Rob, Richard Holdener wants to get a rotory on the engine dyno at west tech performance. Get at him, you both want to play with the same things. Make it happen!
Good call, Richard Holdener spent a long time writing for muscle-car magazines. His youtube stuff isn't bad either. ua-cam.com/video/Ol5jf8E3bhI/v-deo.html
If the coolant seals are failing at the hottest part, it seems logical they're degrading due to heat. You could then replace it with a more heat resistant material that would handle it better, maybe machine out the channel it sits in to fit a more substantial seal or even look at the cooling system and see if the rad/thermostat etc could be modified to keep the engine cooler and help the seal last longer. It is a lot of effort for a job that only comes up once every 100k miles or so though.
defo the cooling system is one off the let downs on these cars especially when you have a huge air con radiator system blocking the radiator,then the restrictive airflow to it all,, but hey its how the cookie crumbles i guess ahaha
I love that you guys did what most people do when looking at a renesis for the first time... ugh... woah cool, ugh... ugh... oh that's interesting... ugh
I’ve owned like 6 of them, all with 100k plus and low compression. Ran just fine with new ignition, after only a decarb and a lot of oil changes to clean them out. Sold them and haven’t heard complaints from the buyers. 🤷🏻♂️
@@Jazz-nm1kf nah, de-carbing all the carbon build up on the rotors. Mostly just letting the block suck in a bunch of sea foam while HOT and then leave it to sit for an hour or so and then crank err up to burn off whatever got soaked with the cleaner. Works pretty good. Mazda has a similar factory de-carb procedure.
Owned an rx8 for 2 years and put 60k on and bought it with 60k and the engine still ran fine clutch just went out and instead of fixing it im 2jz swapping it.
Strange the rx8 is the most reliable car ive ever owned. 95k miles and never let me down. I also beat the crap out of it. I dont understand all the horror stories
I left my Renesis on the engine hoist, used a ratchet strap to secure it to the legs, a custom tool to lock the flywheel to the bolt, and then did the squat with a cheater bar. That front bolt is no joke.
I think the Renesis is underrated. The port is uncovered in relation to the rotor, for the majority of the rotor intake cycle. The apex seals don't have to go over an interrupted path. I think that has a lot of value.
Wonder if Rob will ever consider doing a Hybrid rotary engine, by using Renesis irons and 13B or even 12A housings for more exhaust flow. Exhaust manifold would be a pain to build, but surely fabrication father can make it happen ✌️ Keep up the videos Rob, making me more motivated to tear down my old Rensis motor and my new one lol
It's been done many times already. You use gsl-se housings since they have the coolant seals on the housings just like the renesis housings do. You also don't use the renesis side exhaust ports but instead fill them full of devcon and just run the peripheral ports on the gsl-se housings. Knight sports did one years ago that made 280whp na as did racing beat.
This is pure gold. And putting Robs hate for the RX8 aside, you can hear his enthusiasm when the motor opens and it gets all technical! Fantastic to watch guys! 👏🏻
7:00 It has the Series I Renesis OMP injection Style AND the classic FD/FC style oil injection for the Series II. The problem is that the OMP is different from the Series I, so adding a 2cyl tank is VERY hard and limited to no support exsists to convert it. A 10% increase to the OMP via tune is very sufficant to prevent issues as the FD style omp setup worked just fine and this has both. I add 1qt of burnable oil to my setup when it gets changed and or it gets consumed and premix aswell. My catalyst jumped ship on its own a long time ago. Was a hell of a confusing then when the clutch was changed. No marks from someone doing it before me, so I guess it is just toast. Very little P0420 action before I disabled it also.
@rob dahm... what would happen if you were to put a copper wire in place of the coolant seal? like a thick one? and just wedge it in there between the plate and the damn rotor housing?
@@Ayane13b people do it on piston engines all the time. they machine a little oring groove into the head or block, and put in a piece of wire to help seal the head gasket. sometimes only using that piece of wire if its only got oil going through it when its not water cooled. i keep seeing that used all the time and then look at a rotary engine and think... hm.,... what if?!?
The key to a long life is upkeep. Watch those oil levels. Keep clean oil in it. Premix especially if you have a gen 1. Change out ignition yearly most likely depending on how much you drive. We have two 8s over here, mines basically new less than 30k original miles. My lady has a velocity red 2010 with almost 165k original miles. Still going strong! Do your maintenance people
Interesting seeing the differences between a 13B REW and a Renesis. To bookend the rotary collection Rob, you now need a 12A and a 10A! So… first gen RX-7 and R100 when, Rob? xD
RX2 and RX3 😍 are just forgotten about then! CarNutz I was hoping he would go into the locating dowel, main bolts and oiling mods thou, the brief taste of the Doritos difference was cool otherwise what did we learn really? 🤔
The cat eating from the bag, the picture on that bag looked like the cats head it well tripped me out for a second! So happy to see you guys doing a renesis I've really been wanting to know how many of your 13b tricks work on one....👍👌👍
Damn seems like no amount of premix is gonna save the coolant seals melting away from high mileage but now I know atleast I don't have to worry about the rotor bits giving out first :(
@@Oborowatabinostk no kidding shit was a two man job man. Smfh but it was worth to dismantle and see how my engine died. The seals broke and literally carved my housings. Mf rip.
yeah i couldnt believe he was using a ratchett to do that. i recently tried to remove my crank bolt on my toyota altezza to do a timing belt change (not rotary... or powerful..). the bolt was so tight i had a breaker bar almost 3 meters long and was jumping up and down on it almost tipping the whole car over, i also tried soaking loads of crc into it, and heat gunning it. nothing. was tempted to use the blow torch but didnt want to melt anything behind it. i gave up and just rotated the engine, inspecting the belt, it looked fine. so to this day there is still a brand new timing belt sitting in my wardrobe. someday i will get that bolt undone and replace that damn bolt. someday. not keen on removing the radiator etc again to access it if its not going to work this time though. im lazy.
I had the clutch and flywheel replaced on my S14 but the flywheel had a ring gear that was just a press fit. The starter would only turn over the engine when the clutch was cold. Something about knowing you can't kill an engine makes you kill the engine a lot more. I got very good at push starting my own car. Shoulder on the A pillar push it a few feet and then hop in and pop the clutch. I had to do it in a tacobell drive through on time, I had 10 feet before the parking lot went up hill. Got it in those 10 feet on the first try. Thankfully it was a very easy engine to start.
hell yeah g i'd pay way to much money for that imagine a billet 4 rotor awd liquid piston engine rx7 or something, imagine what would be possible with that 1k hp from a 2 rotor, hell maby a 1 rotor if its balanced corectly, didnt lpe say that they can get significantly higher power to weight out of their engine? makes sense considering its hiting every 3rd of a rev or something (corect me if im wrong) but yeah a 4 rotor? that would be an imense amount of power shit imagine what they might be able to do if they said "all balls out lets make power to weight" and went extreme with it, 500 c.i out of a 8 rotor thrown at a dragster, how much power? 20k? probably if it can last 5 seconds.
I'm curious why they don't use a metal o-ring to seal them instead. Those are typically used in high pressure/high temp environments and it would eliminate the failures. More expensive but it would last so much longer.
Thanks for all your information Rob Dahm, I am currently looking for a second gen corvair to slap a 2 rotor in there. Not sure if I saw a corvair in your shop or not. But I just love the sound of a rotary. Keep up the good work my man! ✌️
I saw a video that explained one of the huge rotary problems is the lower spark plug or both firing far too early, causing the motor to kind of want to spin in reverse. I can imagine that would cause lots of stress
Seems like what they need is a fire ring of some sort. You'd have to design a housing with smaller coolant passages, or larger overall housings to make room for a fire ring next to the coolant seal though. I bet the material between the iron and the rotor housing starts to deteriorate juuuuust enough that combustion starts touching that coolant seal causing it to fail. If this hypothesis is true then we'll see the motor shit a coolant seal out again in relatively short order.
Observations, noting your build with the dowels. RX8 Rotary blows seals there because of bolt stretch because of internal pressures, forces the case apart exposing the O rings to direct heat of the combustion. Could be a detonation issue too. Detonation generates tremendous pressures against the compression stroke. Put dowel rods in it and may never happen again, or at least by the plugs. Last question anyone ever tried to love the plugs down in the housing, so not firing directly into the side of the rotor? So the flame front does actually PUSH the rotor instead of trying to shove it sideways...
@@acters124 yep. those O rings are burnt. even melted, do got to be micro-movement there sure its not instant burn out , but over time the flame front eats at the o -ring, what looks like..
I’m super pumped about this build. I bet at least 90% of your audience have looked at buying a cheap RX8 because it’s just about the only cheap way to get into a rotary anymore. I know that’s why I got mine.
7:12 There is actually a way to modify a Renesis to take an RX7 housing (or vice versa) to have the Rx7 exhaust port, or even both of them im pretty sure. Read alot about it, without intentions of doing it haha.
Best part was opening the oil pan on the desk. I have moments like that all the time, very important and prevents a mess, and you’re just like, “oh yeah.”
yall should do a renesis hybrid build. there's not a whole lot of information out there, but I got faith that you could get it done and documented, so the rest of us can.
I had an FC RX-7 back when I was deep, deep into 90s Japanese car culture (and S13 240 as well, with a red-top JDM front clip and brick style headlights) and I haven't revisited rotaries in a long time - thanks for the great video, guys! And special thanks to the UA-cam algorithm?
Hopefully I've got many years with my ultra low mileage 2009 unicorn before I face that. I'd toyed with the idea of buying a blown motor RX-8 to learn on. But wound up with a 1982 GSL I hope to save instead.
My 2005 RX-8 has 124,000mi on the stock engine and she purrs. The end goal for my car is, hopefully, a single turbo 20B-REW swap. In the meantime if the Renesis needs a rebuild the best thing to do to them is exhaust porting. The leading cause of failure in the Renesis is too much heat from its high compression and not enough exhaust flow to release that heat.
@@chinchy111 just a little bit to supplement the OMP for now, until I can get a Sohn kit and a tune to increase the output of the OMP. Just some added security in this hot box of a motor
@@chinchy111 nope. I buy some of those little like 3.2oz 2-Stroke oil bottles from Walmart. They're a good amount for premixing with a stock RX-8 to supplement the OMP
ok here's a stretch idea...since most performance oils are now really thin (0W30), could the engine coolant be replaced by engine oil? I know that glycol water coolant heat transfer is much higher than oil but a few things may change to make this work. I believe that the radiator would have to double in volume. The cooling system would then be unpressurized which may help reliability. The engine would then use the cooling radiator as its dry sump. The engine oil pump would source oil from the cool side of the radiator. The water pump (now an oil pump) may have to be larger. The thermostat would need to open sooner. Benefit: reduced possibility of future engine damage...no water in oil risk. The oil changes could be extended...perhaps 3 to 4 times longer? Great videos!
Maybe they uses wrong coolant fluid ? That was a problem a while back if you used iron engine fluid into a aluminum blok it would eat away gaskets (it was a kind of reaction between the 2 fluids )
Gotta love the things we get away with on our roads in Michigan and what you see on our roads pretty with no inspections or anything to say whether it is safe and eco friendly on the road soley the drivers/owners responsibility
Series 2 Renesis can take Clean Oil Feed. By-pass the OE crank case oil straight back to filler neck. Use an electric oil pump and mechanical pressure regulator to push premix oil at 80 PSI to the OE electric feed pumps. Problem solved for carbon build up on rotors and housing.
Vaseline haha. And a 2mm hex Allen wrench to roughly clearance your apex seals and make sure the corner seals didn’t rotate when you put the rotor in during assembly. Otherwise nothing major
Rob can you run an rx8 motor with a carb? Would it need a distributor? Cpuld it even run one? Im looking for a cheap setup to put in my samurai but leaving it sort of less electrical and more primative
That's the same location of the exhaust port on the irons, WOW that's the reason, you need a 13b or it will happen again, or improve the exhaust port and full exhaust system, but I'll go with the 13b
I don't know if this is really stupid, but does someone make copper versions of the coolant seals? Considering that a regular engine has a copper gasket between the head and the block surely it would be logical for a rotary to have copper gaskets/seals between the different parts of the engine? Thanks :)
That's very cool, I had a few RX-7's in the 80's and early 90s. missing my GLS-SE 13b. It's really cool to see these differences. Especially seeing the Issue with Heat. I wonder it it's damage from after the car's run and you shut it down and the coolant drops low. Probably not, but it's interesting. The other idea is cooler plugs or perhaps a heat soak plate to pull the heat away from the plugs, like make a chunk of copper bolted to that area. Perhaps another Coolant port drilled in the housings. But really some high temp seals might be fine, either way it's a cheap fix for a DIY.
Your latest's videos on the RX8 and how to make it reliable have reignited my love for the triangle, my biggest concern is buying one and it being a money sink, you've showed us that it doesn't have to be that way with a few minor changes. Thank you for what you do.
what rob is doing is genius, he’s building a 1000hp 2 rotor, so he can essentially copy and paste and make a 2000hp 4 rotor, genius. i love it. (i hope it’s that easy)
That's very interesting. Hey Rob look into how the subie guys solved their head gasket problems by putting in a undercut before the cylinder and adding a brass round wire just to help seal the head gasket. If there is some room on the housing to do this this would help the longevity of the coolant seal. Specially the area close to the spark plugs.
Just about to mention that! It ends up making the exhaust a 6 port, letting it finally breathe, and I would assume a wayyy better exhaust sound. From that point you could turbo it with less problems. Sure, you then have to make a custom exhaust, intake, and stand alone but hey, it’s just money…
I look handsome as hell good job guys!
Seshhhhhhh😂❤💘I'm inlove no homo
The legend himself, owner of the superior chassis
Let the rx8 tax begin !!
Make sure Rob sorts out your rear bumper. That was disappointing to watch
i feel like isaiah slav squatting on top of his motor was the perfect video thumbnail and you missed it 😂
I love how we had the classic "Rob Dahm ending", then we started getting somewhat normal endings, and now we are getting blue balled mid sentence.
yeah, were back to the usual dahm endings
Ikr I swear to god if I didn’t love him so much I’d hate him
best endings on youtube😂
“It’s going to be all about COC’”
Fuck do you MEAN mid sentence, our mans cut that sentence MID FUCKING WORD my guy... That takes dedication and years of experience
This channel should be called the reliable rotary channel
yeah, ironically the engines work, but its most of the rest of the cars that dont work
Ok it’s a good start but it still needs rob’s name in it how about “Rob’s rotary repair recommendations”
Rob Dahm Rotaries 😥
I feel more like a "Rob Rob Rob Rob Rob Rob" I think that describes the channel the best way!
Kind of an oxymoron isn’t it? 😂
Rob, Richard Holdener wants to get a rotory on the engine dyno at west tech performance. Get at him, you both want to play with the same things. Make it happen!
That id love to see!
I think hes in Cali!
@@madmod west tec is in LA
Good call, Richard Holdener spent a long time writing for muscle-car magazines. His youtube stuff isn't bad either. ua-cam.com/video/Ol5jf8E3bhI/v-deo.html
That would be fun to do the 4 or 6 rotors!
Enjoyed the Eiffel Tower engine teardown a little too much.
I saw it as the "Devil's Triangle"
Rob: "the rule is you can't bring a rotary in unless it's running"
Everyone: .......
If the coolant seals are failing at the hottest part, it seems logical they're degrading due to heat. You could then replace it with a more heat resistant material that would handle it better, maybe machine out the channel it sits in to fit a more substantial seal or even look at the cooling system and see if the rad/thermostat etc could be modified to keep the engine cooler and help the seal last longer. It is a lot of effort for a job that only comes up once every 100k miles or so though.
Good idea
E85 burns cooler. You'd only go 100 miles on a tank though
defo the cooling system is one off the let downs on these cars especially when you have a huge air con radiator system blocking the radiator,then the restrictive airflow to it all,, but hey its how the cookie crumbles i guess ahaha
It failed cause it got too 🔥
That's the result, better to fix the cause , then no need to fix the result.
This ONLY happens on RX-8s that are very overheated. Well cared for ones don't blow coolant seals.
I love that you guys did what most people do when looking at a renesis for the first time... ugh... woah cool, ugh... ugh... oh that's interesting... ugh
"Our whole channel is a commercial for Dodge at this point." Classic Rob
Everything is a dodge commercial
I wanted an RX8 so bad before knowing about rotaries, I still think they have potential, they just need a lot dahm love...
I’ve owned like 6 of them, all with 100k plus and low compression. Ran just fine with new ignition, after only a decarb and a lot of oil changes to clean them out. Sold them and haven’t heard complaints from the buyers. 🤷🏻♂️
@@I_know_what_im_talking_about sorry for my ignorance, I'm still new to learning about rotaries. What's decarb refer to here? A tune?
@@Jazz-nm1kf nah, de-carbing all the carbon build up on the rotors. Mostly just letting the block suck in a bunch of sea foam while HOT and then leave it to sit for an hour or so and then crank err up to burn off whatever got soaked with the cleaner. Works pretty good. Mazda has a similar factory de-carb procedure.
Owned an rx8 for 2 years and put 60k on and bought it with 60k and the engine still ran fine clutch just went out and instead of fixing it im 2jz swapping it.
Strange the rx8 is the most reliable car ive ever owned. 95k miles and never let me down. I also beat the crap out of it. I dont understand all the horror stories
I left my Renesis on the engine hoist, used a ratchet strap to secure it to the legs, a custom tool to lock the flywheel to the bolt, and then did the squat with a cheater bar. That front bolt is no joke.
I think the Renesis is underrated. The port is uncovered in relation to the rotor, for the majority of the rotor intake cycle. The apex seals don't have to go over an interrupted path. I think that has a lot of value.
No one:
Rob Dahm: " That's Reusable"
Wonder if Rob will ever consider doing a Hybrid rotary engine, by using Renesis irons and 13B or even 12A housings for more exhaust flow. Exhaust manifold would be a pain to build, but surely fabrication father can make it happen ✌️
Keep up the videos Rob, making me more motivated to tear down my old Rensis motor and my new one lol
Guys vote this up, I would love to see it in action
It's been done many times already. You use gsl-se housings since they have the coolant seals on the housings just like the renesis housings do. You also don't use the renesis side exhaust ports but instead fill them full of devcon and just run the peripheral ports on the gsl-se housings. Knight sports did one years ago that made 280whp na as did racing beat.
This is pure gold. And putting Robs hate for the RX8 aside, you can hear his enthusiasm when the motor opens and it gets all technical! Fantastic to watch guys! 👏🏻
7:00 It has the Series I Renesis OMP injection Style AND the classic FD/FC style oil injection for the Series II. The problem is that the OMP is different from the Series I, so adding a 2cyl tank is VERY hard and limited to no support exsists to convert it. A 10% increase to the OMP via tune is very sufficant to prevent issues as the FD style omp setup worked just fine and this has both. I add 1qt of burnable oil to my setup when it gets changed and or it gets consumed and premix aswell. My catalyst jumped ship on its own a long time ago. Was a hell of a confusing then when the clutch was changed. No marks from someone doing it before me, so I guess it is just toast. Very little P0420 action before I disabled it also.
Copy/paste??
@rob dahm... what would happen if you were to put a copper wire in place of the coolant seal? like a thick one? and just wedge it in there between the plate and the damn rotor housing?
Wouldn't copper cause cross metal corrosion?
@@Ayane13b A nail wrapped in copper will rust/corrode the most.
High temp silicone electrical wire works... don't ask me how I know.
@@godfreypoon5148 fine then, keep your secrets. lol
@@Ayane13b people do it on piston engines all the time. they machine a little oring groove into the head or block, and put in a piece of wire to help seal the head gasket. sometimes only using that piece of wire if its only got oil going through it when its not water cooled. i keep seeing that used all the time and then look at a rotary engine and think... hm.,... what if?!?
Any RX8 owner: *"My car is broken!"*
The whole internet: **ApEx SeAlS go BRRRRRRR!!!** 🤣🤣🤣
Usually
I know early models had serious oil pan leaking issues which made the apex seal situation come sooner lol
@@TheRedRaven_ And they had bad tune from factory, they had recalls to get ECU reflashed to increase the oil injection
i dont get these "such in such go BRRR" jokes. what does it mean?
@@socks2441 it's a military meme. lookup a10 warthog sound shots
The key to a long life is upkeep. Watch those oil levels. Keep clean oil in it. Premix especially if you have a gen 1. Change out ignition yearly most likely depending on how much you drive. We have two 8s over here, mines basically new less than 30k original miles. My lady has a velocity red 2010 with almost 165k original miles. Still going strong! Do your maintenance people
Interesting seeing the differences between a 13B REW and a Renesis. To bookend the rotary collection Rob, you now need a 12A and a 10A!
So… first gen RX-7 and R100 when, Rob? xD
I also wish he'd get a REPU to replace that Dodge :D
RX2 and RX3 😍 are just forgotten about then!
CarNutz I was hoping he would go into the locating dowel, main bolts and oiling mods thou, the brief taste of the Doritos difference was cool otherwise what did we learn really? 🤔
The cat eating from the bag, the picture on that bag looked like the cats head it well tripped me out for a second!
So happy to see you guys doing a renesis I've really been wanting to know how many of your 13b tricks work on one....👍👌👍
Damn seems like no amount of premix is gonna save the coolant seals melting away from high mileage but now I know atleast I don't have to worry about the rotor bits giving out first :(
Isia is your best asset rob i'm glad you are at least trying to take care of him by letting him give this car life again.
8:50 - I snapped a ratchet doing this lol. Breaker bars ftw. Sweet video again, loving this channel!
Took me and my dad to get this shit done in like an hour or so. Fuck that crank shaft bolt
@@uc79newtype yea dad strength and the biggest breaker bar you can find is required.
@@Oborowatabinostk no kidding shit was a two man job man. Smfh but it was worth to dismantle and see how my engine died. The seals broke and literally carved my housings. Mf rip.
yeah i couldnt believe he was using a ratchett to do that. i recently tried to remove my crank bolt on my toyota altezza to do a timing belt change (not rotary... or powerful..). the bolt was so tight i had a breaker bar almost 3 meters long and was jumping up and down on it almost tipping the whole car over, i also tried soaking loads of crc into it, and heat gunning it. nothing. was tempted to use the blow torch but didnt want to melt anything behind it. i gave up and just rotated the engine, inspecting the belt, it looked fine. so to this day there is still a brand new timing belt sitting in my wardrobe. someday i will get that bolt undone and replace that damn bolt. someday.
not keen on removing the radiator etc again to access it if its not going to work this time though. im lazy.
the cat looked like it was part of the bag! i literally lol'd ... i love my rotors but cmon what would this channel be without the CAT!
Pushing that RX8 with the Dodge was the funniest thing I have seen in a long time
I love this video. Great energy on this
are we just going to ignore how the cat matched up perfectly with the bag?!
Waiting for Japanese guy that make meme cat into small sculpt art
Dodges new commercial be like you can even use it to start you shit box of a rx8 with it🤣
I love that you didn’t cut, “You ruined what I was about to say”, fantastic stuff.
Coolant seals can also fail due to excessive heat, if the oil system is not cooling properly, hence why rotary engines have big engine oil cooler/s
Coolant seal fails at the spark plug because it is that spot that sees the highest chamber pressures and the fastest increasing pressures.
8:55 I sheared a Snap-On breaker bar doing exactly this. Tho it was a 13B PP not a Renesis.
I love this, seeing an s2 on an actual educational channel is what i need!
I had the clutch and flywheel replaced on my S14 but the flywheel had a ring gear that was just a press fit. The starter would only turn over the engine when the clutch was cold. Something about knowing you can't kill an engine makes you kill the engine a lot more. I got very good at push starting my own car. Shoulder on the A pillar push it a few feet and then hop in and pop the clutch. I had to do it in a tacobell drive through on time, I had 10 feet before the parking lot went up hill. Got it in those 10 feet on the first try. Thankfully it was a very easy engine to start.
The one "rotary" that you didn't have on that table so far has to be a Liquidpiston engine. Id love to see you have a collab with those guys
hell yeah g
i'd pay way to much money for that
imagine a billet 4 rotor awd liquid piston engine rx7 or something,
imagine what would be possible with that
1k hp from a 2 rotor, hell maby a 1 rotor if its balanced corectly, didnt lpe say that they can get significantly higher power to weight out of their engine?
makes sense considering its hiting every 3rd of a rev or something (corect me if im wrong)
but yeah a 4 rotor? that would be an imense amount of power
shit imagine what they might be able to do if they said "all balls out lets make power to weight" and went extreme with it, 500 c.i out of a 8 rotor thrown at a dragster, how much power? 20k? probably if it can last 5 seconds.
I'm curious why they don't use a metal o-ring to seal them instead. Those are typically used in high pressure/high temp environments and it would eliminate the failures. More expensive but it would last so much longer.
Ty for including some catto content in these modern videos. I really love seeing that cat warm up to you
Thanks for all your information Rob Dahm, I am currently looking for a second gen corvair to slap a 2 rotor in there. Not sure if I saw a corvair in your shop or not. But I just love the sound of a rotary. Keep up the good work my man! ✌️
my favorite thing about MSPs is the free chocolate milk as a reward for pulling the engine!
RX8, misunderstood by the masses, cherished by those who *know*
Well said
now people are starting to get em right
@@thomaslavictoiregot an auto for cheap but yes too many overpriced drift cars folks are buying up what’s left for alternatives
Me: "Maybe I can get an RX-8 to scratch the rotary itch"
Then 7:12
Me: "Welp, nevermind" xD
Rew swaps in the s1 are pretty well documented
The cat still eating his food with caution. 😅🤣
I fucking love how he got out of the car with his big man walk up too rob after doing the doughnuts 😂 the perfect duo
The only thing wrong with cheap RX-8's are the damn owners
What's wrong with isaiah
Or in my case, 185,000km on the original engine
The Dahm owners
Yea I can agree lol… I am one of those
I saw a video that explained one of the huge rotary problems is the lower spark plug or both firing far too early, causing the motor to kind of want to spin in reverse. I can imagine that would cause lots of stress
Seems like what they need is a fire ring of some sort. You'd have to design a housing with smaller coolant passages, or larger overall housings to make room for a fire ring next to the coolant seal though. I bet the material between the iron and the rotor housing starts to deteriorate juuuuust enough that combustion starts touching that coolant seal causing it to fail. If this hypothesis is true then we'll see the motor shit a coolant seal out again in relatively short order.
“Have you guys seen the front, it’s no big deal” 🤣
Love the rx8 content... WE NEED MORE
Observations, noting your build with the dowels.
RX8 Rotary blows seals there because of bolt stretch because of internal pressures, forces the case apart exposing the O rings to direct heat of the combustion. Could be a detonation issue too. Detonation generates tremendous pressures against the compression stroke.
Put dowel rods in it and may never happen again, or at least by the plugs.
Last question anyone ever tried to love the plugs down in the housing, so not firing directly into the side of the rotor? So the flame front does actually PUSH the rotor instead of trying to shove it sideways...
down in the housing?
@@acters124 yep. those O rings are burnt. even melted, do got to be micro-movement there sure its not instant burn out , but over time the flame front eats at the o -ring, what looks like..
I'm kind of impressed it was still running at all, looking like that on the inside!
I’m super pumped about this build. I bet at least 90% of your audience have looked at buying a cheap RX8 because it’s just about the only cheap way to get into a rotary anymore. I know that’s why I got mine.
I've been looking forward to this for a while. Mainly just to watch the goofiness but to also learn the differences between the old and new.
as an Rx8 owner, I appreciate this video.
Rob Dahm is the master of edging
7:12
There is actually a way to modify a Renesis to take an RX7 housing (or vice versa) to have the Rx7 exhaust port, or even both of them im pretty sure. Read alot about it, without intentions of doing it haha.
Best part was opening the oil pan on the desk.
I have moments like that all the time, very important and prevents a mess, and you’re just like, “oh yeah.”
yall should do a renesis hybrid build. there's not a whole lot of information out there, but I got faith that you could get it done and documented, so the rest of us can.
It's pretty rare that three seconds into something I just hurt laughing I see high five embrace while using an impact 🤣
@08:37 when you and your buddy are tag teaming that devil's triangle, or Eiffel Tower after picking up a girl
I have the exact same problem on my rx8. I am repairing it this weekend, thanks you for this video now i wont have to buy useless parts.
you guys should try to port the renessis on the new CNC machine to se how good of a job you can do
I had an FC RX-7 back when I was deep, deep into 90s Japanese car culture (and S13 240 as well, with a red-top JDM front clip and brick style headlights) and I haven't revisited rotaries in a long time - thanks for the great video, guys! And special thanks to the UA-cam algorithm?
Hopefully I've got many years with my ultra low mileage 2009 unicorn before I face that. I'd toyed with the idea of buying a blown motor RX-8 to learn on. But wound up with a 1982 GSL I hope to save instead.
My 2005 RX-8 has 124,000mi on the stock engine and she purrs. The end goal for my car is, hopefully, a single turbo 20B-REW swap. In the meantime if the Renesis needs a rebuild the best thing to do to them is exhaust porting. The leading cause of failure in the Renesis is too much heat from its high compression and not enough exhaust flow to release that heat.
Nice. 95k miles on my 2004 and has never let me down. I dont premix do you?
@@chinchy111 just a little bit to supplement the OMP for now, until I can get a Sohn kit and a tune to increase the output of the OMP. Just some added security in this hot box of a motor
@@brianrobinson9979 did premix make your check engine light come on? Was thinking about doing it
@@chinchy111 nope. I buy some of those little like 3.2oz 2-Stroke oil bottles from Walmart. They're a good amount for premixing with a stock RX-8 to supplement the OMP
@@brianrobinson9979 oh wow people said it makes the light come on cause the oil messes with the emissions or something. Maybe ill do it now
Can you make a video on the condition of the parts and what Can you reuse especially housings and Irons and how to determine if they are good or not
The RX-8 chassis is sooo good. It deserves a better engine option.
Dudes this is the best content I’ve seen on UA-cam all week.
lol classic ending, love it
ok here's a stretch idea...since most performance oils are now really thin (0W30), could the engine coolant be replaced by engine oil? I know that glycol water coolant heat transfer is much higher than oil but a few things may change to make this work. I believe that the radiator would have to double in volume. The cooling system would then be unpressurized which may help reliability. The engine would then use the cooling radiator as its dry sump. The engine oil pump would source oil from the cool side of the radiator. The water pump (now an oil pump) may have to be larger. The thermostat would need to open sooner. Benefit: reduced possibility of future engine damage...no water in oil risk. The oil changes could be extended...perhaps 3 to 4 times longer? Great videos!
Maybe they uses wrong coolant fluid ? That was a problem a while back if you used iron engine fluid into a aluminum blok it would eat away gaskets (it was a kind of reaction between the 2 fluids )
I LOVE the table of rotary dreams!
Gotta love the things we get away with on our roads in Michigan and what you see on our roads pretty with no inspections or anything to say whether it is safe and eco friendly on the road soley the drivers/owners responsibility
So close to 1mill 🤘😎 well deserved that milestone keep up the great work you two
Rob walking out the bathroom LOL... thanks for the great content guys, I own an R3 in Canada and i couldn’t be more happy to see your channel
Series 2 Renesis can take Clean Oil Feed.
By-pass the OE crank case oil straight back to filler neck.
Use an electric oil pump and mechanical pressure regulator to push premix oil at 80 PSI to the OE electric feed pumps.
Problem solved for carbon build up on rotors and housing.
Rob and Isiash, and rotary engine builders, what are there specific tools need to rebuild and rotary engine.
Vaseline haha. And a 2mm hex Allen wrench to roughly clearance your apex seals and make sure the corner seals didn’t rotate when you put the rotor in during assembly. Otherwise nothing major
Rob can you run an rx8 motor with a carb? Would it need a distributor? Cpuld it even run one? Im looking for a cheap setup to put in my samurai but leaving it sort of less electrical and more primative
Would love for you to test out coatings for rotor housings. WPC coatings or ceramic coatings. Would be a great experiment.
That's the same location of the exhaust port on the irons, WOW that's the reason, you need a 13b or it will happen again, or improve the exhaust port and full exhaust system, but I'll go with the 13b
Engine is pretty different compared to a 1st gen rx8. Interesting.
Didn't those coolant seals fail due to overheating?
I don't know if this is really stupid, but does someone make copper versions of the coolant seals? Considering that a regular engine has a copper gasket between the head and the block surely it would be logical for a rotary to have copper gaskets/seals between the different parts of the engine?
Thanks :)
Robs videos bring a smile to my face.
Rx8 front main bolt comes out alot easier with heat 🔥. MAP gas torch works well.
That's very cool, I had a few RX-7's in the 80's and early 90s. missing my GLS-SE 13b. It's really cool to see these differences. Especially seeing the Issue with Heat. I wonder it it's damage from after the car's run and you shut it down and the coolant drops low. Probably not, but it's interesting. The other idea is cooler plugs or perhaps a heat soak plate to pull the heat away from the plugs, like make a chunk of copper bolted to that area. Perhaps another Coolant port drilled in the housings. But really some high temp seals might be fine, either way it's a cheap fix for a DIY.
Your latest's videos on the RX8 and how to make it reliable have reignited my love for the triangle, my biggest concern is buying one and it being a money sink, you've showed us that it doesn't have to be that way with a few minor changes. Thank you for what you do.
what rob is doing is genius, he’s building a 1000hp 2 rotor, so he can essentially copy and paste and make a 2000hp 4 rotor, genius. i love it. (i hope it’s that easy)
11:43 that’s the cooked quaker oats isaiah put to the radiator
Did someone fart 1:02?
Should check out Ryan rotary performance and Rotary Revs in the UK. Renesis Engines are there bread and butter.
I just lost a few years of my life thanks ROB.. love you for real tho dorito boys for life now I'm on Facebook marketplace now
That's very interesting. Hey Rob look into how the subie guys solved their head gasket problems by putting in a undercut before the cylinder and adding a brass round wire just to help seal the head gasket. If there is some room on the housing to do this this would help the longevity of the coolant seal. Specially the area close to the spark plugs.
Please build a rotary crown vic and enter the freedom 500
The whole point of the freedom 500 is they're all the exact same car, with the same engine. It's all about the driver
@@lucaskelly4590 I am just saying a rotary powered crown vic running 50 laps at wide open throttle would be neat to see
I’m disqualified because I would rotary swap it
Damn I miss my rx8. Died at 9500rpm in third with 185k on the engine :/ I'll buy an rx7 and do a build eventually, following your tips
Can you actually make decent power with these with the same mods as an rx7 or is it good for nothing more than rebuilding stock
They make 230+ stock.
GLE-SE rotor housing RX8 internals with a KMR exhaust flange for a hybrid motor
Just about to mention that! It ends up making the exhaust a 6 port, letting it finally breathe, and I would assume a wayyy better exhaust sound. From that point you could turbo it with less problems. Sure, you then have to make a custom exhaust, intake, and stand alone but hey, it’s just money…
When you do burn outs you make the engine twist and break seal
watch out Rob, Izaiah is taking over your shelf space. Best video ever
2 pals just casually Eiffel towering a rotary. Precious.
Correction coolant is Flammable when subject to extreme heat like exhaust systems on turbos