A few words of encouragement toward purchasing a used rotary engine.

 This past weekend I went to look in a local Pick-Your-Part self serve auto
 wrecker for a rotary engine. Every couple months PYP has a 4 day 1/2 off
 sale, and this was the time. About 15 years ago I would see maybe 30 early
 rx7 sitting in there, usually undamaged. Not so today. There were two rx7
 this past weekend, an 85 with a 12a, and an 89 13b.
 Both cars had been in there perhaps 3 weeks, without any major parts
 removed. I was hoping to find an 84-85 rx7 13b because I wanted the rotor
 housings for my rx8 engine, as this year has the seal grooves on the
 housings like the rx8. I settled for the 89, and after 2.5 hours had the
 engine sitting on the ground under the car. Being it was, the end of the
 day, I left it for the next morning when I returned to strip it down to
the
 bare block. After loading it on my two wheel hand truk, I took it to the
 payment window where they sold it to me as a "short block" because they
 could see there were no heads:)

 The cost of the engine was $60 plus $35 core charge and tax.

 The engine turned over easily by hand with the flexplate. Back at the
 garage, I did compression tests:
 bump test: 105 psi front and rear.
 thumb test top plug holes: no uneven pulses
 static compression: 115psi front and rear.

 The 89-91 engines use 9.7 compression ratio.
 I tested my 04 rx8 engine and the results were identical.

 I brought PYP some dead subaru engine remains to get my core charge back.

 Ed Carver

 Heck stick it in the airplane and fly it :)
 Not worth over hauling. It won't get any better than that.

 Paul Lamar


I know, but I have to P port it first. The money I made from selling the
parts off of the rx8 engine paid for this engine too. I will just need to
get the big O-rings; and just why are those things so expensive?

I'm going to line up the 6 rotor housings I now have on the table and drill
the P ports in them.

I rarely walk into Pick Your Part without seeing an rx or two. I was just
never aware how valuable the rotors and housings are on these things.
Otherwise, I would have made a living out of it.

Ed Carver

I got a perfectly good, free turbo rotary RX7 car, from a guy trying to get
a cracked
rubber intake manifold elbow diagnosed and fixed for a year or so. I paid
him $300
to keep the car and took just the engine. When I took the top of the
manifold parts
off the crack became highly visible and obviously that was the problem.

The problem is; most mechanics are scared of it. Especially outside the
urban areas.
This was prior to wide spread use of google. Of course I am not sure
the guy would know about goggle even now.

Get the O-rings from Creavey. They are cheaper and better than stock.
http://www.rotaryeng.net/O-**ring-size2.html<http://www.rotaryeng.net/O-ring-size2.html
http://www.creavey.com/

Paul Lamar


Creavey does'nt have an online products list for large rings that I can see.
I need to order these soon, gotta call them I suppose? Atkins sells a whole
set on ebay for about $170. I really only need the big rings, but for both
the rx7 and 8 engines, so now we're talking $340.

Ed Carver

That is true.
They are all custom made. When you talk to Creavey tell them they are for
a Mazda rotary engine. People have been buying these sizes from them for 10 years.
You must do your homework on this.

Atkins does not make O-rings. Creavey does.
The stock inner square silicone O-rings are not reusable. The Creavey's are.
The Creavey seal is totally encapsulated teflon while the stock seals have teflon
on only one side.

I have had bad results from McMaster Carr. The 3/32 section
width is really .105 or more and not .096. Still too big. You need .093".

My experience is the Creavey's are cheaper than stock.

Paul Lamar