I am a FB and FC owner. One happy go fast bridgeport 12a fully capible and a usual N/A SE with the usual mods(headers&intake filter, no cats, etc). I am aware of what it would entail workwise to replace and how to rebuild engines. Tomorrow I'm street porting and assembling a fellow rotorheads 12a engine.

Since I never built a engine for anyone ELSE before I was in a delema on how to charge. But since this guy was friend, financially strapped from buying new rotor housings since his were flaked over 90%, under 18, and is of the same Rx7's club I'm in, I decided to charge $300 + beer(from his dad ofcourse) and gas money for my drive(100miles away). I told them that is EXTREMELY INSANELY good deal because the street porting alone is about that price from Mazdatrix about.

Now I have another long time mechanic friend that tells me hes JUST replacing the front cover and oil pan on a fellow club' members FD for $1200!!!! WTF? I'm I cutting myself short on the labor for my work? I have seen under the hood of a FD, I know access is not that great. But is this FD owner getting shafted or is that price justified by how hard it is to get at that stuff? Seems extremely high as the labor is coming from a person that is working to help a fellow club member(we're all in the same club) that isn't too knowledgable about the car yet. As a result, I'm having mixed feeling about the ethics of this "friend".

Again, do you think his price 1200bucks is justified?

 

its something like a 12 hour job to do the front cover in an fd. you have to take out the air box, ic, waterpump, the ac/ps bracket, air pump. then you can raise the engine off its mounts take them off, then take the pan off and the front cover. its easier to change the motor

mike

 

Damn those mazda engineers! They got worse and worse..except on performance. Now My FB...I'll stop there, everything is easy to work on with my mods. Engineers make things harder and harder to fix with these later chassis's. It seems like if a engineer wanted, could make things accessible as much as a FB, but that would be too easy....LOL

 

I think the oil pan alone is 4 or 5 hours of labor, so the front cover already has that calculated in the labor time. But seriously it doesnt take 12 hours, but its nice to be paid that much. One thing I have learned about engineers is that they are not mechanics and will never have to work on the cars themselves. Plus 12 hours of labor is a lot better for the dealer than 4 hours.

 

my favorite car is a 1st gen with headers, you can reach the drain plug from the top, so you almost never have to get under it

mike

 

A TII with a front mount intercooler, electric fan, and no emissions equipment, ac or ps is also really easy to work on. I had one just like that but i had a stock mount intercooler.

 

It isn't an easy job at all. Does the 1200 bux include any parts or just the labor? If it is just labor I'd say it is on the steep side. Let's say it is a 12hr job = $100/hr. That is more than the shops around here charge and figure if he's done the job before he can get it done faster than 12hrs.

Jeff