DON'T Port Your Mazda Rotary - BridgePort of Broken RX7 Dreams

Erich telling it like it is. Craftsmanship = Reliability. Period. Thanks for showing folks the right way AND the wrong way. “If something’s worth doing, it’s worth doing right”.

A wise man once said “NO JOY IN LIFE WITHOUT PORTED ROTARY”

I had a bridge ported RX4 based 13B with 48mm Weber in my ‘82 RX7 many years back that I daily drove for many years without skipping a beat. It had been running strong for about 75-80 thousand kms before I gave it a good send off so my new 13B turbo engine could take its place. The send of was easily one of the longest smokiest hardcore burnouts I’ve done. Not sure how many kms were left in it after that but it was still kicking. It’s still on a stand in my garage untouched since then. Built well and looked after by people that understand rotaries, they can defy most general concepts that less experienced people have.

I really like and appreciate the time and effort put into those videos. Tons of knowladge here. I would love to see more videos on the Renesis though, if that's something your interested in too. There's tons of RX-8s out there, being crushed because of the costs and people being scared to do those engines on their own :) A proper series of videos about it might help. Cheers!

So...i've been into cars since I was a small child. (Grew up at the race track with my father). I've been a German car guy the past 6 years, oil leaks, coolant leaks, turbos all of it. I currenty have a FBO Mk7 GTI on E85 with a Is38+ turbo (400ish). A 8v RS3 FBO on corn as well (~high 5, low 600s). I came across your channel 3 months ago and i've watched just about all your videos, and have really interested me with the spinning dorito. Well, this past Monday I bought me a project S1 MT Rx-8! Kinda runs, but it's a solid chassis and transmission shifts great. Planning to rebuild and street port it myself. And all this has happened because of your videos. Powerful stuff man, keeps the videos coming! Also signed up on your Pateron!

Good video. One theory that I have from my years of working as a mazda technician is that the stock rotary engines need to see lots of rpm. Our customers that drove mrs daisy would usually be on their third engine by the time they were out of warranty. The customers that drove their rotary hard and ran them all the way out to 9k would usually never need a engine replacement within the warranty term of 100,000 miles. The theory is that the hard driving helps keep the carbon out of the seals so they don’t get the sticky side seal that usually causes them to drop compression.

I think high rpm balancing should be performed anytime you want a strong engine, especially if porting is done, and balancing should help maintain reliability with conservative porting. The rotors truly do wobble at speed, this is something that Daryl Drummond has pushed for years at Star Mazda's racing program. In fact this is one of the major flaws of the RX8's rotors, they are not very well balanced from the factory as they could be. This is fine if you keep max rpm to 8500 (gauge is 500rpm off), but running it at sustained high rpm's will see reliability issues. I say you do you a video on this subject, it is definitely worth talking about.

Going 3 years spirited driving my large Bridgeport 13B 6 port turbo. You have a quality builder you’ll have a reliable engine.

Just had my S4 13B NA engine rebuilt. Many people were dissapointed at me not going for bridge port or any porting at all for the beautiful rotary noise. Without upgrade to Intake, Fuel injector, Exhaust and Aftermarket ECU for tuning, no matter how big the port is, you will not garner all the power from the porting. That would also require even more money and it is not guarantee to run right. I just wanted a reliable and long lasting engine.

Awesome, I will check out the rest of your videos. I have a 13b sitting in my garage . . It came off a 1989 rx-7 convertible …. I know nothing about the engine Other than what I was told, and that is that it was ported and it only had 4000 miles on the rebuild..has a sweet looking clutch as well..It was running when I pulled it out the vehicle.. it sounded and ran great..! It would be awesome to install a carb. On it like a Holley 4 barrel..unfortunately I got rid of the transmission, but kept the stainless exhaust , it had new wheels and tires so I installed them on my CR-Z…hopefully one day I can make a project out of it.. I love the sounds of the rotary engines..👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼 thanks

Also...good to see you back and glad nothing bad was keeping you away. I've been fighting being bummed because I have messed up the transmission tailshaft seal on my RX-8 twice now. I have bought the latest revision of the seal from Mazda and am waiting for the actual special service tool for driving it to arrive since my improvised drivers (Jeep axle nut socket the first time and PVC pipe the second) combined with limited workspace seem to be causing me issues.

Thanks for demystifying rotary porting. I wish I had this sort of resource back in the day before even owning a computer, when I was messing with rotaries. Twin 2" pipes all the way to the back, machining out 12A carb venturi sleeves 1mm a side on the diameter, and a rejet was as far as I got. Made it a much better car than the back firing, inefficient, pollution control fitted, Japanese import series1 RX7 I started with though.

I was all "hes hating on the port!" By the title. But this is actually educational. Glad to see this. Agree bad porting will totally make it reliable 🤣 teasing. Dont port if you dont have the craftsmanship or confidence

Thank you for the knowledge much appreciated... Working on doing a Miata NC Swap with 13B T2.. I will be purchase my engine from REC. Once again thanks for all your videos.

I'm starting to wonder if a shitty port job is what killed my old engine. Some of the other work on the car was really rough. If that guy did the engine too... let's just say I'm happy to be starting from stock

Hey man, been watching your vids for almost a year now, been getting the motor out of my 8 last weekend and should have it out this coming this weekend, just wanted to say your videos along with kmr and a few of the other dorito guys are a huge help and honestly the reason for me getting into them, can’t wait to see where they take me… planning on street porting this one na and getting ready to hybrid turbo setup the other rx8 I’ve got now later on this year hopefully, they are so much fun to drive and hear but man gotta have some deep pockets for these rebuild and parts 😂👌 keep ‘em coming man your making me want to start a yt channel for all the car stuff.

You’ve been the best rotary channel on YouTube for a while now. Thank you for all your videos. Keep it up!

I worked with a guy that would change rotary engines about every week. He refused to properly build any of them for the turbo he had on it. I always found these interesting but didn't have good experiences with them, every one became a smoke machine too quickly. It's really cool to see a channel with detailed help for the Wankels.

Hi Erich. Greetings from New Zealand! I'm putting a 13BT from a series 4 RX7 into a Ford105e Anglia (Yep, A Harry Potter flying car) Thinking of a half bridge and doing some research. Just found your channel and have subscribed. Just wanted to say it was your quality explanation that got the subscription button clicked. I'm looking forward to seeing more of your content.

Thank you for this video. I believe that porting/engine build is a small but very critical piece of the puzzle. All the supporting mods that go along with it (e.x. Waist gate, engine management, injectors, Quality turbo etc.) All play a role in engine life.