Spent lunch with the marketing department's Mavica, thought you'd all be
interested to see a common failure mode in high mileage rotaries.

This one is a 160,000 mile 1990 turbo engine.

This is the front housing, BTW

Mike Harrington

That is common around 1988 1989 as I recall. It is a core shift or casting
defect. It happened right after they moved the O-ring groove

>from the rotor housing to the end housings. Not enough meat around there.

I think Mazda changed the patterns later to fix this problem.
Bruce Turrentine says even some new end housings have this
problem right from the get go.

Paul Lamar

Paul - thanks for editing, I don't have any software at work :(

The Orings were moved from rotor to end housings in the 1986 model year.

That is a 90 housing; note the web between the leg for the oil pan and the
bottom of the housing - that is a reinforcement for the tension bolt. Same
thing is on the rotor housing.

Mike Harrington

 
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