are a number of problems with the rotary engine produced by Mazda. However specifically with the Renesis engine, it is the catalytic converter getting clogged which then affects the seal.

When sludge built up in the catalytic converter, this led to an increase in 'back pressure'... eventually leading to SIDE seal failure. They say "never use an RX8 engine for your restomod".. whether it be FD, RX3 or any 🐝.

Life in a day

Use protech R in fuel they go much much longer. That engine just needed a reseal.