How many of you guys have built your own engine
 

Im looking to buy a t2 that needs a rebuild. Now i know it wont be easy but how difficult will it really be? Ive rebuilt a piston motor before. i plan to get the atkins video. where would you recomend getting the rebuild kit from? i plan to upgrade the turbo in the future so id like to beef it up a little but i dont know that i want to mill the rotors for 3mm seals. any other good info or sites you guys can give me? I work at a shop so i have access to all the tools i need. also what do you guys use for a stand while dissasembling to motor? any info will be appreciated. I want to do it myself not send it off to somehwere else.

a regular stand just you gotta buy the adapter , you can find it on ebay , or Mazdatrix , or Pinnapple racing ............. theres not much to it , its just a bit Teedious (i think i spelled it right?) ummm but if your getting the video that will explain it .........technically i find piston engines more difficult well not difficult but theres alot more moving parts to pay attention to than a rotary , so if your good wit piston then you might feel the same .............But ya thats my opinion ,

i never rebuilt a rotary engine so i cant really help you out but everyone who asks your question people always say that the video does help you out and dont waste your money on 3mm seals there really isnt much of a difference with them i dont think there worth it

also should i use carbon or steel seals

man have prices gone up on rebuild kits. mazda trix wants almost 900 bucks for their kit. and thats the cheapest ive seen yet. for those prices i might as well buy a jspec. The reason i need to rebuild it is that it has low compression on both chambers. It only has around 96,000 on it. you guys dont think the atf trick would help at all do you?

I used the RotaryAviation rebuild kit. Worked fine, engine runs great.

When my engine went, it was pretty much a matter of "Rebuild engine or sell car" due to circumstances. I found someone else who had worked with RX-7s, but had never rebuilt an engine, and we pulled it, rebuilt it, and put it back in. They're really not complicated at all. If you can rebuild a piston engine, you should be able to rebuild a rotary (and be amazed at how simple they are... I just tore into my first piston engine last night to replace a $0.50 o-ring... wow, there are a lot of parts involved).

If you have an engine stand, you'll have a blast. I personally had access to none of that jazz, and rebuilt my engine by standing it up on 2 4x4s and putting it together. Also, regardless of what any of the kit instructions say, superglue the corner assist pieces on. Your life will be significantly easier.

I'd say go for it. It sounds like you have access to all the tools you'll need, and quite a bit of experience working on engine internals to go with it. Should be a piece of cake.

-=Russ=-

You say you have low compression in both chambers, have you ever thought thta maybe you dont need a full rebuild. You might be able to get away with just changing your apex seals. Open it up before you spend $900 on a kit.

You can mount the engine front plate to a standard stand with a 8-10" piece of 4-5" channel iron with (4) 9/16" drilled holes.

if you already have low compression i wouldnt suggest the atf trick, if you go to www.aaroncake.net you will find where he talks about it and why u dont want to do it. Basically it comes dow to this............basically atf is harmful for you seals, its not made for engine seals, its made for all the friction discs in the AT. I would definatly go with a rebuild before your apex seals scrape up the inside of you housing and take chunks out of your rotors. :)

What would be the point of pulling the motor apart without replacing all the seals. if i just replaced the apex seals wouldnt i just have more problems down the road. also does anyone know where i can get a cheaper kit? what parts do i absolutely need? apex seals and springs? what else? if im gonna pull it apart i want it to last so i dont have to do it again for a while. are there gaskets between the rotor housings? I havent seen anything about this yet.

The rotray aviation basic kit looks pretty good. do you guys recomend that one? i noticed it dosnt include side seals rotor oil seals and oil pump chain. how bad will that be? i apreciate all the help you guys have given me so far.

It comes with those extras if you buy the Master rebuild it.

ya for a few hundred more dollars. im wondering if its absolutely neccesary to replace them?

I rebuilt my engine, it was fairly simple I think I'll do it again sometime.

Fuck rebuild kits, get these as basics and check everything else in there once the engine is open up, chances are most other things should be within spec:

Front Main Seal
Rear Main Seal
Apex Seal/Spring Set
Corner Seal Spring Set (get the FD springs, much better)
Corner Seal Plug Set
Side Seal Spring Set
Gasket Kit
Viton Oil Rings
Thermal Pellet Replacement
Hylomar/RTV


Everything else can be checked once the engine is opened up and you can decide, or find out, if you want/need to replace anything else. Those are mainly just minimal things you'll need to buy. And for what it's worth, I did my rebuild using just those components.

i'm starting to wonder how long would it take for a first timer to rebuild the engine with there only knowledge is the video

My first time took me 20 days, BUT 7 of the first days I did absolutely nothing because I couldn't get the flywheel nut off and had no access to airtools, then 2 days were wasted while I was at a funeral, and the rest of the 11 days were only working about 2-3 hrs max a night and this was with porting too. The one night (last night) I really worked a lot, like 7 or 8 hrs, I got everything finished, cleaned, and had the whole engine back together. Next day put it in and fired it up.

ya i guess i should port it too while i have it apart. It looks like my best bet is going to be the aviation kit and ill just check the specs on the rest of the pats im not replacing. does their video give all the clearances and specs?

Supposedly it comes with some kind of instructions sheet but honestly I wouldn't know. Like I said I didn't buy a kit. My corner seals and sideseals were well within spec and still great so I just reused them. Same goes for everything else in the engine excluding what I listed above.

On nopistons.com JudgeITO gives some good how-to's and suggestions about sideseal clearancing and all that, I'd check those out.

Most of your time would be spent cleaning and scrubbing every little groove on the engine parts. The other part of the time would be carefully measuring and spec'ing the parts for wear or deformation.

The actual "putting it together" takes up very little time.

Would sandblasting all the parts hurt them? i have access to that as well as a parts cleaner.

Don't sandblast internal parts.

What about bead blasting? It would make the whole thing easier, although you'd still be doing the detailing. Oh yeah, plus getting the beads out of the back of the rotor might suck ass.

You gotta keep us informed of your first time build bro. :D I've been wanting to do one for some time, but just haven't had the resources to get to it. I'm still hunting for a cheap $500 FC to play with, hehe. :D

No offense at all bro, but if you are asking that question then you need to do some more reading and searching before you even start this project.

-Joe

youre right on that one. dont want to make myself look stupid. i know the carbon ones are not for street use(i didnt rear the rest of the mazdatrix page) but give me a break like i said this will be my first rotary rebuild. ive been researching this for a while. like i said ive done piston motors im not a newbie to this kinda stuff. ill keep you guys updated on it as i do it. ill try to snap some pics if i can(but ill probably forget). keep coming with the info i really apreciate it.

not long , cuz you can hit rewind as many times as possible :) ........