Oil for Rotary Engine

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So, I have been trying to decide on which oil I want to run in my Rx7 most all of the time. 10w40 of whatever flavor is on sale has been doing fine. I landed some Mobil 15w50 and PP Euro in the autozone sale and am going to try those when the time comes. My question is rotaries are designed to burn oil as it is injected straight into the engine. It is thought you want an oil that burns off well so as to leave less ash and carbon deposits. using this logic, what types of qualities of the oil should a person look at? I would think the Noack important, but I don't know if you want low or high for this scenario.
 
The unique design of the Wankel rotary engine creates some special problems in lubrication.
During our trials, we noticed that the best commercial motor oils for conventional 4-stroke engines are inadequate for perfect lubrication of the Wankel rotary engine and do not obtain maximum mechanical performances on this type of engine.

To lubricate the Wankel rotary engine, one part of the oil is injected in the air-fuel mixture, to lubricate the wall of the epitrochoid surface and the seals. Another part is circulated on the shaft bearings and is used to cool the rotor.


In both cases, problems to solve are different, and the lubricant is necessarily a compromise to meet the different requirements.

At this stage, the best lubricating oil is a synthetic mineral oil blend with an appropriate combination of additives. The synthetic oil is a petrochemical product made by polymerization of a monolefin C₄ cut; the molecular weight is in the same range as the conventional mineral oils.

With such a lube oil formulation, deposits in the combustion chamber are reduced to a minimum, avoiding preignition and seal sticking. Apex seal wear has been drastically reduced and engine life is longer.

The performance of such a formulation has been tested in water- and air-cooled engines, on the bench and in the field.

http://papers.sae.org/730047/

So good 2 Stroke synthetic oil.maybe the mobil delvac1 Le5W30 i use. You wont get dirt. Since we re anal about such thing(Cj4/Sn for the win) But i aint sure about tbe burn part. It will go mix with gas. Will lubricate will cool but i dont think even a turbocharged rx7 could make it become hot enough to burn . You wil have a clean and well lubed engine tho.
 
I do put two stroke in the gas after seeing really good results on lifespan without rebuilding the motor. Brother's car is over 200k on original engine no rebuild showing decent compression and he has only been using two stroke since about 150k. We also have a guy in the group who is pushing near 300k and claims no rebuild who has been running two stroke since the early 90s. most engines are experiencing compression similar what my brother's is at 150k and seeing a sharp drop off around 175k representing time for engine disassembly. I find adding .5-1 oz of two stroke per gallon cheap insurance and even if it isn't doing anything, it makes me feel good.

I am just thinking back when most of the no synthetic oils for rotary engines was published and argued, it was in the 80s and 90s. Oils have evolved quite a bit since then and I imagine ash and carbon deposits of synthetics are considerably lower than they were and lower than the levels they were in conventional oil of the time.
 
Rotary hate 2Things . Induction (Temperature and electricity)And cold start or hot stop. Ywp dont move the car till needle reech 100. And let it idle 5 Minute before shutting it.

Ps: Ok mazda! Where is our bonzai.(Mx5 X16 turbo wankel)
 
Last edited:
Originally Posted By: Trav
I cant answer your question but I would do a little more research on this before running synthetic oil.
I have heard many times that synthetic should be avoided, I never owned one or worked on one other than minor stuff so I never really bothered to investigate it.

https://www.mazdatrix.com/faq/synthetc.htm

http://www.racingbeat.com/mazda/performance/rotary-tech-tips/synthetic-oils.html


What is one to conclude?:
Mazdatrix says not to use synthetic oil in Wankel engines, except for the Idemitsu special Wankel oil.

Racing Beat says it's OK to run synthetic in a Wankel, and gives a link to a Royal Purple page.
 
I ran synthetic in my RX-8 for 35,000 miles with no problems.

Mazda did not help things when they published a "no synthetics" dictate, because what they really meant was "no PAO" but what people interpreted it as was "no Group III or PAO".
 
Originally Posted By: A_Harman
Originally Posted By: Trav
I cant answer your question but I would do a little more research on this before running synthetic oil.
I have heard many times that synthetic should be avoided, I never owned one or worked on one other than minor stuff so I never really bothered to investigate it.

https://www.mazdatrix.com/faq/synthetc.htm

http://www.racingbeat.com/mazda/performance/rotary-tech-tips/synthetic-oils.html



What is one to conclude?:
Mazdatrix says not to use synthetic oil in Wankel engines, except for the Idemitsu special Wankel oil.

Racing Beat says it's OK to run synthetic in a Wankel, and gives a link to a Royal Purple page.


Well, I don't own a rotary but I do run a fairly highly tuned Mazda, and can advise anyone interested that Racing Beat are very solid and reliable vendors who race what they sell with great success and who offer solid advice. For what that's worth, and based on my own experience. I would not discount their advice on Mazda motors.
 
Originally Posted By: weasley
I ran synthetic in my RX-8 for 35,000 miles with no problems.

Mazda did not help things when they published a "no synthetics" dictate, because what they really meant was "no PAO" but what people interpreted it as was "no Group III or PAO".


From what I understand when you buy Mazda oil for your rotary in japan, it comes as a group 3 oil, which here is labeled as synthetic.

Aren't most synthetics at Walmart majority group 3 anyways?
 
I had an 82 RX7 that was an SCCA Pro Rally car back in the late 90's. It had mild street porting. That car saw a lot of hard use. The guy who did the porting recommended that I use Castrol GTX 20w50. He also suggested that I run about 4 oz of Mystery Marvel Oil in each tank of gas, which I did (car still had the oil injection system as well). While I was constantly replacing or repairing something on that car, I never had to touch the motor. It survived a lot of continuous redlining.
 
Originally Posted By: A_Harman
Originally Posted By: Trav
I cant answer your question but I would do a little more research on this before running synthetic oil.
I have heard many times that synthetic should be avoided, I never owned one or worked on one other than minor stuff so I never really bothered to investigate it.

https://www.mazdatrix.com/faq/synthetc.htm

http://www.racingbeat.com/mazda/performance/rotary-tech-tips/synthetic-oils.html


What is one to conclude?:
Mazdatrix says not to use synthetic oil in Wankel engines, except for the Idemitsu special Wankel oil.

Racing Beat says it's OK to run synthetic in a Wankel, and gives a link to a Royal Purple page.


No idea, just presenting both points in those articles. I figure the more info the better chance he can make an informed decision.
Like I said do more research, the owners and service manual would be a good place to start.
 
Originally Posted By: Trav
Originally Posted By: A_Harman
Originally Posted By: Trav
I cant answer your question but I would do a little more research on this before running synthetic oil.
I have heard many times that synthetic should be avoided, I never owned one or worked on one other than minor stuff so I never really bothered to investigate it.

https://www.mazdatrix.com/faq/synthetc.htm

http://www.racingbeat.com/mazda/performance/rotary-tech-tips/synthetic-oils.html


What is one to conclude?:
Mazdatrix says not to use synthetic oil in Wankel engines, except for the Idemitsu special Wankel oil.

Racing Beat says it's OK to run synthetic in a Wankel, and gives a link to a Royal Purple page.


No idea, just presenting both points in those articles. I figure the more info the better chance he can make an informed decision.
Like I said do more research, the owners and service manual would be a good place to start.


That was the thing that I liked about the mazdatrix page; they said straight out that the owners manual only recommends conventional oil for the Wankel. What mazdatrix didn't say was that synthetic oil will immediately ruin your engine. They said that over time, it has the potential to cause seal sticking but wouldn't say if it would take 10k or 50k miles.

On the other hand, I have a lot of respect for Racing Beat as they have been working on Mazda rotaries longer than anybody in the USA. So I have respect for their viewpoint.

I worked as a development engineer on large Wankel engines for John Deere from '85-'90. We only ran conventional 15w40 HDEO's, eventually settling on Chevron Delo.
 
That's interesting, are heavier oils recommended for the smaller rotary also? I know the basic principal of operation but that's about it, chances are I wont need to know more at this point.
 
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