G'day!!
My Name is Nick!

I'm located in Sydney, Australia. I've been into pre-80's rotaries for at least twenty years.My current rotary engined ride, an rx3 sedan, 13b bp, 48 ida weber, has been sitting in the garage for the past seven years without being started.

My plan over the next few months is to see if the engine still runs, fix up the various known niggles and try and restore the interior back to as close to factory original as possible.

i'm not a mechanic, but i built the engine in my back shed a good 15 years ago. drilled the end plates myself to make a nice sized bridgeport. it ran good and made enough power to keep up with the traffic.

the engine was built on a student's budget, so as soon as i 'pulled the pin' and fired it up i've expected it to explode. a grenade, basically. if it no longer runs, or burns more oil than fuel i'd like to go injected, but still naturally aspirated. maybe renesis.

i'll try and dig up some old pics of the rx3 and post them up. i also want to detail the process of trying to re-start the engine. it might have a happy ending.

cheers,
tt

 

It's hasn't been started in 7 years?
God.I wouldn't want to ask you to go get milk...LOL!
Welcome anyways Nick!

 

harsh... but fair!

 

Come to Canada Nick,I got coffee!

 

found some old pics of my car (currently it is garage bound and there is a bunch of construction activity blocking the garage door):



the wheels are 16" borbets, i'm kind of over them so they'll come off as soon as i find some decent watanabes. car has fc stud pattern and offset.

fun car to drive, full bridge, massive exhaust ports, the 48ida is setup for an extend port so it is easy to start, buzzes around in low revs easily, fc turbo 5 speed, which i reckon adds to the driveability, as well.

it hasn't been to the strip but based on experience with my other cars this car will do somewhere around high-13's.

plan is to rebuild the engine, keep the bridgie, get all the badges back on, scrub up the interior (to factory, except the seats, alfa gtv seats are too comfy), put disk brakes on the rear (to match fc turb currently on fronts) and obviously replace bits as they break.

 

Replace borbets??? nooo! Then again, who doesnt have Borbets or FR18s on their RX3s down here.. Hilux rear seems like a good upgrade for the 5x114.3 rear

 

Despite you saying that that picture is a bit old... she looks clean. Very nice!

 

00ROTA,
kind of want to try and go a bit more low key with the wheels, less 'cop baity'. i wouldn't mind some 15" simmons, like b45's, grey painted centres.

you're right, the hilux diff is probably the best way to go but that is more money than i want to spend and also starting to modify it more than i'd like. who knows, once i start investigating my options the smart money will point to the hilux.

Hego,
thanks. it still looks good. paint was already 10 years old in this pic. maybe some of the rust at the lhs lower windscreen surround may be manifesting itself again. should of had that cut out when it received the new paint.

engine bay pic (sorry about the grubby socks ) -

 

b45s would look awesome on her.
Hilux diffs already chopped up pop up on Ausrotary from time to time for some decent prices. Id definately keep an eye out. Save money in the long run (and time from blowing those standard diffs!)

Cant wait to see her on the streets down here. Hard to find a decent RX3 that isnt just molested now.

 

You can't even find them in America anymore, the only three I've found are rollers without engines. Could be a nice project... but I don't have the money to restore them.

 

Wow. There are a fair few down here, but it seems the majority of them are chopped up. Ive got nothing against that when you have rx3s such as WLD AY around though!

 

00ROTA,
yeah, i had grey 15" b45's on my rx2 sedan. loved the look.

re. mods: i chopped off my seat mounts so i could get the alfa seats to sit nice and low. feel bad enough about that! now, with the passing of time and fewer original examples being in existence, tubs are a damn shame, but what's done is done. from this point i'd prefer they stick to 808's for any new tubbings.

Hego,
i think we completely missed out on rx3 wagons here in Oz. all of my daily drivers are wags, love the functionality of them. kind of why i have a sedan, mates can pile into the back easily. i reckon if we had genuine rx3 wagons here i'd either have one.. or be seriously fiending for one.

interesting that you've spotted some sedan rollers in your parts...

 

got the engine started!

here's what i did to wake up the old 13B from its 7 year slumber:

1 - threw about 250ml or thereabouts of engine oil into the combustion chambers via the plug holes and down the carbie (could've used 2-stroke premix) and turned the engine over by hand with plugs removed. walked away for a day.

2 - turned the engine over by hand some more.

3 - replaced engine oil in sump and filter.

4 - new battery connected, used the fuel pump to drain the tank (disconnected fuel line to carb). apparently getting rid of old fuel and replacing with fresh is key. old fuel doesn't burn too well. there was certainly a massive difference in smell and appearance between old & new.

5 - Rx3's have a drain plug which is easily accessible from the boot or beneath the car. dropped plug, drained last 500ml of old fuel.

6 - tossed in a smidge of fresh fuel with tank drain plug still removed just to flush any remnants of old. replaced plug, in with the fresh fuel.

7 - then, disconnected pump, shut down all spark (coils etc) and turned it over with the starter motor a couple of times for 30-45secs each time, with no spark plugs, spat a heap of oil out of the plug holes. mate wiped up and cleaned the plug holes as i turned it over.

8 - whacked in plugs, old B7's that were in while dormant, re-connected fuel pump, turned it over and started almost immediately.
HEAPS of white smoke, which got worse as it warmed up. shut her down. started again, easily. still smoke, probably from the pre-start lube-up oil sitting in the exhaust.
in case the plugs foul you might want to have a spare set of fresh plugs handy, i did, but didn't need to use them.

9 - third start, a good 30 mins after the first two, started without any throttle, much less smoke.

vid of it running during third start here:


love the sound. neighbours had no idea they were living next door to this noisy menace for so long.

hopefully that last smokey puff on throttle off will disappear after some more prolonged engine runtime. we'll see. oil control rings might be cactus. the end plates i used in the initial build were pretty well grooved even after a backyard facing.

tried to bleed the brakes, drivers side rear cylinder (drums) just wouldn't pump any fluid through, maybe blocked and/or full of air, left the bleed valve open overnight and had another go at it today, pumped pedal furiously and it's now pushing the old paint stripper through nicely. i have a brake pedal, again.

am i stoked? just a little. i ported and bolted this engine together almost 20 years ago.

 

Awesome Job Nick!!! Car looks really clean. Sounds great too. What is your exhaust setup? Is that a Rotaflo I see under there?

 

thanks. no, not rotaflo (afaik).

twin 2" system, two resonators, then joins at diff into a big custom muffler. put together by an outfit called exhaust technology in Adelaide in the mid 90's.

sounds great, probably a bit above our noise regs, especially at high revs.

I started it again on Friday arve after bleeding the brakes and it smoked even less, fired up super easy, too.

 

ha! i just had a look around and found that the exhaust tech boys make rotaflos. i must have one of the very early ones.

"afaik", guess not too far at all. classic.