best degreaser and stuff?

[Steel]

now that my car is lying in pieces on the floor of my garage, i was wondering what the best degreaser out there was? also a REALLY good anti-sieze formula for my bolts, so that they dont freeze again?

Oh yeah, the bottom's getting kind of rusty...is there any stuff out there available that can dissolve the rust so then i can weld/rubber over it again, and with a rubber spray or something, what is the best stuff out there?

Last question, is there any sort of paint i can spray on my exhaust system to keep it from rusting, but wont keep the heat in or anything? Cause the exhaust runs cherry red for a big part of it, cause the rotorys run so hot, but i dont want my thermal reactors to rust out on me (not at $300 apiece, and theres 4 of them!)

thanx for the input all.

FC Steel

[sciguyjim]

Short of having a vapor degreaser like some shops, most people use the stuff in the aerosol cans available at most car shops.

Naval jelly, contains phosphoric acid, is supposed to dissolve rust.

Good luck finding a paint that will hold up at cherry red temps. Sounds like ceramic coating time. I've used ordinary high temp paint and a coating of tar inside my tailpipes to protect the metal from condensed water and acid at low spots where it likes to collect, but the temps were nowhere near glowing red.

[Steel]

ah, very cool. Thanks for the advice!

[454Casull]

Pardon my ignorance, but what is a thermal reactor? Or do you mean that you have a 4-rotor engine?

[SaabJohan]

Which is the best degreaser depends on what it needs to do. For instance normal gasoline can be used to "pre clean" many part. Gasoline isn't the best degreaser but it's cheap so by using gasoline first you can save money on more expensive degrasers. You can also use paint thinner, methanol, ethanol and wheel cleaner for a few examples.
Then there are many types of degreasers in aerosol cans, I've used CRC Bräkleen, this is actually a brake cleaner but it seems to work fine.

There are paint that can resist up to 650 C / 1200 F, these can be used on the exhaust pipe but not on the exhaust manifold, catalytic converter and the pipes efter the manifold. Exhaust manifolds can be coated with for instance nickel.

If a big part of the exhaust system runs red, maybe you need a more free flowing system.

[Steel]

Originally posted by 454Casull
Pardon my ignorance, but what is a thermal reactor? Or do you mean that you have a 4-rotor engine?

no its 2 rotor. Thermal reactor is basically the name mazda gave to the 3 precats before the main cat. they are small and run REALLY FREAKING HOT, cause they have to. I like to call them thermal reactors, cause it sounds cool, and plus, the car was made in hiroshima, so theres prolly 3 little nuclear powerplants in my car.

Saab: No, its normal for part of the exhaust to run cherry. Nor like BRIGHT but if you were to go underthere at night, you would see it. ITs just that the rotory's run so hot, that's why i have a killer cooling system, and it uses 6 quarts of oil too. and a oil cooler. So yeah.

[SaabJohan]

Originally posted by Steel


no its 2 rotor. Thermal reactor is basically the name mazda gave to the 3 precats before the main cat. they are small and run REALLY FREAKING HOT, cause they have to. I like to call them thermal reactors, cause it sounds cool, and plus, the car was made in hiroshima, so theres prolly 3 little nuclear powerplants in my car.

Saab: No, its normal for part of the exhaust to run cherry. Nor like BRIGHT but if you were to go underthere at night, you would see it. ITs just that the rotory's run so hot, that's why i have a killer cooling system, and it uses 6 quarts of oil too. and a oil cooler. So yeah.

Even a normal 4 stroke engine have high exhaust temperatures, around 1200 degrees celsius at the exhaust port (the temperature vary depending on air/fuel ratio, load and so on). But the temperature drops fast, if a turbo is involved the maximum inlet temperature on modern turbos is around 900-1050 degrees, and that is both for wankels and otto engines.
With a more freeflowing exhaust system the backpressure will be lover and the temperature will drop. Also, if the exhaust system is made of stainless it's more heat resistant and will not rust.

[ivymike1031]

I used to work at a company in California that designs and builds hi-perf rotary engines. On the dyno, these engines (1030cc, 165HP) would make about 3 feet of the exhaust heat shield glow faintly. The heat shield had about 1.5" air gap to the exhaust pipe, which glowed bright red. We referred to a "thermal reactor" in our exhaust system too. It was the first few feet of exhaust pipe, where any leftover hydrocarbons (ie lube oil) would react with excess O2. These thermal reactors were key to the low HC emissions of the engine. If I remember correctly, EGTs could be as high as 1800F out of these engines.

As an old guy at the office used to say "these rotary engines are louder than two skeletons screwing on a tin roof in a hailstorm!"

[Steel]

i ran the car without the exhasty system past and including the main cat yesterday.....and yes....it was fooking loud. And i liked it.

[SaabJohan]

Originally posted by ivymike1031
I used to work at a company in California that designs and builds hi-perf rotary engines. On the dyno, these engines (1030cc, 165HP) would make about 3 feet of the exhaust heat shield glow faintly. The heat shield had about 1.5" air gap to the exhaust pipe, which glowed bright red. We referred to a "thermal reactor" in our exhaust system too. It was the first few feet of exhaust pipe, where any leftover hydrocarbons (ie lube oil) would react with excess O2. These thermal reactors were key to the low HC emissions of the engine. If I remember correctly, EGTs could be as high as 1800F out of these engines.

As an old guy at the office used to say "these rotary engines are louder than two skeletons screwing on a tin roof in a hailstorm!"

Is it possible to run theese engines so lean so there will be an air excess at all times or is it just when the engine is under low load conditions? Or is an airpump used to deliver the extra air (which have been used with otto engines)?

[ivymike1031]

yeah, they could be run pretty lean. They could also be run on almost any fuel. I worked there when I was in college, and admittedly didn't pay enough attention to everything that I could have been learning. It seems to me that the engines would amost certainly have to be running a little rich to make peak power, so to keep the HC emissions down, you'd have to add O2 to the exhaust stream (would definitely explain the high temps). However, I don't recall seeing any air pumps in use. It's possible that the long, flat combustion chambers resulted in lots of unburned charge reacting in the tailpipe.

[Steel]

running the rotory lean is a really bad idea though. It's possible, but it overheats teh egnine really quickly, and a rotory really doesn't like to overheat. The blocks will warp and you lose compression easy. That's why they make them run so rich, is so they dont overheat.

Also you're right, there is a lot of unburned cahrge that gets fried up in the thermal reactors, and on MY 7, there is an oxygen rcycler that pumps oxygen to the last cat via carbon recycler thingie. Yeah, so basically, i need to find a way to reattach my heat sheilds before i go drivin'. Damn freaking breaking bolts.