chris_stampe

My add coolant lights been coming on for a couple of months now. Ive been replacing cooling system compontents and praying ever since. But today when my car started blowing white smoke I knew my water seals were gone. My 87 na is parked now. I am a 16 kid that knows more about rotaries than most every mechanic in my area (sd) I need to get this car back on the road before school starts. What are my options? Or more what do you think is the best one?
1)Rebuild
2)New engine (mine has 59k on it now)
3)Swap Turbo Engine for $1k from jap. using na driveline -the flywheel
4)Sell the car for next to nothing and try to find a TII when i can get enough money (might be a while)
5)Swap in a complete TII engine/tranny/driveline

My engine is currently carberated and I hate it!! It used to have a blow through carb turbo system which i was going to put back on untill this thing blew. Right now (or before it the water seals broke) Im not satisfied with the performance of it. I really like the idea of a turbo engine. What do you guys think?

No7Yet

Try the Paul Yaw CRC Block-Weld trick first. It'll buy you some time until you can either buy an engine or the parts needed to rebuild yours. And remember, water pumpers are rarely completely rebuildable - you'll need at minimum one housing, but probably two.

Brandon

chris_stampe

Say what!? What exactly is this weld tirck thing your talking about? Im very interested. Thanks,
Chris

HAILERS

Chunk the car. Money pit extreme. You have the talent, but not the dough. Cut your losses.

Taranis

Best option IMHO is a rebuild, but depends on your $$ situation. The TII/na swap will end up costing you just as much as just going out and buying a decent complete TII

If your $$ are low, why not find a $200 beater and save your cash until you find a pristine TII? Takes patience, but worth it in the end.

JB

boostmotorsport

The "in the meantime" water weld trick baught me about 4 months once! You flush the living **** out of your coolant system with a lil degreaser and water. Then add 2 bottles of the stop leak like product that is CLEAR WITH COPPER FLAKES, to your water(no coolant). I think the kind I used was a brand called C&C or A&A, or something like that. run car at idle for 20 minutes. then drain it and let it sit with the rad caps off for 24 hours, then fill back up with water, and keep your fingers crossed. it worked for me for a while. Good luck

chris_stampe

Hey thanks so much for the help, hope, both! Ill do that tomorrow maybe. But still what do you guys think I should do.
What I am thinking right now is to first try to temp. fix the prob then try to find a decently priced TII engine (longblock) If i can find on w/ the driveline great, if not then I will only need the flywheel plus the ecu/wiring harness, I believe, to swap. Then I will swap in the driveline next summer when i have more money. Sound like a good plan?- I dunno never swaped an egnine before but it looks pretty straight forward as long as i dont go s4->s5.
Thanks,
Chris

hypntyz7

definitely the best option. SO long as it hasnt sat undriven for very long, most everything inside should be reuseable. Be prepared to need an iron housing somewhere through...this is often where the coolant leak has happened, an iron has broken where the jacket is.

IF this means used, no. IF it means new reman/rebuild from a shop/dealer, well, if you can affrord it, go for it.

I have done this before. I dont really recommend it: 1) it is still just a used motor..just like a junkyard motor you might find here. There is nothing special about a japanese motor. Even if it could be proven they had less mileage then a similar US spec used engine might, their miles are harder than ours. Plus, with only 59k, your engine proves that time is more an enemy of rotary engines than mileage, and all the jspec rotaries were built the same time ours were. 2) using the NA driveline will cause a slipping clutch...Ive done it. Youll have to have a race NA clutch, or stay off WOT runs for a long time until you do it right :-) My try at it would break the clutch loose in 4th gear at 120mph.

http://hypntyz.rx7life.com/t2conversion1.htm

I wouldnt bother. 1) you wont get anything for it, and 2) it wont hurt anything sitting where it is(I assume) so you can work on it later on when you have time and resources. Just go get another beater.

IF you have the money and time, go for it. I dont really recommend it if a) this is your only ride and b) you need it quickly. IT will take a lot of time and energy and experimentation on your part to get it right, get all the parts, etc. I'd account about $2000 to do this job right by the time you get all your parts, pay for shipping, materials, etc.

http://hypntyz.rx7life.com/t2conversion2.htm

CrackHeadMel

iTrader: (2)

Hm.. i got bad waterseals.. im gona do a s5 t2 swap, thats the best idea imho

hypntyz7

s4 na to s5 t2...that's the hardest swap really, opposite ends of the spectrum. Not only do you not have any s5 parts in your car now, you dont have any turbo parts i it either...

That said, good luck!

peejay

Pull the engine, port it, throw it back together.

Problem being, it's rather likely that the water seal blew because one of the side housings cracked, you may need one or more side housings... see http://www.mazdatrix.com/faq/sidehsgs.htm for graphic info.

Barwick

might as well go Turbo, it can't hurt. And there's just something about actually accelerating in 5th gear on the freeway, sometimes faster than other cars can downshift and accelerate.

chris_stampe

I was thinking about doing a s5 TII conversion, but if you read into it its probably going to be way harder than a s4 to s4 conversion. I decided that it wasnt worth the added cost/complications for only 15 hp. However now Im pretty sure I want to get a used s4 tII engine w/out the driveline or with. I hear what your saying w/ it being a used engine, but I really cant afford a rebuilt engine and if Im going to spend all this time and money anyways I want to get some performance gain out of it. Thanks for all the suggestions.

chris_stampe

Does it matter what type of coolant system sealant I use? I cant find any clear stuff w/ copper flakes in it. The few auto parts stores around here have some stuff that has coper particles but they arent flakes. Should that stuff work, if not what stuff should I be trying to find? Brand name? Could I order it?
thanks,
chris