I see why Mazda didn’t make a 1 Rotor Miata. First roadtrip FAILED successfully

Added: 2026-05-04

[00:00:00]So, we pulled the almost allnighter to get the car running again. It's absolutely insane how much torque this thing makes, but it's also very, very violent. So, I'm going to drive home, which is about 70 mi, to try and make it and get ready to go to the Peterson.

[00:00:15]It's almost 200 miles on a brand new, untested, fresh drivetrain. So, I tried driving home, but about halfway through the drive, so about 30 miles in, uh, I noticed the alternator was no longer working. And the best part is is that the dash I make sure that I have up to one decimal point of voltage and alter was running perfectly. You see 14, but the car and the battery were all at 13.1 13.0 and then it started dropping more and more and I knew something was wrong.

[00:00:48]So I'd made the decision to turn around and thanks to anti-gravity that battery lasted another 30 miles plus. driving back to the shop. It is 2:50, 3 in the morning. I just drove the car for a half hour home and a half hour back because uh the alternator voltage was dropping and I was just like, "Okay, maybe it's under load. Maybe it's under load." And then I pulled off and uh well, here you guys can see that's uh that's not supposed to be sitting there. So, the alternator fell off and then the belt's uh gone. Oh, look. There's a massive bolt sitting right there for something. I'd be in good shape if the belt was anywhere in the vicinity here, but it is not.

[00:01:36]There's a lot of oil sitting everywhere.

[00:01:38]Uh that oil pan is in the engine mounts that I [ __ ] requested to be made a certain way were not made that way. It's kind of why I stopped on a lot of the projects in the in the shop is uh I paused. I was not happy with the completion of the work being done. This one's biting me in the ass a little bit.

[00:01:54]Nonetheless, thanks standing gravity for that battery lasting whatever over an hour drive. This car is fun as hell. I went home just in the back of mind. I want to keep it going. I want I want to make it. And the best part was Erica was extremely supportive and she was like, just go back. Her family's in town and we'll all meet together at the Peterson.

[00:02:11]So, I came back to the shop.

[00:02:13]>> I found the bolt for the uh alternator, one of the many, and the guys put uh anti-seize on it. No worries about it seizing. In fact, that that would have been preferable for the bolt to have seized. So, I orange loctite the top bolt, the uh bolt that they had anti-seized. Um, I used a nyl. You can see the orange residue from the bolt back there also. So, the top bolt, bolt back there, and then that long crossbolt. Those are all intight. The bottom one, not so sure about. Somebody misthreaded the front cover, and it's not these guys. It was uh long before this. So, we are back in business and it is 11:00 p.m. the night before the event and I think I think we can do it. It is cutting season for me and not only are we cutting the number of rotors out of the cars, but I'm also trying to lose weight for Pikees Peak because it is much easier to lose about 10 lbs of uh fat than it is to try and drop 10 lbs out of the three rotor. David Protein has been absolutely incredible for really just in the moment on the go, getting my protein with minimal extra calories. That way, I don't have to worry about glycemic spikes. You can have the best self-control and the best strategy and diet ever. But as soon as your organization gets rocked, something crazy happens. The car breaks for the fifth time in a row, everything's out the window, and you're out at fast food.

[00:03:36]This is the best thing I found for getting 28 grams of protein for only 150 calories of total food consumption.

[00:03:43]Normally, the thing about protein bars to me is that you pick it up and it says 20 28 g of protein and then you look, by the way, it's 350 calories. I might as well just eat a burger. I might as well just eat something else. When it comes to options, you've got both of them here. Gold is for me the gold standard.

[00:03:58]This is 28 g of protein for only 150 calories. And it comes in flavors like chocolate chip cookie dough, which is also my favorite type of ice cream. And then they have the more decadent bronze option which is 20 gram of protein for 150 calories, but it's got a little bit more indulgent flavors if that's what you're looking for. David has a special offer for you guys. If you buy four, you get the fifth free. You can either click on the QR code or click on the link in the description below or if you can't wait, you can find them on the shelves at Target, Publix, Kroger, and many others. So, I'm revisiting the the Maiden Voyage 2.0 during the middle of the day. Super bright out. It's going to be 80 something degrees while I'm driving. So, I got 50 miles to go to the Peterson. I believe in you.

[00:04:45]Full battery in case that has to be fixed again.

[00:04:58]It is hard not to justify ethanol when gas is so much more expensive. You got a full tank of gas. No half a pack of cigarettes. It's 55 miles to Peterson.

[00:05:09]It's completely bright out and I got sunglasses on.

[00:05:13]That's not good. I'm quickly hitting the time where I know I'm not going to make it to the event that Donut Media is having at the Peterson. That's the whole reason we wanted to do this. And the car is not going. So, I did my classic old rotary push. The starter is not engaging.

[00:05:33]That sucks. So, I'm going to have to push it.

[00:05:38]See if we can do it. Put one rotor right into traffic.

[00:05:50]Oh, almost. That was pretty slow, too.

[00:05:57]So close.

[00:06:02]You've got to be kidding.

[00:06:05]>> I meant you to push backwards. Thank you.

[00:06:08]>> So, not for lack of trying and the good smear didn't help push me away from the road, but after trying to push start it, the whole car is shut off. And I think that my mistake here is I use the stock ignition signal. All my other cars I actually just rehop wire the uh ignition key so that way it only goes straight to the Helltech. Well, this I tapped into the stock fuse and stock everything else and I have to look into that. But the starter was having problems and then it almost it it was like thump thump thump when I was trying to uh push start it, but I wasn't going fast enough cuz I'm facing a road now. It's just dead to the world. Stock stuff and Helltech, which is the stock car is dead. I'm pretty sure I don't know enough about fusible links.

[00:06:55]That center part looks fine at this point. It's definitely like the stock harness having issues and I don't have any wiring stuff to diagnose it. But if I had my meter, I would see if there's voltage straight to the alternator, which there should be, or the batteries having issues. And then if I had my multi-tool or even any of my wiring tools, I could just go onto the Howtech and short the two pins that are ignition 12 volts and ignition. Issues in the loop. That looks that looks a little suspicious. Um, those are from tears. No other liquid. It's >> been a minute since I've filmed something like this.

[00:07:37]That guy's badass. Back in the shop. No time wasted. So, I was just wiping everything down cuz I overfilled it with oil and I was like, "Okay, the oil is clearly not helping the situation." I don't think it's the oil.

[00:07:51]This car vibrates so goddamn hard that the poor starter shook itself to pieces.

[00:07:59]These bolts backed out. Can't see them, but they're right there. It is not Wasp's fault at all. This this starter's been on the four rotor for years.

[00:08:09]Anything attached to this motor uh is getting just trashed. The starter, the alternator, and I don't mean the alternator itself, but the alternator mount, anything. Turbo probably. So, it's pretty violent. Swapped the starters since the other one was rattled loose. But I finally did what I had asked uh somebody previously to do. And that's what I got these little red things for was to sandwich the engine between two of those. It should help the slightest bit with the vibration. Really disappointed with how this was made when I asked for it to be made a specific way. A lot of wasted space for the oil.

[00:08:41]Hence the vacuum sump in case all this [ __ ] Look at just why why a billion bolts. It can be just held from these corners here. like a 20B or, you know, on the sides or like a a 13B. Instead, we wasted all this extra space for oil that gave me no room to do the proper bushings that I wanted for this because this is a wood rotor. It's It's got to vibrate. There's nothing countering it.

[00:09:04]>> Round two.

[00:09:07]It It doesn't even matter what round it is now. But this thing's shaking everything apart.

[00:09:11]So, let's hope those engine mounts help make it a little bit better. I'm already late. The event's over, but it's it's an emotional thing for me to make it. So, I'm I'm going to try I'm going to try to make it to the Peterson first full maiden voyage.

[00:09:27]It's 90° out.

[00:09:42]Okay, here's the alternator has died again.

[00:09:49]So, that's kind of fun. Just let it cool off a little bit.

[00:09:54]Take a look what happened.

[00:10:01]God damn it. It snapped off in that mount. At least the belt's still there, I guess. [ __ ] Okay, so here's my weirdass plan. That is broken, like off on its casting. So, I'm going to use this one until it it starts going to like 12 flat. And I brought this one from the 12 rotor. So, I'm going to turn all the fans off and everything and then go as far as this one will go and then swap to this one to make it home. But right now, I'm in downtown, close to downtown LA. We shall see.

[00:10:37]I'm one and a half miles away from the Peterson 13 volts 12.9 and I got the other battery. So, I think I'm going to make it, but I'm not going to jinx myself. I have made it barely. But I made it to I did not believe I would get this far, but we got this far. Oh my god. Oh, I'm so excited. I dropped my phone. Okay.

[00:11:18]Uh, we'll deal with getting back. That's going to be a pain in the ass, but doesn't matter. I made it. So, I may have completely missed the event. Except I do see one little Miata brethren right there. But I have made it. So that is the one and only Aerovvette.

[00:11:37]So it says here V8, but they were originally trying to make it a sure enough originally trying to make it a four-tor. So they beat me long ago into making it a mid mid engine, rear engine four-rotor Corvette. Beautiful car. Did not know it still existed.

[00:11:56]>> It's pretty sick. You can actually see.

[00:11:58]Oh, it looks like a almost looks fake, huh? This is just a really solid way of doing that. That's the Gordon Murray T50. This is actually genuinely one of the reasons uh not just the Miata event itself, but all these different cars, especially one right back here. Beautiful.

[00:12:28]So, what's really funny is actually in the very first Fast and Furious when they do the whole like NOS and engine swoopy thing with the cool animations through a rotary and I didn't even pick up on that uh for many years. Fail kit's kind of polarizing, but it's still just an iconic version of the car. Making it to the Peterson was actually at this point the easier part cuz it's already done. I guess that makes it the easier part, right? But going back is going to be a whole another challenge. Now, the good news is is I bought bought one of the spare anti-gravities and they're massive. It's 80 amp hours versus the 40 is already massive for this car. But because of those extra amp hours, uh I'm going to be able to run the car quite a while on just battery and just 12vt battery charging all the ignition, the fuel pump, water pump, fans as they turn on, headlights if I need them. And so I'm going to try and do as little of that as possible. It's still 80° out, but I'm going to go ahead and use that to best my advantage before the sun sets. it's colder and try and make it in an hour of driving. 60 mi back to the shop.

[00:13:34]All right, that was nuts. I'm downloading the log right now, but I made it. She started shaking really violently at 4,000 RPM.

[00:13:45]So, something something 4,000 RPM has been consistently showing up that this thing misbehaves, but that doesn't matter. I'm here. Both myself and the car survived that absolute grueling drive back and forth from the Peterson.

[00:13:59]Doesn't matter. Did it. The car and I made sweet love even without the alternator. Now, Ryder has already rewelded the alternator itself back together and added extra material so that way it can handle the vibrations that it never normally is under. And we're going to handle that side. But this thing at 28 PSI is far more highrung and more power density than this car at 700 to almost 800 horsepower. Rotary engines are actually the only engine I have experience with doing this properly, but one of the easiest engines to time because every single one times it off of the front rotor and that notch is always every single Esha built 180 degrees from the front lobe. opposite of top dead center means that when you look at the bolt configuration, if that notch is to the left, the lobe is to the right and that's where the spark plugs are. This has a a lazy eye droopy uh bolt hole so that way you can't put the trigger stuff on backwards. If it was in its correct spot, that would be top dead center.

[00:14:59]We're going to set the engine directly to that and then make sure that the math adds up. There's one missing tooth right here. What happens is this sensor is going to pick up a tooth tooth tooth and then when there's no tooth, the HTEC knows and most ECUs know to reset. When you talk about with the wheels reset point, it's off of this tooth right here cuz the engine's spinning this way. When the tooth is detected, it's on the front side of the tooth. If the tooth leaves, so it's rising or falling, it makes that bit of a difference. Each tooth has a thickness and so either you're you're detecting when it's beginning the tooth or when it's ending the tooth. And then that still is zero. Once this sensor has read that tooth, 50° from there is going to be roughly top dead center. So I'm going to go ahead and rotate the engine.

[00:15:53]So the sensor has now read the last tooth. It's just past it. And so it's resetting, resetting, resetting. And then it's going to catch the beginning of that tooth right in here. We're going to look at our log and see if I have it as rising or falling to make sure the tooth is past it, it's set to falling.

[00:16:11]So once the tooth comes past, it rises up. And then as soon as it sees that first tooth leave, it falls. And that's zero for the crank sensor. We got 36 teeth, one missing tooth. And then after that reset, we want to say 50° after that. So we'll see if this number matches top dead center. Falling edge of that tooth has now passed this sensor.

[00:16:35]Saying 50° that means really we're just going five teeth over and it's the falling side of the fifth tooth. So, there's 10°, 20°, 30°, 40°, and now 50°. The interesting thing is that this notch or this notch, those are just arbitrary things. The marking on the wheel is offset just as much as these marks are. It's really annoying to be honest. So, what what we want to be is the sensor that does not look to match anything. So, no wonder we're making a lot of power. I think it was it was definitely off. You can actually see on the full function, you can see the teeth do have numbers right there. So that means I was running a certain amount of advance. That was why I was being super stable with everything.

[00:17:20]Interesting. The engine really liked that to be honest cuz I was able to really control it. Or we'll keep ignition on, keep fuel off, and then I'll have somebody else turn it over and I'll watch for these marks and then adjust the laptop. Data is data and I don't have no baseline with a one rotor so I don't know what's normal. Love Finn to death. He must have swapped the wires. Sharp eye guys. That was that.

[00:17:39]Thank you for also putting that on my radar. And because of that, the timing was messed up and but it was closer because the the leading was firing trailing, but the trailing was firing leading. I'm so curious how much difference. Literally, it went from 50° to 90°. So, a 40° difference, but then the two were also swapped. It ran great.

[00:17:58]I That's the weird part. Like, I could adjust timing. Like the the thing is is when you advance timing too much, you don't get any more torque and you just start detonating because, you know, you're igniting it before the engine has gotten all the way up to the top. In this case, when I was idling it, I had great control at 10°. So, I've I've got a lot of soul searching to do cuz whatever that reverse split just did, I'm fascinated. So, I'm going to set it to that and then turn everything on and fire it up. So, got to swap the cables.

[00:18:23]We are going to try the new timing, proper timing settings, and see how different the engine behaves. I hope it is so much less violent.

[00:18:33]It's not even remotely uh vibrating.

[00:18:36]It's just That's wild. That is wild. It's It's idling higher because it's happier here.

[00:18:47]Uh I'm uh flabbergasted and I never say that.

[00:18:55]It's holding idle so much better. It's actually adding fuel back there. It's requiring more fuel, which means that it's more volutrically efficient because it's actually igniting it. So, uh, >> so much smoother.

[00:19:08]>> So much smoother. There's a little bit of a ting feeling right now. I don't know if it's quieter, but it is smoother. Quieter. Um, I have a feeling it's going to that means it probably will boost hopefully harder.

[00:19:22]>> What?

[00:19:23]>> The belt fell off.

[00:19:24]>> Oh, mother [ __ ] Okay. Okay. Well, it was running good until the belt fell off.

[00:19:37]It is time to see what this engine is supposed to feel like with full power, with the correct timing. So, I'm going to go putt around, do two or three pulls, and then just step on it.

[00:19:48]>> Ah, I have rearview mirrors. That is probably the nicest luxury.

[00:19:51]>> That >> Yeah, I can survive without that one cuz like you can look this way even with the hard top. But this one is critical. Oh, it's a luxury car now.

[00:20:02]She fires right up though.

[00:20:15]No.

[00:20:27]That is worse than it's ever been.

[00:20:29]Clutch pedals vibrating. The the shifter is vibrating. Once I'm in boost, uh, it cut something cut. That's what I stopped for. But it's got great response. That there's no doubt about that. That is probably the best most redeeming part of this. That was only 11 lbs of boost.

[00:21:02]Heat. Heat.

[00:21:24]Heat.

[00:21:30]Heat.

[00:21:46]Okay, clutch sink to the floor. That's gone.

[00:21:50]Oh, I'm not going to press anymore.

[00:21:52]Okay, that just destroyed something.

[00:21:54]Maybe that last pull wasn't good to do.

[00:21:59]>> Well, how did I lose a clutch?

[00:22:05]The first two pulls were out in second gear on purpose to be more stable in first gear. Overboosted on that last pull, but I was getting really good data. The car was fine. The engine's fine. All of a sudden, clutch sank to the floor and you heard the car doing what it was doing. This thing is absolutely wicked.

[00:22:22]This is actually very impressive to me because this is a similar result but different cause. This was torque. This was some serious goddamn torque. I can tell you right now, right before the transmission let go, it was about 280 horsepower. That's equivalent to basically 900 horsepower three-rotor.

[00:22:38]The engine mount solution is just not adequate. What's interesting is we only had this one bolt because all these other bolts don't line up when the engine's in line. That bolt has since basically been pulled out. It was only in the oil pan anyway. So, I don't know what the [ __ ] was going on there. My pads are good, but this plate is all over the place, and that as a result let the engine go all over the place. And the torque tube is excellent for certain types of torque, but not the type of rotational torque. A long tube, no matter how lattised and whatever, you can still twist a tube pretty easily, especially at 300 horsepower for what's meant to be 140 or 120 horsepower. We snapped the back part of the transmission, which does not surprise me because the transmission was the only thing holding the engine in place. I've had it on the four where you can have all the engine mounts off and engine and transmission all work together and you don't normally break that bond. But because we have such a thin transmission modified and we've got such vibration, we're getting what we're getting. So, I think we're going to modify the engine mounts which then allow us to fix the oil pan. Vibration still occurs, but we'll be able to mount the engine and and dampen that vibration. You can tell with the correct timing, the car is definitely pulling even harder. I'm annoyed in the sense of like it feels like it's a repetitive part, but I'm not annoyed in the sense of this is why one rotors aren't a thing. This is why turbo one rotors are not popular because there are a lot of weird issues and then this is for anybody else. Your career doesn't depend on it and it would be something that would want you to mothball the project. You' be like, you know what, somebody else's problem or just I'm done. But thankfully, uh, we're going to see this through. That way, any of you guys that are interested in doing one rotors don't have to go through this sort of heartbreak if the goal was to have a cool rotary, make tons of power, super light, and uh, not vibrate you worse than the biggest vibrator on sale.

[00:25:03]Heat. Heat.

[00:25:29]You know the definition of insanity.

[00:25:30]Doing the same thing expecting a totally different result. I am done with any sort of possibility of breaking our transmission welds. The engine is mounted now much softer but much more firmly both to these little baby mounts which allows us to now have all of these bolts properly holding the oil pan to the engine. We've already fired it up.

[00:25:53]It sounds and feels so much better.

[00:25:55]Redoing the oil pan allowed us to much more properly prevent the leaks. Even with the engine mounted better somewhere, there's a difference in force. One thing's trying to stay still, one thing's moving. The back of the transmission wants to rotate, but it's being held by the power plant frame. The transmission tries to do that rotation, and it would put all that force on the weld. Don't want that. So, as it starts to rotate, it's going to go to this massively overkill, beautiful plate.

[00:26:24]Removing the power plant frame though now means that the rear diff is no longer connected to the front and that puts us back here with again there's a force that wants to rotate and there's a force that wants to stay still to turn that rotation into the wheels. You'll see other companies will do things where it comes AC straight across and does kind of a triangulation. We have an exhaust here. So I'm kind of curious to see how this should work. Again, we're not launching this car super hard and this plate is pretty overkill. It's just a cleaner setup all in all. So, I am very happy with this.