am I the o nly FD waiting on a motor from pineapple?
 

i just talked to rob, it will be two more weeks...i don't understand the hold up....all of my parts are in, joel told me he could build a motor in 45mins....

so why 2 weeks?? who else is waiting on a motor?

i waited on mine to be cleaned, rebuilt, and ported for about 1.5 months a while back so that's no surprise they're just busy i guess

the only thing left to do on my motor is porting/reassembly, i shipped it out on may 22nd

I have 2 motors Im waiting on. Its worth the wait, they do a great job.

Jason

It took 4 weeks for them to get my motor back to me. I think that is just standard for those guys.

How much boost can my mildly upgraded fuel system handle?
 

I spoke to my mechanic who is doing the R&R on my motor. He said that my turbos are still good. However they are showing signs of wear(50K miles), a little shaft play. He thinks they will die soon.

So if I am going to need to replace the turbos soon anyway, I'd like to have some fun with them. I am wondering how much boost can I safley get out of them. Properly tuned, of course. 17-18 psi??? Turbo life not a consideration.

I'd like to join the club of 400+ rwhp on stock twins.

I (will)have 1300cc secondaries 550cc primaries $ a Supra Fuel Pump along with all the other bolt on stuff:IC,Intake,HF Cat, Cat-Back, DP, Power FC, streetport.

Thanks!

John

uhh, that post is sorta out of place

It will be worth the wait, trust me.

Re: How much boost can my mildly upgraded fuel system handle?
 

SORRY! I'M A DORK. I was trying to start a new thread.... My bad.:D

first of all, porting is a quick job, second of all, I wouldn't want a motor that someone put together in 45 minutes. Rob did my motor last year, and did a great job, however, due to his increasing popularity, I have heard that he has gotten swamped, hired on a couple of guys that he can't always monitor and their quality of work has fallen quite severly. My buddy Jack's motor has been sent back to Rob for the second time now to be rebuilt.

Rob at Pineapple builds a lot of race motors. So when he is busy building those, engine building for the regular folks have to be on hold.

Just be patient.

Actually, Pineapple sent me 3 junk motors before I went to Rotary Performance for a motor that is doing great with about 4500 miles now. Once I get my pictures the whole expereience will be shared, myself and others have held back long enough now without things being made right - lets just say I have a $4800 set of rotary book ends from Pineapple.

Jack

I've witnessd all 3 of Trout's JUNK motors PLUS another of our members who who got one that smoked like a chimney but eventually got a good one out of them (so far). That makes 4 Junk motors in a row for Pineapple before they finally got one good one out.

and when were these motors received?

damn...that sucks....if i paid for a motor and got a POS id be ripping pissed off. I wonder if they have their lackeys doing them since their main man seems to be so busy as you all said.


j

That sucks! This the first bad press that I've read about Pineapple. I just hope my motor works out. I sure as hell don't want to spend the cash for the R&R.

Did anyone just do exhaust only porting? How much was the cryo' treatment? I'm sure he has help with the rebuilds with everyone sending their engines there at the same time and is evident on the porting in James's thread. I know i'd like to have mine done before 7Stock but it won't even be ready to ship before this weekend. Anyone wanna buy my rims to pay for my engine? :tear:

You guys need to quite buying into the hype...There are many very competent engine builders. I have been building motors for over 20 years and have never had one come back...(bridgeported, Nos, supercharged, turbo blocks etc...) I bet there are many that can make the same claim, you just don't hear about them.

1) You do NOT want an engine that has been put together in 45 minutes, period. Sure it's easy to do but not in my car. I want someone who takes a fair amount of time and is very methodical. The larger the volume the less attention your engine will likely recieve. (mass production). I have watched this over and over.

2) Porting is not some magical secret. I have port templates from almost every hipo shop you can think of all the way back to the Rotary Engineering days. Some are conservative, some wild. You match the ports to the type of set up and hp the individual wants, the engine WILL make the power.

3) Extended warranties are BS. If the engine was build correctly it will stay together. Notice the discalimer. They have to INSPECT the engine and will determine if it was a fault of theirs, guess what they will find ...? you overboosted, ran out of oil, overheated the engine etc. (Which is probably the case). It's an easy way to make money.

4) Cryogenic horse sh*#. This my friends takes the cake. I won't even get into this one, land for sale in Florida?


Lastly, I sit in dismay as I read about some unknowing ignorant soul sending his engine to X shop 1000 miles away because he read something from some guys thread here on the forum.
Do a little homework when your engine goes...

I did my homework and still got burned. I knew of Rob having a stellar reputation for many years before this forum started hyping him.

I have no doubt that Rob Golden, himself, can build a good engine but in these cases he "supposedly" did not actually assemble the motors. These motors were received between May 2002 and February 2003. Rob told me he didn't oversee building of my engines and later admited to having an employee that is no longer there who was throwing stuff together.

I believe this is a case of very bad business. Sometimes the best mechanics can make the worst business owners. Myslef and two others I know of have held off bringing this public in hopes that the situation would be resolved.

If I had any clue my car would be down for almost almost 20 months, I would have researched and built the motor myself. Hell, I could have screwed up 3 times and come out ahead. Some of life's hard lessons are more than expensive than others, especially when it comes to modifying cars.

I've held out long enough, my whole expereience will be published before the end of this week. Gonna take a while to type this one and post pictures.

Jack

I sure hope so. I just wish I was told up-front how long it would really take. I was origianally told 2-3 weeks, and then each week it was "1 more week". It ended up being 10 weeks, and I'll be beyond rage if I get a POS motor that others have complained about.

this is the exact reason my mechanic judge ito only does rebuilds himself this way he knows it is done 100% correctly......... i LOVE MY ENGINE that he built worth every penny :)

i have seen lots of horror stories from many shops.... that is another thing judge ito is one of the most honest mechanics i have ever dealt with! i guess that is why he built my car and i put all the mods on at his shop :D

it still sux to hear about pineapple but you are only as good as your worst product..... :(

Im pretty sure chronos is getting a engine done by them but it is late in delivery. He is on vacation in maui but will be in oahu next week. I only know of 1 other forum member that got an engine from pineapple done and it was crap (although i think they replaced it for free which was pretty good of them if they did replace it for free). They are still the number one builders that I know of and would probally send my engine to them if I was sticking with a rotary.

that blows
I hope you guys get your motors back soon and they are solid

I've also heard some things months back about pineapple. I was thinking about having them do a motor for me but this news and the distance takes them off the list now. I'm going to go with my local mechanic and rebiuld the motor together with him hopefully.

BTW I'm VERY happy with the Pettit mild streetport 3mm seals engine I have. Ask anyone else with the same motor and they'll agree.

Welps...my engine got rebuilt in March of 03...didn't get it back till April. Rob did a pretty good job of it as far as I can tell..and I've posted pics already of the job.

I haven't gottent to spend much time with the car, thanks to the rebuilding process, and the fact that I shipped out to the UK a month later, but I'm very satisfied with the work done on it.

http://www.imagestation.com/picture/...b/fc8eea3c.jpg
http://www.imagestation.com/picture/...0/fc8eea33.jpg


Rob did mention to me about how EXTREMELY busy he is, and how he's losing business because of how long it's taking thanks to the trouble with that former employee. I'd say..if you want it done without worries, learn how to do it yourself, step by step....so that you have no question on how it's done.

If you can't do that..well..you've just gotta do some research and figure out who's who..and what you're willing to spend and wait for.

Sorry, bro...

well i just called rob and explained to him that i *must* get the motor by the promised date (8th) and not the newly issued 15th....he said it would be no problem, and he said "i'll have it to you before the 8th"

wheeeeeeeeee

1500 mile update!

no compression on rear rotor, was running 6psi with the proper streetport ignition map

:mad:

Wow, does that mean you have to ship it back again?

yes indeed, and i plan to fly out to accompany the motor during the teardown

pics of the removal/strip down will be posted tomorrow, i'm not cracking the block open, i will let them do that, but pics will be posted of that as well, expect a full followup :)

i was babying the @#^ out of the motor, watching my knock/boost/mixtures, running the right ignition map

i'm so @#$^)(!#^

now I am second guessing my decision to send my motor to pineapple. I was planning on sending it in couple of weeks, but these are some serious problems that people are having, and I am a college student who can't afford to waste all of my time and money on my engine if it doesn't work. What other reputable shops are out there that people are using?

ah shit, i pick up my car on monday, pineapple streetport. not a good thing to hear about right now. i know lots of ppl have gotten extremely good motors from pineapple, and a few rx7 shops that send him their motors. i'm not sure how some ppl can get bulletproof motors and others pieces of crap motors from the same guy. good thing he offers a warranty....

Pineapple has done many rebuilds for my shop and we have not had one problem with their motors. I have one in my car with no problems.

Is it possible that some of the shops doing the install have no clue what their doing?

93BlackFD, what are the circumstances behind your motor going? How much boost were you running? Do you use a Power FC?

Jason

i use a powerFC, i was running RP ignition maps for a street ported motor, boost controller off (about 8psi)

i did the install, everything myself....i am not questioning my work one bit, the few problems i had (bad banjo seals on turbo coolant lines, bad tranny seals front/rear input/output shaft leaking, and a leaky injector that i fixed) were among the few glitches to the install

i was driving down the road, off boost, 4th gear engine braking and loss of power, i pull over, inspect, no crank, put in 4th gear and push the car to make sure the motor isn't seized, it isn't...won't crank, find a main fuse blown

tow it home, fix the fuse, inspect everything, test the started, check all connections, crank.....brap brap brap brap, sounded like crap, pulling 3 on the vaccum and dying if i let off throttle

compresion check front half, 90,90,90, compression check rear half, 25,25,25

pineapple is being extremely cooperative and naturally their first instinct is to protect the integrity of their rebuild and try to figure out what i might have done wrong...i sent them my timing maps, i'm cooperating with them, we'll see how this turns out...i'm cleaning the garage right now and motor will be pulled soon...let's hope the turbines are O K

oh yes, and jason i've sent you my timing maps recently to check over, i'm sure you'll see that they're O K

Something isn't right if it blew that fuse. Fuses just don't blow for no reason.

sure they do, when you try to start the car and the flywheel won't turn, it will blow a fuse...happened the last time my motor blew (exhaust sleeve collapsed and got sucked back into the motor)

Yea, I'd be concerned about the fuse. Also is it possible that the injector problem did some damage...like maybe slightly crack a seal that just took some time to get worse?

STEPHEN

injector problem caused overly rich idle, backfiring, popping, etc

so far i see nothing out of the ordinary, oil injectors are fine, fuel rail no leaks

turbos will be pulled soon, engine/tranny is out of car, new record, 2hrs15mins :)

He probably noticed the leaking injector when he started it up for the first time and didn't even drive it like that since they run like shit with that problem.

Also, injecting no oil into the engine for 1500 miles does not cause that....

If you really did everything right and this happened that's very shitty. I don't see how you can completely blow multiple seals while not in boost and by simply downshifting at an appropriate speed into 4th.

I'd think that even a reman or the most poorly built motor wouldn't break this fast if you didn't break it in properly or something. It sounds like they forgot something in the engine??

Let us know what happens when you guys tear down the motor. Rob is really on the spot there if your motor doesn't have everything in it that you payed for.

Good luck I hope you guys can work this out well and quick!

yeah, so here's the scoop, tore the motor down, ran it over by hand, visually inspected all apex seals, they look good, identical wear on the front/rear rotor housings, no broken apex seals, turbines are in tact and unharmed, oil injectors blow one way

worst i've seen is that there was more fuel in the rear chamber than the front, but that makes sense since we ran the motor for about 25seconds on the front half only

here's what worries me----

when i was breaking in the motor, i kept getting people telling me that i was puffing clouds of smoke and that i owed them a car wash, etc, etc

but i started watching my rear view mirror and i noticed it was white and it only happened in certain RPM ranges (let's say 3k rpms to 2400rpms) when i was off throttle engine braking....i haven't noticed it lately (that was around 500miles on the motor)

so now i'm reading up on what this could be, it could be that they ported into the oil seal track? i don't know, it's all speculation at this point until we open it up and really double check everything, i'm just thankful that the seals seem in tact, the last thing i want is a destroyed rotor housing/rotor/turbos

so things are pretty good so far, considering......

hopefully something on the irons failed and that's caused this problem....is that possible??

could the eccentric shaft be messed up? i'm starting to get desperate for answers....

so i tried a suggested theory, rotated the motor and touched the apex seals with my fingers, the front ones provide a lot of resistance and rebound when you take the pressure off with your finger

the rears however, you push them in and they don't bounce back out, it's like the seal springs are dead

anyone with a lot of engine building experience care to chime in?

I heard of this problem with the new 2 piece apex seal that Mazda was going with instead of the old 2 piece seal in the rotary tech section of the forum.

This switch to the new apex seal started in May or June 2003 (same time as the release of the Rx8 which uses this new seal).

I think it was Judge Ito who said that on the dyno, a car was putting down 500 hp until it slowly lost compression due to the apex seal not sealing.

It only happens to cars over a certain boost pressure and power level.

May be this is the cause of your problem?

Oh yeah, I debated about going to Pineapple but went instead with Malloy as they are 15 minutes from me. Plus I'm not runnng over 14 psi anyway so any problem, I can get a replacement within 2 -3 days.

i'm running 3mm seals, i *assume* they're one piece....

i'm just glad that the rotor/rotor housing/seals appear to be in tact :bowdown:

damn im thinking of buying a blown motor rx7 and i was going to buy a motor to replace it and after seeing all these horror stories im kinda getting scared and thinking that i should research and do it myself. but i dunno im only 17 and it could be a little too much for me

BTW, my Malloy started fine, no leaks,

Vaccum at 850 rpm is 17-18 in. Hg of with only 100 miles on the clock.

Getting alot of back firing at idle but may be it's b/c I bypassed the coolant hose to the TB so the car is trying to run in cold mode.

What are the symptoms of a leaky injector? My injectors were new with less than 30K on them when I installed in the Malloy motor. Never took them out of hte fuel rail or LIM either so the o-rings are not damaged during the R and R of the engine.

malloy reman?

i'm not wanting a reman, they make crap for power, i wanted a full race motor, with all the oil/coolant mods and a crazy port job

before all of this, my motor pulled 10mmHg of vaccum which is exactly what it should being a large street port :D

well pineappleracing.com's FAQ says:

"Also, we use a special 2-piece 3mm seal that, when it does fail, tends not to cause subsequent damage to rotors and housings. "

Your motor did not pull 10mmHg and still be in optimal condition. That is way to low. I would say it should be around 350mmHg for a large street port. A lot of guys are putting down some serious power are running Mazda remans. Off the top of my head, I can think of ErnieT. I would guess he's putting down way more power that you even with your full race motor. A lot of people don't understand that they don't need to spend in upwards of 4 to 6 thousand dollars on an engine for "race" when you can do the same with spending only 2 thousand and get a good warranty without having to ship your engine off. Its all a matter of tuning and how big your turbo is.

okay, well according to my engine builder that was good vaccum for the motor- so i trust him

i didn't want a reman, this is my choice ;-) i believe you and i'm sure plenty of people are happy with their remans, my car had a reman when i bought it...it blew after 10k, after disassembly, i was NOT satisfied with the quality of the parts they considered "reuseable"

but okay-

Will pineapple honor their warranty after someone who doesn't work for them opens the engine up and inspects it? (Thought you said you were waiting for Rob to do that.) I wouldn't trust you from Adam if I were Rob for teardown inspection. ( Maybe you were at Rob's and I missed that part.) As a mechanic I can tell you that when a engine blows the teardown process is one of the most important parts of finding out what went wrong. You can not expect him to give you a good diagnoses if you did not let him tear the engine down. After all, you let him build it, let him take it apart and fix it. I know that if anything happens to my Atkins rebuild that if i open the block at all!....Warranty is VOID!! ......On a side note just having a map for the streetport doesn't mean it's running correctly. NO 2 engines are ever alike!! Just my 2 cents. I trust Rob will do the right thing for you. I have talked and dealt with him in the past and all went well! Good luck and let us know the final results.