The preservation power of pre-mixing

[RX8R3Rod]

Good news, everyone ;-)

I’ve done ~73,000 miles on my ‘new’ engine now, and as I was heading up to Rotary Revs today for Josh to kindly make some final tweaks to the Teins, I thought I’d get try and get a compression test done to see approximately how much potential life is left, before a rebuild beckons.

I was gobsmacked! In a good way ...

A00CD7DA-7049-40E3-B2BC-7AECDFEF154F.jpeg

I know that, as with any car, anything can fail at any time; but ignoring all that it seems like the engine is still in pretty good health, compression-wise.

IMHO this demonstrates (at least in part) the preservation power of premix, as the car has not had a life without challenge, including a fair number of track days.

Along with following starting and warm up procedures as much as possible ... and a bit of luck, of course ...

Shows they don’t all blow up at 30,000 miles, etc

[brix79]

I think any of us would be pleased with that Rod! And at 117,534 miles.

[kopite72]

Agreed Rod, I have almost 70000 miles on mine since my rebuild six years ago and she's still bombing along.

I never understand people that don't premix, it's not doing any harm,in fact it's the opposite. Anything that adds extra lubrication for the seals I'm all in

[Nickp47]

Great numbers! Does it prove the power of pre-mix? It wouldn’t be that unusual to find a 73k R3 running those numbers if well looked after. But either way, it’s clearly not done any harm

[RX8R3Rod]

V kind of you Sir!

But I should say I got a new engine at 44k miles, so it’s only done ~73k. Still, could be worse ...

[RX8R3Rod]

And totally with you on that Ian! IME you can hear the noise levels drop when you pop the premix in which suggests smoother running, and as you say it doesn’t apparently do harm, so why wouldn’t you?

And like Nick says, it’s of course impossible to prove because we can’t run statistically valid trials ...

But I’m sold on it!

[Scartlead]

That is pretty awesome compression given the miles on the engine. Hopefully you also drive it like you stole it?

[Rudolph]

IME you can hear the noise levels drop when you pop the premix in which suggests smoother running,
But I’m sold on it!

*****
I fully agree......that was also very remarkable for me when I started premixing (1:100)...........

[warpc0il]

Some make the same comment regarding switching to premium fuels, such as Shell V-Power, while others only feel the difference in their wallets.

[untakenname]

Oddly enough my RX8 feels smoother and happier on normal 95 compared to 99.

I premix quite heavily and you can feel the difference in smoothness.

[Techathy]

Semi-informed layman's theory - and I'm totally willing to be educated to the counter here.

From what I understand high octane fuels are harder to ignite and have more detergents added to them. So this means engines with more carbonised engines may work better due to a little more cleaning. However, rotary engines are relatively low compression and seem to be quite hard on their ignition systems. This means if they not going to take advantage of the extra detergents in the fuel then running a lower octane fuel may make the engine run better.

[acegeezer]

I never premixed at all.. Ben @ RR told me 6 years ago it was not necessary with the extra oil injector on the R3.. and after 6+ years, the compression was substantially higher than when originally purchased, passed on to a new member here with high 6's and low 7's @

[delta0]

I do premix. It is not just about lubrication it also cleans.

[warpc0il]

Never underestimate the power of the placebo effect, many new drugs come to market after trials show them "to perform only marginally better than placebo"

Premixing is a way of telling your 8 that you care...

[GreySilver Beast]

If you care, you lubricate.

[kopite72]

That's what Nigel says

[Vian]

There is also the element of simple good luck. Last time I compression tested my 91,000 mile S1 it was showing all over 7s, and God knows I'm not as particular about every possible treatment as some of the drivers on here. I do pre-mix though, but I would still mostly put my results down to luck rather than me being a God-like engine preserver. That's why I still expect it to go bang at some point.