I want to streetport my motor. My question is. when I disasemble my engine. Do i need to buy a rebuild kit. They are like $900 and my engine only has like 88k miles.

I would mayby replace the apex seals. with steel ones.

 

Ummm...I dont know a lot, but I would say that if your seals are all good and in spec per the manual, then no. But you do need at least the gasket kit to make sure it all sits together and seals nicely again. Those are only like $100 through VB, or cheaper other places. Although, if it were me and if I hade the money, I would just put all new everything. Just because the street-port is gonna mke you drive the car harder anyway, so why dont you just get all new seals and save yourself another rebuild later?

~T.J.

 

If it has good compression and doesn't smoke, just buy the soft seals and reuse the hard ones. Be sure to put them exactly where they were before. I'd spec everything while its apart just to be sure.

 

You need at least all the gaskets, o-rings, and apex/side seals. Thats assuming everything else is reusable.

88k miles is a great time for a rebuild.

 

Why is 88k miles a good time for a rebuild, surely there is more life in the average motor than that?

 

dyre, for a streetported engine i could see your point, but i would think that with a stock port motor you could easily go above 100k.

although, if you can afford it, it is always good to replace the seals before they go bad. that way there is less of a risk of damaging something.

 

i would just replace everything now instead of waiting that the engine blows a seal or something and having to disassemble the engine all over again. I mean it is up to you and what you can afford I guess, rotaries are not that cheap to work on.

 

So if a guy gets a junkyard motor, splits it apart, ports it. He can then just replace the soft seals and be good for a couple thousand miles? They sell any motor in the yard here for $125 bare block only. They have 3 1st gens and 2 2nd gens. Just how hard is it to break open a motor and do this?

 

Uh heh, I've got 189k and no rebuild yet Its completely stock. I do need to replace the O-rings though. How far have some of you gone with out rebuilds?

 

crazy dog - i did that and the engine lived 23k, who knows how much longer it would have lasted if I hadn't overrevved it. The remaining apex seals still had a ton of height left, the rotor housings still were shiney and no flaking. Pity about the seal springs flattening and allowing two of the sals to chatter themselves to death

I'd do it again in a heartbeat. One thing you want to do is mic everything out - EVERYTHING - leave NOTHING to chance. Maybe I was lucky in that the engine I started with was in excellent shape internally. (It allegedly had 60,000mi on it)

 

what does mic EVERYTHING mean????

 

what gaskets, and stuff would I need to replace a bad O-ring?

 

mic everything - measure all the housings, the apex seal (length, height, and clearance), apex seal springs, side seal clearance, etc. Basically, if your manual lists a spec for it, measure it!

I wouldn't worry about bothering to measure stepped wear on the side housings if the engine wasn't blowing smoke everywhere before - just make sure there are no hardened blue spots on the faces. (if you have the side housings lapped, might as well just do a full-on rebuild...) likewise for the bearing clearances... there's not much you're going to be able to do about that anyway, so as long as the bearing surfaces aren't chewed up, don't worry.

You'll need a gasket kit to replace a bad coolant seal. The Mazda one that Mazdatrix sells comes with EVERYTHING you need, and since it's genuine Mazda parts you know everything'll work well. (Get a tube of Hylomar too) You will want to measure the rotor housings and side housings for flatness - that coolant seal had to have a reason to fail, and it's possible that the housings are warped from overheating or from heavy throttle on a cold engine.