I will try to get pictures of the following up shortly.

I just had my rebuilt motor torn down due to excessive oil consumption. As it turns out, the motor has way more than a little wear on ALL the irons. By way more, I mean that the person who pulled just tore it back down was suprised that they were reusable at all.

Right now, I'm in a hell of a bind. I just paid to have it rebuilt a month ago and now I'm having to do it again. This time, I'm going to have to replace a lot of things. It wouldn't have been as bad it they had been done up front but after paying for TWO rebuilds, I'm not sure I can afford it.

So far, it looks like I need to replace EVERY iron. The faces of all of them are grooved roughly .005. From the way it appears, the grooving has caused the oil control ring carriers to wear more than the current builder has seen before.

The housings are grooved but usable if need be. The motor has 100 miles on the rebuild...Atkins seals. They have already been worn down approximately .005-.006 and you can feel grooves in them if you run your fingernail across it.

Does anyone have these items that they would be willing to part with for a reasonable price?

I can be reached via PM or at reesesrx7@yahoo.com.

Reese
Performance Concepts

 

Why don't you just lap and re-nitride the plates? If that's not an option, just buy a used Cosmo rear and center plate. Those 2 should work just fine with a little port matching at the LIM. I believe the port timming for the primary ports are the same as the 20b's (very late opening). Good luck finding a center plate and front plate. With the Cosmo plates, just mill 2 of those holes for the 2 larger tension bolts.

 

I've not seen good experiences with lapping unless the renitriding process is done properly and it usually is not. Also you can run into coolant seal depth issues with lapping, especially on housings with a lot of wear like these. IMO, if the budget affords it, the better option is the JHB ceramic resurfacing, where they actually build back up with their coating, not just grind down and coat like a lapping process.

Anyway, here's some pics. This is some of the worst wear I've ever seen and I've torn down HUNDREDS of cores of all build types, mileages, treatments, etc. My only theory is that an extreme rich condition caused washing of the housings and a lot of gas dilution, making the lubrication non effective.

Heavy wear at the convergence points on EVERY iron, about 5 thousandths from a quickie check. The most odd thing that I have never seen before, the wear is inside the oil control rings track.











Pic of an oil control carrier with normal wear, from a core with probably 100k-150k miles...



Pics of reese's rings...note that the irons tore these up, not the other way around.





Rotor bearings, all 3 look this way...



e-shaft has a little wear from the rotor bearings, but it should ride okay...



Rotor housings grooved up and lightly chattered...





Apex seals, reese's on top versus used on bottom, note the grooving on the seal. Already 6 thousandths of wear in under 200 miles. You normally see 1, maybe 2 thousandths (depending on application and treatment of the motor) per thousand miles driven.



Side and corner seals worn down 5 thousandths already, while used 100k+ mile ones usually wear 2, maybe 3 thousandths in that time.

 

what brand of apex seals?
matt

 

atkins. Not the seals' fault though, but the housings they are riding against. True, mazda or RA seals might hold up better in that situation, but those housings will net a compression loss and increased seal wear regardless of what seal is used.

For reference both seals pictured are atkins...one is a spare used one I removed from an engine that had been rebuilt recently, and the other reeses. SO obviously not the fault of the seals.

 

Damn thats nasty. I wouldnt lap those out

 

Not claiming to be a expert, but baised on the fact that the engine bearings are worn to **** and back, I'd say its more than just a rich issue. It looks fairly like major oil starvation which would not allow the oil control rings to recieve any lubrication, and wear like that. I saw a engine with near identical damage to it from a oil pump not being tightened. I would check usual causes of low oil pressure, lack/ damage o-ring in front cover, missing regulator, loose front regulator ect. Low oil pressure, or no oil pressure would not allow lube into the oil injection to the apex seals/side seals as well, making them wear very rapidly as well. Not that you didnt know to check all that, just trying to help.

 

Going to be hard to find a full set of used irons... They look like they can be lapped and saved...I would go that route before trying to find another full set of irons, as that maybe impossible... I can get aa full set of Brand New irons ( Not the large center) that part is NLA. The rest is all available NEW.. not too exspensive...

 

Good luck sorry to hear about this Reese. I dont know you personally but I was with Chris Roth when you gave him the story this weekend over the phone. Hopefully Auto Illusions will sell Chris the new plates and you can use Chris' good used ones.

Lino

 

:fingers crossed: Thanks for the support, Lino. I just have to come up with the funds for parts. Replacing an entire motor wasn't in the plans when I had it rebuilt the first time. It just sucks that I really didn't even get to drive it.

I'm very much leaning towards GtoRX7s thoughts. For whatever reason, the motor was starved for oil after it was put together.

 

Who built the motor and what kind of oil were you using?

 

I'm going to hold off on the builder's name until I come to some sort of resolution to this. I will say that he is well known and respected.

For the oil, we had an inexpensive 10w30 in there for the break-in period. The same thing was used on my old 1/2BP 13B-RE from the same builder and there were never any issues.

Reese

 

No, there's no way this can be short or long term oil starvation of the main engine oiling system, or there would be more severe damage to the irons as well as main bearings...scorching and scarring of the ENTIRE oil ring orbit. There's no such heat damage or scorching, just wear that took place over a longer period of time (not just a few miles or hours of run time). This wear HAD to have been there when the engine was apart last, IMO. Some of it, at least.

The bad rotor bearings were the result of short term main system starvation right before the engine was removed, but that didnt cause the wear on the irons.

 

Kevin, what might have caused the excessive rapid additional wearing if not lack of oil? Just wondering as I'm trying to understand what happened.

 

I can explain it for everyone but it'll take some time and some more example pics.

 

there're several ways to cause so much excessive wear on the oil O-ring. One is by placing the springs backwards causing the O-ring to slip around the rotor damaging the O-ring itself. The other is by over tightening the tension bolt causing excessive pressure to the rings, thus excessive wear.

the bearings looked to be caused by either initial oil starvation during crank up and/or lack of oil at the end prior to the teardown. How long did it take you to build up oil pressure when the engine was installed?

also, i notice that there wasn't any beveled at the closing edge of the exhaust port, was it done on purpose?

As for the wear on your rotor housing, that is actually typical from what I have seen using atkins apex seals and hurley seals. I had an engine torn apart after 2000 miles using atkins seals and it looks even worst than your housings.

I know that there're alot of people in here that likes atkins seal but I personally wouldn't use it after seeing several engines having the same results on the rotor housings. I don't want to turn this into another debate and I have nothing against atkins. This is purely just my opinion on their seals.

 

have you contacted jhb to see if the irons might be salvagable with the cermet coating? 20b parts are EXPENSIVE...and hard to find.

 

Kevin mentioned to me on the phone earlier that the wear pattern could be attributed to fuel wash. We had some issue with 1600s in the secondaries so at first we simply unplugged them and shortly after I swapped my 550s back in. I don't THINK the larger injectors were in long enough to do contribute but I've been wrong before.

Steve, as for the porting, that was all left to the builder as my opinions and knowledge about the subject would cause more harm than good. LOL. If I remember correctly, oil pressure did not build immediately. It wasn't an excessive amount of time but it wasn't present at the outset.

The motor had been smoking a little prior to the rebuild and continued after the rebuild. As the miles went on (up to the end), the smoke would get better or worse, almost randomly. At the last mile or so, it simply shot out a HUGE smoke cloud and oil pressure started dropping. By the time I pulled over, I was coasting and showing a hair under 25psi. When I pulled the dipstick, I didn't register any oil.

Dave, I know what Kevin told me his cost on have a 2 rotor set done was. Right now, that cost is out of the question for me. Perhaps at a later time I'll see if they can help me. It can't hurt to have a set standing by.

Reese

 

oil springs were installed correctly, the ones I looked at anyway. Good point on the tension bolts, but I didnt notice any excess torque on them, though I didnt use a wrench to remove them.


I think he said he lost pressure right before he shut it off, due to running low on oil (it all burned it's way out, I guess). IF it were a startup problem, the front main bearing would have been the first to wear, in my experience. would you not agree?

I didnt even notice, I was too busy looking at all the other stuff. I will check again.

I use primarily atkins seals. They are not the strongest seal out there (though they would disagree with that) but they are great for all around street use and work especially well with used rotorhousings. They seem to seal pretty well in all situations where some of the harder seals are not very forgiving with worn housings, such as RA's etc. They cost half of mazda's ridiculous cost for their seals (which, might I add has gone up 30% in the last 4 or so years versus atkins seals actually getting CHEAPER).

Anyway I dont normally see this from atkins seals...I've seen it with a couple sets of mazda 3mm and a couple sets of RA seals before. I think the seals are the effect, not the cause. I've torn down a few atkins engines with 10-40k on them and found no such wear. I think it is the result of treatment of the engine and conditions, rather than the seals and housings.

So this was before it actually started up and ran, right? You cranked it with the fuel disabled to prime the system, right? It's normal for the engine to take 30+ seconds to build pressure and prime, which is obviously why we do this with the starter and not with the engine actually running at 10x the rpm the starter turns.

 

Kevin, you are correct. The motor was turned over with the fuel pump fuse pulled. No fuel.

 

Well then that eliminates, in my mind, any possibility of damage due to lack of oil on startup. Provided that you saw the usual 30+psi of pressure after 30 or so seconds of cranking, and you didnt lose pressure after that (until you ran out of oil just before you pulled the motor).

 

how about the simple stuff- like the nylon washer and o-ring on the front iron, needle bearings, etc.

were the stationaries in place straight? was the rear stationary totally flat against the back side housing? occasionally they get a little funky with a new o-ring and you gotta pay very close attention to whether or not it's going in straight or crooked.

any pics of the rear main bearing?

 

All the main bearings looked fine with light, normal wear. They were not replaced during the rebuild to my knowledge, and they look just as I would expect any original set to. I saw no problems with the oiling system during teardown..oilpump seems good, bolted in place firmly, gears are in good shape, etc.

 

Never mind.