Ok, so my motor finally went tonight. Sucks @$$ but there's no where to go but up from here. But anyways, to get to the point.

This is my first blown engine in my '89 TII so i need tips for the whole process of rebuilding. Should i try it myself? Just get it done at one of the many repuitable shops here in DFW area? Should I just go ahead and street port it now even though i have no other mods on it? What should i make sure gets done? (what needs to be replaced, what should be replaced?) and any other basics and experience would be greatly appreciated!

 

If you're gonna have the motor apart anyway... street port it.

There are a lot of things that you have to check.. step wear is a major one, my advice would be to buy the rebuild video and see if you think you're up to it!!

If you just blew the water seals... might not be a big deal.. but you have to inspect the rotor housings really close if the apex seals blew.... if there are any dings or scratches on the housings... new housings!!!!

Check out rotaryaviation.com. I'm getting the "master kit" for this rebuild on my TII, they have a newly designed apex seal, and use 3rd gen corner seal springs in all their kits.. i think its 850 for the "master" kit".. and 535 for the basic kit..

Make sure the thermal pellet mod gets done if anything!

 

Out of curiosity - how many kilometres did you have before your Motor pooped?

 

I'm rebuilding my 87 TII right now.
I have the engine shortblock back together, and the front cover on with the oilpump and Eshaft bolt.

from my experience getting the engine out of the car and apart is the hardest, 80% of the work would be prepping the engine to send to someone like rotaryresurrection, so I decided to spend the 550 bucks to get the RWS basic kit, the corner and side seals are fine on my engine, though the oil pump chain was out of spec.
mine was an easy one, simple coolant seal blew, so the apex seals were in tact and all the housings were OK.
Still, I have to wonder, will the engine run when put back in the car? and for how long. Did I forget anything? did a side seal fall out and I didn't see it? is a seal in backwards? You never know. But I have cranked the engine over by hand and get 6 nice pops out of the exhaust ports.

 

Can you point me in the direction of the "Thermal Pellet Mod"?

car had 111,xxx miles (sorry, i'm from Texas, they never taught us the metric system. well i never paid attention anyways...)

 

The thermal Pellet plug comes with the Rotaryaviation.com kits (AKA RWS: real world solutions)

the thermal pellet is designed to stop oil flow through the eccentric shaft at engine startup to prevent oil from leaking around the rotor seals during start-up... problem is... if it sticks and doesn't open up after the engine warms up... BOOM!!!

 

would that lead to the engine smoking on start up with the thermal pellet mod?

 

hmm...don't the CONS out-weigh the PROS just a lil bit??

 

Well your part right, the original thermo pellet was designed to stop the flow of oil to the rotors, but it was to aid in the accelerated warm up of the engine. The oil that was there just stayed there until the engine warmed up. But as yo stated, if the pellet goes bad hte rotors get no oil cirrculation at all.

 

Anybody actually HAD the pellet crap out on 'em? I haven't heard any "personal" stories of that happening.

 

I have not heard of it happening to anyone, better to be same then sorry though.

 

i've heard a lot about the rebuild vid...where's the best place to get it?

 

rotary aviation has it- 'bout $30

 

rotaryaviation.com

 

rotaryaviation.com

 

Got mine from Atkins

 

would it be easier/safer to just buy a JDM engine and install that instead??

 

yeah itd be easier..but you never know what the inside of the jspec engine looks like...you should tear down your motor and see how it looks. if all the main parts are good, rebuilding isnt that hard, and you know that you have a really killer motor when you get done. the main plus to doing a rebuild yourself is just that..you know exactly what youve got. the best thing for a first time rebuild is to get a complete kit like from atkins that includes everything so you dont have to worry about spec'ing used parts. dont be scared tho..its completely doable to anyone with a little sense.

Pat

 

thanks y'all...$20.50 USD for shipping...ouch

 

the only thing i would be worried about is taking out and installing the engine...how hard is that with a stock setup??

 

dp

 

well..abviously you need a hoist of some sort...other than that..its not too bad...label everything...be fairly careful...and you sould be fine...might wanna replace your vac hoses while youve got it apart..but thats a little comlicated...

pat

 

well actually the guy i bought it from replaced all those right before he put it on sell. I bought it back in july, should i go ahead and replace them??

 

no they should be fine...just pull that sucker out...its not particularly hard...if you need i can give you a step by step

pat

 

bruce's video is pretty good. It helped me a lot on the lower and upper intake, but he did an NA so it was a bit different.
removing the engine is definitely the hardest part, especially that damn wiring harness.