The time has come for a motor rebuild as my current engine is close to exhaling its last breath. Being built by Speed 1 in 2012, I knew it was running on borrowed time and I have been expecting this day for a few years now. I’ve been procrastinating on sending my spare engine out for rebuild because not only do I have a short list of shop options, I only know the reputation of one of them, and it isn’t currently glowing.

This will be a simple port, balance, stud, and dowel rebuild of a 78K mile stock engine that I have been holding on to for a few years. Power goal is 350-400 hp, right in the range I’m currently running.

My questions to the forum:

• Which shops have you had experience with in recent years for engine rebuilds? Good and bad feedback welcome.
  
• Who do you recommend? Other recommendations than the shops I've listed are welcome.
  

Below are the shops I sent inquiries out to some time ago, along with what I know. I narrowed it down to these shops as they are in my "general" area(northeastern US).

- IRP

Pros: I have personal experience with them in years past with a Kaaz 1.5 way install and tuning my current engine.

Cons: A close friend of mine has had an engine at this shop for 1.5 years awaiting rebuild with money down, limited communication, and when he does get in touch with anyone he gets the run around. Also, the recent thread of people with similar issues isn’t encouraging. No in house balancing.

- Defined Auto Works

Pros: Built his own 4 rotor. Quick to respond to multiple emails. I believe they also do in house balancing

Cons: Haven’t been able to find many reviews on this shop.

- Chips Motorsports

Pros: Certainly knows his way around machine work with in house machining.

Cons: Pricing was nearly double that of other shops. Some reviews of extended waits with little contact.

- Goopy Performance

Pros: Were very straightforward about what extras they thought I wouldn’t need for this build. Have their own apex seals.

Cons: Haven’t been able to find any reviews on this shop.

- Rotary Resurrection

Pros: Very detailed response to my inquiry which gives me hope for being a good communicator throughout the planning and build process. Active member on the forum.

Cons: Does not do in house balancing and does not recommend it because of shipping damage and loss. No reviews on them.

 

Howard Coleman @ Coleman Precision Rotaries - Rotary Engine Rebuild, Turbochargers

 

Have you thought about rebuilding yourself?

IMHO balancing is really only something I would look at for a full race motor. For a street car with your power level I think it's total overkill and there's SO MANY things that can be screwed up in the process.

The big thing is getting REALISTIC with what you want from the motor. A rebuild can absorb as much cash as you want to throw at it.

What is failing on your current motor?

Dale

 

350-400hp can be done happily on a stock motor. i get wanting to do all the extra stuff but but its definitely far overbuilding for the goal. unless you're looking to do regular competitive driving then overbuilding the motor for your power goal wouldn't make much sense. it simply give you the ability to say its X, Y and Z but then after you tell someone what power its making, it would pose the question..... "why". not saying there's no value in doing these extra services but there really isn't a need given the power goal.

350whp is attainable on stock twins if you try hard enough... which isn't that hard at all really. 400whp can be done pretty easily on an ok sized single as well. for a situation like yours, we would advise getting a new motor and just putting your stuff on it. it will hold and be as reliable as can be. the cost of a new motor vs what you're looking to have done will land in the same territory cost wise. it would DRAMATICALLY lower your down time and also eliminate the need to have a shop touch your car at all outside of the tune. we always make the assumption that people are handy enough to swap their own motors.

 

ive been going through all the "warped seal" threads and one of the common things is that the "bad" engines are usually big, complex builds.

simpler is better!

 

i built a spreadsheet and compared prices, a new Mazda engine is a really good deal. they basically throw in the housings for free

 

that assumes you purchase *everything* new; I priced out three REW irons, two REW front rotor housings, a pair of S4 8.5CR rotors, and a pair of RX8 stationary gears for edit: $3695 shipped & taxed. Some of it through Mazda Motorsports, some direct from Japan.

some prices still baffle me; the 45-50% higher cost of the rear REW rotor housing, along with the REW stationary gears costing 4x more than the RX8 6-port pair … hard pass …

for an OE replacement the new keg price isn’t bad, but for a higher performance application once other mods and aftermarket parts are factored in with tearing it down and all …. 🤔
​​​.

 

Very wise advice.
We install new Mazda crate motors for $7,500 plus any replacement peripheral parts required to make it run like new.
Have one BNIB Mazda motor on-hand
Turn around is 3-4 weeks

 

That is an awesome deal. I wish it were that cost here locally.

 

We have installed two Mazda crate motors so far and the owners are "happy campers".
Not being a commercial shop we don't rape , pillage and steal.
One car at a time is reason for 3-4 week turn-around

 

I’ll contact Howard and see what he can do for me. I see on his site that as of 2020 he will only build new motors.

I have thought about rebuilding it myself. While I have the skill, tools, and facilities available to me for this, I don’t have the knowledge of building a rotary that I feel would be necessary to succeed on my first try. Things like clearances, tolerances, and small nuances required.

The current motor in the car is taking on oil into the rear rotor and sending pressure into the oil system. It has had the pressure issue since it was built, was filling a small catch can on a short drive if I got into boost. Last time I drove it, it was having a hard time idling and excessively smoking both on and off throttle which started my looking into sending out my spare engine.

I would like to do some autocross with the car but never fully trusted the motor that’s in the car but it is primarily a street car. The current build made 390 on a GT30 and that is plenty for me and a car this size to keep it usable. Looking at suggestions here and what rotary resurrection said about balancing I am beginning to think the balancing is unnecessary. I’m also not fully convinced I need a port either but being out of the game for 10 years had me fall back to needing a port as my last build was ported. The thing I most like the idea of in in my next motor, whether it be new or the block I have on the side, is upgraded engine studs. I’m now wondering if these are necessary or not.

I have noticed these being quite popular lately but I was under the assumption that people bought them for the parts and then had them pulled apart and reassembled to their spec. If they are truly good to go and I don’t need porting or studs, I would consider a new motor. What is the base cost of a new motor? I would be doing the install as I have some other changes going on in the engine bay along with a change to Haltec from Adaptronic.



So with your feedback I think we’ve established that I don’t need balancing. That simplifies things. I would then ask about the below.

- Do I need porting?

- Do I need studs? If no, are they at least a good idea?

- Do I need dowels? I would think studs are more of a benefit than dowels.

Thanks for the replies everyone. Looking forward to more feedback on this thread.

 

I'm late to the replies here, but here's my take on the remaining questions and a few other thoughts:

1. I see you live in PA. If you're within reasonable road trip distance from New Castle, DE, you can order your new 13B-REW crate motor from Ray Crowe, and arrange to go pick up your new motor at the dealership where it will be delivered to when it arrives - NuCar in New Castle, DE. NuCar is a big GM/Mazda/etc dealership that Ray works through. So basically if you arrange with Ray to pick up there, you pay no shipping, and since DE is a no sales tax state, you don't pay tax either. Then you have the option of parting out your spare motor to defray the costs of the new one.

2. On the need for porting, given your power goals of <400RWHP, I would say it's not necessary. Do the Haltech EMS you're planning right, with the appropriate supporting mods (fuel/spark/cooling etc.) and you'll get to your sub 400RWHP goal without porting.

3. Regarding the studs and dowels, IMHO those two mods really should be done together to get the full benefit of it, which is to make the stack more structurally sound at higher power levels. You can do one without the other, in which case I'd probably do the studs before the dowels, though I don't know which of the two mods get you the most bang for the buck. For a <400RWHP motor, neither mod is really necessary.

 

obviously i don't know your setup, but mine was doing this as well, the culprit has turned out to be the PCV valve. it allows manifold pressure into the oil system
fix was to make it like a 95+ car, delete it.

 

I'm familiar with Ray and have ordered parts through him in the past. You bring up a good point with the shipping and sales tax. He's about 2.5 hours from me so a half day trip.

As far as engine setup goes, I have all the supporting mods done already. The change of engine management should open some possibilities for tuning due to the familiarity there is with Haltec nowadays. Plan on moving to Fly by wire throttle while making the change so i can eliminate the outdated IAC and throttle adjustments. Will aslo update things that are out of date since I built this back in 2013. I'll list my setup below.
- ID 750/2000 injectors
- DW 300 Fuel pump (pump rewired)
- IGN 1A coils (direct fire)
- Custom Vmount with Koyo rad (runs 180 any day at cruise, keeps it under 200 in traffic. will be downsizing intercooler to fit an airbox)
- IRP Turbo system with older Turblown TDX-57(GT30 frame)
I wish it was this simple. My current setup has emissions removed and the PCV is long gone.

 

If your car didn't suffer some sort of failure to be diagnosed, and everything is in good working order and its just low compression or whatever, I'd suggest ordering a crate motor and putting it in yourself. Selling the old keg for parts. I wouldn't build my own motor, but I have installed one, and if you have the time/patience, its actually great. You can do everything "just so", replace any old gaskets, hoses, etc while you're in there, redo anything janky, and you learn a lot.

And its fairly easy. Did I mention even I did it?...

And... you're in control. Which is like gold.

 

Out of curiosity…have you tried disconnecting that catch can setup and seeing if the smoking improves?

How did that setup work when first installed?

 

Pineapple Racing in Oregon rebuilt my FD motor back in 2010. It is running strong with about 25k miles on it. Check out their website for details and prices.

https://www.pineappleracing.com/index.aspx

 

I have no problem installing myself and very much enjoy doing so. Whatever route I take with the engine, this will be a full rebuild of the engine and peripherals to bring it up to 2023 spec and tech from 2013.

This catch can setup worked well for what it is. I haven't tried to drive the car with it unhooked but I highly doubt the smoking problem I'm having is related to the catch can. My rear spark plugs are wet with oil and rotor is audibly wet when rotating the motor over by hand.

I completely forgot about Pineapple Racing until Last night when talking to Howard Coleman. The conversation with him went well and I will be sending my motor out to him in the near future.

 

Forums tend to over emphasize the shops that are active on the forum. There are plenty of businesses who aren't on here.

Howard, Pineapple, Banzai Racing, Defined Autoworks, Rotary Resurrection, RX7.com, Rotary Performance, Lucky7 etc - there are probably a bunch of other local shops that rebuild rotaries that aren't mentioned on the forum or mentioned frequently that have provided engine rebuilds that people are happy with.

Then again, there are also some that are bad and aren't mentioned often enough.

Then you have new (to me) players like FD Auto who recently became a forum vendor and apparently Tom mentioned in this thread.

 

😎😎😎

Yes yes yes... we're only new until we're not 😅😅 looking forward to putting the time in and proving our competence and worth. It would probably help if we we're more active on social media or something. We do a lot more than we talk about or share. Tampa is familiar with what we put out but that doesn't do any good if we're looking expand into the nationwide market.

 

Why isn't banzai racing on this list? Prices look fair and been around a while. Curious

 

Those were shops that came to mind when when I was sending my initial inquiries out and writing the post. Banzai seems to keep a low profile which is why I missed them. Similarly Pineapple Racing was missed on my inquires. RX7 8U brought them up in this thread which then jogged my memory of their existence. It's looking like the low profile shops seem to have the best reputations these days.

 

Seems true of a lot of things. The old ways of staying humble and letting your work speak for you is far more valuable than the hype-beast culture of today with tiktoking/instagram stories showing off your mad tyte skillz while delivering nothing to paying customers.

 

Rotary Performance is high on my list. Chris and Dave built my engine ~12 years ago for 350-400 hp and it has been rock solid. I have been very happy with them and their work. I wouldn't hesitate to bring it back to them if/when the rebuild time comes again.

In fact, they are currently working on my decade refresh (though not a rebuild), and the process is much improved. Photos of the work are uploaded fairly often to a google drive documenting the progress and issues found. Great contact, etc. and able to put up with my incessant questions.

 

Current ETA for a new engine from Mazda is August 23rd