Well after rebuilding my motor the first time (about 3k miles ago) I noticed a few bad symptoms that caused me to break the motor apart and take a look. First thing I noticed is that there was alot of crap stuck to my oil pickup tube including lots and lots of metal flakes and rtv?? I thought for sure something internal was going to be toasted but there was no damage to rotors, rotor housings, side housings, apex seals etc... I was thinking maybe I didn't clean the pan good enough but thats crap I know I did before I put the motor together. Where else should I look for metal flaking?


The next thing I found was the reason for all my blow by. Some how either from being to ritch or a problem with my ignition system or from it getting to hot, but right around one of the side/corner seals I had alot of carbon build up (rebuilt engine only 3k miles ago). I had so much build up that it got one of the sideseals stuck in the depressed posission. So I'm guessing if it has to do with being rich then it could have possibly been caused by breaking my motor in on a microtech that had a very very very rich mixture. I had the car tuned by steve kan that got the microtech running right however my blow by started before this (almost right after the rebuild) witch now has me thinking that maybe it happend durring the build. When I first rebuilt the motor I got a 97psi (front rotor) compression reading and 90psi (rear rotor) compression reading witch the stuck side seal would explain the low rear rotor compression number.

Anyways if anybody has any light to shed on some of the things I've mentioned it would be greatly appreciated. I'm not giving up on building my own engines just yet

 

did you take apart the front cover yet? you REALLY need to if you found metal in your oil, the oil pump is probably super dead.

 

I recently had to tear my motor apart because I had metal shavings in the oil, come to find out when the motor was ported the shop did'nt clean out the metal shavings. The shavings had collected in the coolant passages and made a muddy substance. The motor only had 2k on it, but there was no other damage, it is all cleaned and ready to put back together next weekend. A rich Haltech break-in had my rotors looking pretty dark as well, got those cleaned also since she is all tuned now. At least now I know everything is good to go and I can rip this thing

 

Check your oil pump. Mine lasted 3k and some change too, pulled the motor saw that the oil pump had grooves in it. Front stat gear bearing was pitted and grooved also.

 

Metal shavings are a bad, bad sign. They're either going to be left over from porting or the result of some engine component eating itself. If you find them, you're going to need to replace the oil pump regardless and take a good hard look at all the bearings.

 

I had this problem with my second motor and in my case after the first motor took a dump i still had metal shavings circulating through the oil cooler lines.

 

the oil cooler can collect metal shavings so a previous engine failure due to the lubrication system failure will clog the cooler with metal and it is difficult to impossible to clean it out.

 

Yup . Thats why when the third motor went in all that stuffed was replaced.

 

I guess there isn't a real good way to flush the oil cooler out, I'm sure alot of oil changes would'nt do it. This a problem I need to address before I put the motor back in. It almost seems like getting another oil cooler would be a good way to go, and I already used the one off my parts car.

 

Thats why you always have you're oil cooler cleaned when replacing an engine.

How do the bearings look hondahater?

 

how is the oil cooler cleaned?

 

You can take it to a machine shop or hydraulic shop or probably a radiator shop. I'm sure they have all kinds of **** to clean them. I have absolutely no idea if this works but maybe you could let it soak in gas and then flush with water and then let dry???

 

yeah this makes me want to clean mine. THis is great info since i plan on rebuilding mine in the next year or so.=)

Could you clean it out by dipping it in brake cleaner? or some sort of acid?

 

put a fat *** magnet on the oil filter rx7. com sells it

 

Would A Broken Apex Seal Damage The Oil Cooler?

 

Mine actually had something similar happen on my engine. The front rotor was so carboned that itall of the seals on that rotor were locked in place. I still don't know why it happened, as it still had stock everything and had run fine for a year like before this happened. I'm gonna have to go over my ignition system now, cause I hadn't even thought of that being a problem. That could be why the motor from my parts car I dropped in is running like ****.

 

Wow thanks guys for the input. I'll take a look at my bearings but really they where brand new bearings and now basically look like they are broken or at least breaking in. I'll take a picture so you guys can see. I'll get myself either a new or in good condition used oil pump, thanks for that advice. As far as the oil cooler, I can't tell you guys how much I appreciate that piece of advice because one of the symptoms of my car was pretty damn hot oil temps and I bet anything it was because my oil cooler was clogged with metal shavings. I have since then got a new-to-me oil cooler and tossed the old one until I can find how to correctly flush the old one. What will the bearings look like if they are messed up? Basically my bearings look like thier are some shiney spots and some spots where it looks like a new bearing but it's all very smooth. I know I cleaned this motor entirely before putting it together so I really don't think it was from porting the motor. I've got to find where those metal flakes came from....

 

Generally aviation shops will clean the cooler. If you are creative you can do it yourself. Remove the thermostat and install a bolt to plug the bypass hole. Now take your parts cleaner and change it's fluid. Connect the output of the pump to one end of the cooler and let the other end drain back into the tank. Letting it run overnight will get it nice and shiny inside. If you are insane, you can warm up the parts washing a solution a little but this is a major fire hazard.

 

how about taking the oil cooler ncompletely off@! and diping in brake cleaner and flushing a few times. Thats wouldnt help?

 

i wouldnt think so.....

 

I'm sure it would help but you will get much better results with a proper flush.

 

If it's your bearings the metal shavings would be copper...are they?

 

thanks for the replies. Aaron I just got a new oil cooler so I'm probably not even going to worry about the old one unless It's still running hot and I feel like going to dual oil coolers. Thanks for the advice on that though as I'm sure I will need to do that one day. As far as my bearings are conserned parts of them are shiney and other parts are dull looking like how they first come pre packaged. I'll take pics tonight and post them up.

 

You should still clean the oil cooler you just got as a precautionary measure. Hell it couldn't hurt. Maybe run some gas thru it or kerosene. Just a thought.

Chris

 

well the new oil cooler has 20k original miles on it so I'm not to worried about it being gunked up or anything. I'm really just worried about where those metal flakes could have come from.