It's hard to tell from your pics how much of a groove is cut in the lower outside edge of the housings. While the flaking isn't good, it is minimal If the corner piece of the apex seals hasn't cut much a groove near the edge of the housings, you might be able to pick up a decent set of used apex seals and have and engine that will last for a while.

I was in a similiar situation during my 1st rebuild. After tearing down 4 12As, I didn't have a single apex seal within specs. Since this was a 'practice' rebuild, I used the tallest seals I had in the pile. That engine probably would have run for some time, except the oil control o-rings were shot and it went through 5 qts. of oil by the time it had consumed 6 gal. of gas., most of that run time was spent at high idle in the shop.

Fwiw, the 1/2 bp that's in the widebody now, even though it was a full fresh rebuild, it was a temporary engine until I was ready for my TII swap. That's been over 2 years now and the TII engine still isn't ready, lol.

 

This is why I cant justify myself buying $200 apex seals to go in worn housings that will not be good for them.
In my mind there is no point in buying new apex seals unless your housings are mint or new, they go together.

I live near Jasper Gates and if you see a red rx7 with no side mirrors , that's me.


Well, if my crappy rebuild dies after a year (I only drive 100miles a week = 5200miles/year) then it will make me finish my TII build sooner.

 

At least check this out:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eB...TODAY.m238.lVI

 

Hi waysrx7
So I joined up on the forum just to send you a message about your seal problem, but I have to post mongo messages before I am allowed to email or pm. Well you can imagine my opinion of that, even if there are some supposedly good reasons. But anyhow, contact me by pm or email. I have a few questions and ideas for you. I just don't want to through a bunch of people's names around the internet.

 

I gave it a try but he wont ship out of the country and didn't tell me the measurments on the apex seals.

 

Well, if you can get the measurements and you want the stuff, I could have him ship to me and then I ship to you. I wouldn't have a problem doing that if you wanted to go that route.

 

Email him directly and ask him for the apex seals only. He will hook you up. Come to think about it, I have a few used ones I can donate. Let me spec them out and see if they are any better than what u have.

 

I just gave him another email so I'll wait for a response.

 

whether or not those housings are still good to use is only relative to the compression #'s u want. i'd say yes they are "usable" but i say that only lightly bc it should be good enough to get just a running engine with out greatest compression but you were expecting that anyways.

 

Did you try rx7addict on ebay? He will ship to Edmonton. I live in St. Albert and had really good success with this guy. Not sure if he has what you are looking for.

 

I like the idea of building one up for practice and experiance. Though I'd for sure not put it in a registered vehical for very long, I dislike the idea of having something that will die sooner then later, die at a bad time :P

That being said, GO FOR IT. I love the idea of practicing porting and buildups.

 

I can say I went through the same decision last winter and finnaly deciced to go with new apex seals, my housings had less flaking, I now have 20000km and still hit 100 psi all round, my whole rebulid cost just over $800, and at 20000km already and it still running strong, it was worth the overtime I put in at work and the beer I sacrificed to get there as I am actually happy with my budget rebuild and will probably have it at least through another summer. Its not esay to spend the money but it takes a lot of time to clean and assembly every thing properly.

 

I couldn't find anything by rx7addict on ebay.

I was given a good pointer that by reusing these old parts I wont be able to tell how good of a port job I did as the poor performance could be from the bad seals or housings or plates. Well, I'll just have to make due with what I have and keep that in mind when it's finished.

I'm still trying to source some cheap seals but if that falls through I will just use the ones I have unless I change my mind between now and summer when I will assemble everything.
You can see in the pic that the very right side of the seal is raised a little which caused the groove in the housing. My question is, should I sand that down? It will probably lower compression #s a little; is it worth it if it slows down the groove wear?
I've never heard of anyone doing it before so sorry if it's a dumb question.

 

uuummmmm.
no response = bad idea
no response = too stupid of an idea nobody want's to tell me how far off the deep end I am.

 

No, it's only because a lot of threads are created everyday, every minute so yours just got pushed down. If you don't get a reply within a day or so, just put "bump" in the Quick Reply section to bring it back to the top.

 

Sorry, it's RX7 addict (with a space) he has a store on e-bay. I searched though and I couldn't see any seals for you.