So I got this RX-8 for $1800 USD off of craigslist. Salvage title, 47K miles. Not stolen, liened, loaned, no rust, and all of the body panels lined up but.... It doesn’t move. For those who don’t know, this car has a rotary (wankel) engine.

The seller (who misrepresented nothing, and as a result I have no reason not to trust what he has said so far) said he got it started one time by pushing it, but that it was vomiting coolant and he didn’t try to run it again. Smart man. I did verify that it cranks, and I was working on the assumption that the engine was a total write off.

Seller told me there was a new radiator in the car, and I’m inclined to believe him. It’s in very good shape, very few bent fins. Also it would have been annihilated by whatever damage occurred to the front of the vehicle to salvage it in the first place.

Car history that is on carfax et al. is uneventful. From 2/16/2014 to 9/1/2016 it drove 22K miles. I was able to find the auctioneer of the car from a vin checker website, and from there I got ahold of the original listing and pre-craigslist guy photos. Looked exactly like the car I have in the garage now, except half of the plastic under bumper was hanging off. Also it was sitting in a dusty field in Texas, more on that later...

But what we’re getting from all of this is the previous owner probably tried to run over a median, or a corolla, or their cheating husband. They managed to do this without bending the frame, as far as I can tell. I suspect that it got salvaged because the cost to repair was worth more than the car. I see nothing else so far that suggests this car is totaled.

Most of the rest of the car is in very good shape. There is paint damage at the rear below the trunk, from somebody setting things on the bumper while placing them into the boot. One big scuff, 1 big chip, a few dings, classic “rear wheel drive throwing rocks into the paint” chips, both mirrors need a repaint, and a not running engine. Interior is dirty but just needs a good cleaning and a new shift lever cap.

On the engine topic... the more I examined the car, the more I started to think the coolant leak was coming from someplace else. But you didn’t come here to see me purchase a nearly running car off of craigslist, and I didn’t come here to think every sound I hear for the next 40K miles is the engine chewing itself to pieces, so I’m not even gonna bother, engine is getting pulled. What good is a rotary engine if you don’t know how to build one and hold it over people’s heads?

Back to the Texas thing, there is sand. Everywhere. So everywhere in fact, I was starting to think the car got flooded at some point. I figure a vacuum and a water hose are my two best weapons against the sand yea?

So I’ll be working on this for a while. I have more done than this so far, but this is all I have time to write up tonight. Peep this link for a very good video of 2 dudes building this engine: youtube.com/watch?v=LSEs8VXzVPU#t=1119.73348

Next time: Impossible to get to intake manifold bolts, Stack coming to the rescue on stuck vacuum hoses, and homie Will making a very good yet infuriating suggestion

@Zshoulders I'd go with a vacuum, compressed air and/or leafblower first. Water tends to make things icky

@Zshoulders I love the fact that the air filter box takes up more space in the engine bay than the rotary engine :)

There's Charlie, username "cdunn", who is RX-7 savvy. He might be a good point of contact for future reference

@Zshoulders - That's a great video. I like how dude goes through assembly. Just enough explanation, but not so much it bogs down the assembly process. Great stuff.

@Zshoulders - My '94 Z28 I used to own was a Texas car which came with a salvage title. It, too, had sand everywhere. The reason it had a salvage title was due to it having been stolen once, stripped of everything, then rebuilt. There was a lot of parts from a Police car on it (could tell because of the RPO codes in the glove compartment were from a cop car). I brought it back from Texas, put a ton of work into it to get it running.

When I took the car to get it licensed at the Virginia DMV, the girl at the counter loved Camaros. I don't know if she did it on purpose or accident, but when she titled it from the Texas title to the Virginia title, somehow the "salvage" was removed. I didn't complain and didn't question :o)

I rebuilt the car from the ground up. Not that it was a great car to look at closer than 20' away, but I liked it. There's something to be said about putting sweat equity into something ... I never got the sweat out of the car, but I can say I enjoyed the process.

@Pᴀᴜʟsᴛᴇʀ2 why, did you sell it on?

@Zaid I assumed he might know something about it when I saw his avatar image was a rotor

He swings by the Pitstop every now and again

@Pᴀᴜʟsᴛᴇʀ2 that is incredible. I do wonder what would happen if you ran a carfax on it, but it goes to show the value of being personable

@Zaid the air filter box is HUGE. came with a brand new air filter too, what a great deal!

I really like that video of the Rotary build. The cameraman really pulls it together by asking questions for the non-SME's watching. There is just enough joking around to keep it interesting. And the dudes seem super genuine, probably because they are Canadian

thats the one

@Zshoulders if you post the link by itself, it gets formatted

thats the secret?!?!?!?!

man I've been wondering how that works

lol

I might add breaker lines on the next update so it isn't such a huge wall of text

@cdunn - You may be interested in this room :o) I'm sure @Zshoulders would love to hear from you about Wankel engines and how to rebuild them.

@Pᴀᴜʟsᴛᴇʀ2 I don't think he'll see the ping unless he's visited the chat room recently

@Zaid - It's called a "Superping" ... it will get to him. If he pays attention to it is a whole other matter, though.

The superping comes along with the wonderful mod talents which were embedded into my brain stem when I got elected.

@Pᴀᴜʟsᴛᴇʀ2 Oh, nice

I kinda like it, lol

I can imagine

Oh. I saw it, and I paid attention ;)

@cdunn - Kewl!

sweet. Stopping at harbor freight today to grab another transmission jack. Although the Transmission is a tiny little baby thing, could probably just hold it

@Pᴀᴜʟsᴛᴇʀ2 ty for telling me about this room :) my dream project car is still a '79 or '80 RX-7, and it's going to need a rebuild eventually :) i know, LS-6... Lol

@cdunn did someone say LS? :)

I have considered an LS swap if the rotor housings and irons can't be saved. haven't really run the numbers to see which would be cheaper at that point

if it goes that route, I'm replacing all the rotor themed trim pieces with pistons

@Zshoulders planning ahead I see :)

More like risk aversion. How many times will you need to rebuild a LS in your lifetime vs how many times will you need to rebuild the Renesis

@Zaid I did say LS out loud, in this room lol

Which I think is actually heresy in some states... lol

@cdunn - Complete and utter heresy ... but I don't care! :o)

I don't really think its heresy, I'd say its one of the more common LS swaps

ls1rx8.com