^ this.

plus, Jon tells you all of this up front - at least, he and i discussed it before i even brought him my housings. he's pretty straightforward about it all. i'm sure some of you guys will probably be dealing with him through the mail and in those cases, and i don't know how it works as far as his evaluations of the housings is concerned. i am "somewhat" local to him and while he offered to look at photos, i chose to take them to him. however, he won't do this to housings that are totally FUBAR'd - meaning he will reject some. it's worth the phone call and actually speaking with him.

another thing to consider is even housings that have the familiar flaking and scoring near the bottom will be okay as long as the compression area is not in bad shape.

 

yes, some housings just can't be repaired. a few examples would be severe apex seal explosions embedding metal into the housing or gouges through the chrome completely. another would be severe chattering that has peeled layers of chrome off of the housing which was very common for 12a and early 13b rotor housings(pre '79 13b, which some of you didn't know existed).

i prefer not to waste my time or my customer's time so detailed pictures are almost a must as there is no gaurantee that any housing can be salvaged without seeing it first.

 

Like a shot peening? Possibly pushing the chrome and under layer into the defects to fill them in before machining?

 

chrome isn't really malleable so it will not fold.

 

I have used these housings in my e-85 engine for several months. Although a pure track car and not a street car it has been autocrossed, drifted, and trackdayed as I have had time. Almost every minute this car is running, its under boost and at high RPM. Its been overboosted, overheated (slightly, a cooling line blew), fed a steady diet of e-85, bounced off the rev limiter, and pretty much any way we could otherwise abuse it.
Compression currently is 125 on both rotors, at 5800 ft elevation.
Pertinent motor details are:
Goopy resurfaced ported S6 housings
Goopy 2mm apex seals
zero-clearance side seals
Goopy corner seals
Goopy O-ring kit
Ported S6 irons
Garret GT3582R

I will keep abusing this engine until fall, then tear it down and see what it looks like over the winter. So far, Iam beyond impressed with the results and even if the housings are junk, it was money well spent.

 

My biggest question is whether people take in housings that have just a few little grooves that would have been virtually harmless, but then reduce the life of the housing by getting them resurfaced.

There has to be a point where you're doing more harm than good.

 

the housings are much less flat on these engines than your eye can really tell you with a basic visual inspection. it may be more harm but reusing housings even at 50k miles you are already forcing the seals to break into an "M" shape which generally doesn't always result in the best compression figures.

interested in seeing the results of your teardown D Walker(if you still are around here).

so far in my experience the Goopy seals are well matched for resurfaced rotor housings and even good used housings without resurfacing. i have yet to see a set score up the housings. thinning out the chrome isn't as detrimental as you would be led to believe, but i wouldn't expect 200k miles from resurfaced housings either. but what do i know.. soon you won't be finding rotor housings on the shelf at mazdatrix or the dealer and then what? that is also why i started cutting the housings and experimenting with different seals several years ago.

so in my experience since the start of this thread i personally concluded= viable. but it still does depend on the initial condition of the housings, housings with excessive boot wear on the edges will still have it, just to a lesser extent. so this is a better service for those who may have spat a seal but have otherwise good condition housings. as time has gone on i have become more aggressive about how much material to take off and the results keep improving, but seal choices are limited for best results.