SO recently a customer calls me up and states that he bought an rx8 with a blown engine. He had a tow shop transport it for him, and during this process they apparently negotiated that the tow shop mechanics (lol) would remove the engine and tear it down to the block so that he could send the block out to be rebuilt/exchanged, and then the shop would reassemble the accessories onto the new block and install it for him.

Then from there it apparently went to "oh yeah, we do these all the time, let us rebuild it in-house".

Come to find out the shop spent several weeks trying to get the big bolt out of the front of the e-shaft/hub, took it to several shops with no success. The frustrated owner brought it to me, skeptical when I told him it would be no problem to get the block apart, until it took me about 5 seconds to zing that bolt right off lol.

By now he is pissed at the tow shop mechanics and pulls his car from there, and brings it to me to try and finish the job. Unfortunately they lost a lot of parts to his engine so I can only put it together about 90%.

Anyway, come to find out his block was pretty much destroyed. There wasn't a good bearing in the engine, some of them spun and some of them were just chewed up. The shaft was junk due to this. IT also ran low enough on oil to destroy 2 of the 3 iron housings, because the rotor was rubbing on them. This also chewed up every seal on the sides of the rotors, some of which I would normally try to reuse. Simultaneously, it broke a couple of apex seals on the front rotor, which further destroyed that rotor and rotor housing.

So basically he was left with one iron, one rotor and one rotor housing, and a set of stat gears. I had to supply the rest of the parts to make the core buildable again. Since he was here when we tore it down, I took no pictures of the carnage, and the pictures start with the cleaned and prepared parts.





Since he needed a single rotor and all I had were matched sets, I kept his left over single rotor and gave him a matched set from my shelf so they would be balanced better. These came from an engine that previously had a little coolant inside, and so there is light pitting and discoloration to the surfaces which won't hurt anything inside a running engine. It also saved him some money because they had brand new bearings in them (it was a low mile mazda reman that these came out of).

 

Time to start building.

Assembled rotors using cut to fit side seals. No 20 thousandths of clearance that you can stick your fingernail in here.

 

new clutch and resurfaced flywheel








Checking endplay....








Assembled as far as I can go without some of the parts the other shop lost...

 

Nice... How much will this cost ? How much time will it take ? Good job rottaryresurrection wish i can do this myself

 

Nice job as usual.

 

I wish I was cool enough to have an engine like that.

Question ... what compression numbers are you getting?

 

From the point that I start working on this specific engine, about a week, maybe 2 of actual work time. In this case we are going to have to wait on a lot of parts to be found before I can install it, and I also have to remove his oil coolers and send them out for cleaning service which will add more time.

He's going to have about 3 grand in the build...the cost of a stock mazda reman block "out the door" with no labor included, and no way to know what is inside (whereas I give picture documentation).

Dont know. The engines that I build either get shipped away as a block, or if I put them in the customer comes and gets the car within a few days' time. As you know compression takes a couple thousand miles to build up fully in a used housing rebuild, so it is useless to compression test after it is first started up, and there is no way for me to know long-term since I almost never hear back from the customers months/years later (you never do unless there is a problem).

 

Nice job man !

one day when I have the time and $$$ I will try to rebuild my FC's , if I **** it up, then I will give you a call RR lol !

 

Nice thread
May I ask you what e-shaft play you settle to?

 

I think the factory manual specifies 1.5-3.5 thousandths. I usually shoot for 2-3. It is not a critical adjustment though, anywhere in that range is fine.

 

Cool . Thanks for showing us that .

With the housings - I have a 3 spare in my gge atm and 2 of them have a lot of wear on the side of the housing from the apex seals . It looks to me like this is a common thing caused by the apex seals bending combined with insufficient lubrication ..............................or something .
How much wear is acceptable in that area .

 

I wouldn't reuse these Sorry for the crappy pics!
65000km, old mazda flash with low OMP rates, city\traffic use:



Sorry to threadjack

 

/\ can't see the pics ?

 

Try now, weird problem with the attachments

 

The apex seal has a short triangle piece on one end and then the long piece. The short piece tends to dig into the edge of the housing and cause chrome to flake off. The more wear, the less compression the engine will have once rebuilt, and the less desireable the housing.

Of course it is a judgement call as to what to reuse and what not to. Depends on the intended use of the engine, expected longevity (factoring in how long an original engine that was built with everything new lasted on average), budget, etc. Usually on rx7 engines chrome flaking greater than 1-2mm on the edge and 3-4 inches in length is to much to suit me.

 

Nice thread, good work RR