Maddog

Ok ,im not planning on doing this or anything,but i was daydreaming at work today & thinking about engine conversions & stuff on 4runners.
Anyway i had this thought has anyone ever put a rotory motor in a 4runner .
I mean they are cheap ,small & easy to get plenty of power out of them.A 13B non turbo Has quite a lot of touque as well.Id go for a N/A conversion to save on the need for computer swaping.
plus they are a very common mod in boyracer cars so there plenty of expertise on converting them.
I know im setting myself up here for some smart comment or even insults ,but is it really such a bad idea.

My99

Ehhhh... would be quite a bit of work, and a rotary is the opposite of reliability. Can't imagine what a toyota truck would sound like at 9,000 RPM. Would you also assumably swap a transmission in out of a RX7? I don't know if they'd be strong enough to handle the abuse of a 4Runner. RX7's weigh around 2,500lbs or less if I remember correctly. Sounds too expensive for the benefits to me.

X-AWDriver

Older rotarys generally need a rebuild at 100k miles and emissions were also a problem and that's part of the reason RX7s stopped being imported to the US.

r854rnr

This was talked about over att offroad.com a while back.
I've heard the rotary is unreliable also, but mazda has come back with it in the RX-8, so maybe they figured out some of the problems?
It does provide smooth, easy, power if you can get it to stand up to the offroading/truck abuse. Also, don't rotary engines get their peak torque and HP at higher RPMs?

I say stick with the diesels, and bulletproof toyota gas engines!

Flamedx4

I don't think they'd make the torque yoiu'd want though. I knew a guy way back in the early 80s that dragraced a rotary Mazda pickup. Low elevens if I remember right. About 15 years ago there was a street rod built with rotaries. They made an adapter and bolted two of them together inline. Awesome - made like 450 hp but would rev over 10k! It was a streamlined custom Deuce. Nice. My boss wanted to get those adapters and put 4 rotaries in his airplane (2 pairs) but he never got around to it, thankfully, since I always get stuck with making his hairbrained schemes work... He did buy 4 motors though!

85badger

Russ Hogan out of Disney, OK runs a rotary in his rock buggy, unimog axles, 2wd 5spd tranny, divorced sammy transfer case and 49" IROKS. Its doesn't weight much but there isn't much that he can't get up and over. He claims that he can get 300hp and it only weighs 150lbs.
http://www.hogansoffroad.com

there are some pics of it in that link.

My99

You mean 1,500? The tires would weigh 150 apeice it looks like.

3.4v6

what about an engine from a peterbuilt? that would would give you a whole lot of torque.

85badger

uhhh the engine weighs 150lbs

elripster

I think you might want to look into the torque curve of those motors. I believe they have very little low end torque, something one usually wants in a truck.

That is not to say it can't work and work well, but you'd need to consider major changes to your gearing, possibly beyond what the thirds can accomodate, in order to utilize that engine's torque characteristics. Basically you'd need to gear very very low.

Frank

oly884

I also remember hearing that those motors are quite difficult with pre-detonation.

Maddog

I have owned 3 rotorys over the years,1 early RX-7,1 cosmo 12A Sedan & a series 4 RX-7 With a 13B Turbo,
None of them gave me any trouble,they ares as reliable as any motor ,it just a lot of them get thrashed by boys ,they would kill any motor.
As far as high rev's & not enough touque go,thats a preconception of the 12A motor,The 13B redlines at around the same mark as a 3.slow,& has very good touque.
I also believe that it would be no more ,or even less trouble to put in than a 3.4 4runnner motor Because of the size.
There is also plenty of adaptors out there for toyota gearbox's as almost all rotory conversion guys prefer to use toyota gearbox's.
but as i say its just an idea,i cant afford to do it,hell i cant even afford my new exhaust yet,but if i had money to throw at my toy's i would certainly look at it ,just to be differant.

elripster

Don't suppose you might have any torque/hp numbers? I'm not too familar but this sounds interesting.

Frank

Maddog

I might have to do some digging around,im just going by personal experience,I will also say that the series 4-5 RX-7 is actually not that light,so there must be some good touque there,i will have a look around.

Robinhood150

This was discussed on pirate a little while ago and the concensus was that wankel engines don't have the low end torque necessary of rockcrawling. You'd have to rev it pretty high to move. The mog axles might make it feasible though.

TACOMANATOR

Have you seen the numbers for the rx-8. Something like 235 horse and 162 lbs of torque. This engine is not a good one for a heavy vehicle. Hence the light weight of the rx-8. As far as reliability--probaly very good considering there are only 3-4 moving parts in the engine.

My99

Wankel motors aren't necessarily Unreliable, but they WON'T stand up to the use of a toyota motor. Toyota motors at 100k miles are just getting broken in. Wankel's are looking to be rebuilt by this time. That and they sound like chainsaw's.... that's just not natural.