dragula53

read somewhere that 2mm seals are good for 1200 hp without detonation.
tune your car good and don't run lean and you will be okay.

ZeroBanger

believe it or not, with 162K My turbines had very little shaft play and no internal oil leaks. The only problem was an external leak which is easy to fix (one of the hoses), the standard cracks where there on the housing. The primary turbo housing has no cracks at all, on the other side there were 2 cracks, the one crack was medium in size and you can begin to see some light, but I would have had another 40K miles out of the turbos.

oh well

RonKMiller

Now if you could only incorporate that very cool SHPROINNNNG sound effect that goes with the shot of Lee Majors (aka Mr. Farrah Fawcett) running at hyper speed........

I would be impressed.

2mm seals and matchport everything, if you enlarge them you will always lose low end torque but gain hp toward the upper end of the power band. Clean up the intake runners as well. Time consuming, but smooth surfaces allow your little rotary pump to operate more efficiently, and there is no loss of durability.

Just don't ask me to do it.

ForceFed

Zero, i am pleased to hear that you are rebuilding the 7 to practically "new" specs, or even better! Make sure to have the car(PFC) retuned after the streetport as you'll be moving considerably more air through your engine, and thus need more fuel Of course this will result in even more powah!!!

btw David, check my new sig

Darril

ZeroBanger

HI Darril, didn't see you on line last night. I got some updates we can talk about later. thanks for the call yesterday, I really appreciate it.

BTW...your sig, "soslo" is the kid I raced at the track last september in his 2002 T/A. This was the infamous day in sac where I almost overheated. He is a really nice guy and very down to earth. I talk to him now and then.

ForceFed

Glad i could help. I hope Rick does a good job on your motor. I know you will love it when you get the car back.
As for last night, i had an emergency dentist apptmnt and afterwards had a splitting headache, so i turned in early for the night. I'll be on tonight though so we can go over your updates.
He seems nice. I explicitly asked him if i could use that as a sig and he gave me permission. Atleast he is not under the "12 second stock LS1 Fbody" brainwashing.
Darril

ZeroBanger

BTW everyone, I will be taking pics of my engine hopefully today and upload them. very interesting when I saw the engine, my front rotor has the apex seal damage, a very small piece came off and went through the turbo. Rick showed me the intake port and around the ports there is a gasket that is used. The strange thing is that the seal was torn and completely missing the piece around my intake port. It was no where to be found and had been like that for some time. I'm not sure if it was a co-incidence that it was on the same side that has the apex seal damage or not. The other thing Rick showed me was the type of gasket that was used. It was the older cardboard type material. He mentioned that my reman must have been older than I thought. The new gaskets are made of a more flexible teflon type material I guess.

SPOautos

I dont think the remans come with those gaskets. How ever was doing the swap must have just been using some VERY old stock.

Also, I dont see how those turbos could be the originals....you sure they havent been rebuilt years ago. Have you always owned the car? Maybe the previous owners (if there are any) just didnt ever hit boost with them or something. Thats pretty crazy

STEPHEN

ZeroBanger

The turbos are original, no doubt. In a nutshell, I am the 3rd owner. The previous owner had the car for 5 months and put 5K miles on the car. he did not replace the turbos. I found all the maintenance receipts in the car and found the original owner. I called him, he told me that the engine was replaced at 110K in 1999 with a reman. He said the turbos were original never rebuilt. He told me he never drove over 4K rpm. Also, the carfax on my car showed during one year alone 50K miles. It showed him getting service in NC and then in CA through out its life. Then for two years in the late 90's the car just sat with less than 100 miles. This may have been the period that it needed the new engine, I guess.

anyway, I replaced the original clutch at 140K miles, it was only slipping cause I modded the car (this guy kept it stock). As sick as this sounds, I had rick change the fuel filter last year when I bought the car (about 138K) and he said he thinks it was the oem filter, it was in very nasty condition.

Anyone who sees my car or drives it is shocked that it has so many miles on it. Its pretty amazing. Now that I changed all the bushings, got new rotors and new performance brake pads it really drives nice.

paw140

I'm surprised you didn't have any idle problems. I had a blown LIM gasket and my idle wouldn't drop below ~2K. When I tore it apart, there were several chunks completely missing and a bunch of oil dirt and crap around the missing pieces, where the engine was sucking in dirt. The new gaskets are metal, not teflon.

ZeroBanger

My engine was really dirty too. I just stopped by and took some pics, all kind of white stuff growing inside the ports. Kinda nasty looking. My oil pressure spring (I dunno, called something like that) was only 70MM and was supposed to be 73, so it caused the oil pressure to be messed up). The list keeps mounting!!


The only time I had idle problems was when I drove to Reno (high elevation). My idle was all messed up as was my vaccuum. When I got back to sea level all is normal.

edscholl

c'mon, pulling a motor isn't that hard. i just pulled mine over the course of a week, about 30minutes to 1 hour of work per day, so 3-4 hours max. it was my first time, and i really had no idea what i was doing, and it was still pretty easy.

it comes down to disconnecting hoses, wiring connectors, and removing bolts. it ain't exactly rocket science.

rynberg

Good for you. Neither David or myself have the tools or desire to do it and we can both afford to have it done.

Besides, first he would have to pull the engine, get it to Rick's somehow, have Rick rebuild it, THEN, somehow get the engine back to his house, just to hopefully put everything back together right?

Sorry, but not everybody buys this car to be a mechanic, some of us just want to drive the damn thing. I would wager if everybody on the forum had a good local mechanic and the financial means, there would be a lot less do-it-yourselfing.....

ZeroBanger

Tyler, you and I see eye to eye.

To everone else:

Back in July of 2002 I took off my stock airbox. The "Mystery hose" had grabbed the hose that connects to the AST Nipple. I did not realize but it cracked the nipple. I drove the car and my car NEARLY overheated. All the coolant fell out of the engine. I then had some worm clams that I was gonna put over the AST nipple, one fell in the engine bay. I could not find it. Got my AST fixed. Was in a great mood. My car was running hot since then, then one real hot day my car reached 114C. I found that the worm clamp got caught in the radiator fan and burned out the motor (this is the FIRST time that motor died, my SMIC and KOYO killed it the 2nd time).

I took my Manifold off last fall to fix the leaking coolant hose (that was behind the manifold). The cost of the hose was 12.97. Rick wanted $179.00 + 12.97 for the part to remove the manifold and replace the hose. I took the manifold off and broke 2 seleniods and the green valves under the manifold cause the hoses were hard as a rock.

Took it to my mechanic and it costed me 600 parts and labor to fix my ratts nest after I messed it up.

Any more questions why I'm not gonna do my own engine?

redrotaryrock8

impressive guys.... give me another 5 years and i will toast your records.

edscholl

that's nice if you don't want to do it, but then it's pretty useless for you to speculate about the length of time reuired, isn't it? as far as good local mechanics, there are some excellent local rx-7 mechanics (soCal). regarding financial means, i pulled my engine for the ls1/t56 swaparoo, so i don't think finances were exactly the issue here... it's just that some of us aren't little girls and are capable of wielding a wrench.

ZeroBanger

HEY!!! Don't turn my thread into a flame war!!!

I am offended to be called a girl cause I dont know how to rebuild an engine. Would you like me to call you a grease monkey?

ZeroBanger

This thread has pics of the engine that was torn down and the broken apex seal.
https://www.rx7club.com/forum/showth...18#post1798318

spurvo

lol.. Local shop has three labor rates: $60/hr for them to fix it. $75/hr for you to watch them fix it. $100/hr if you "fixed" it first!!

Swapping the engine myself was a PITA. Only took two weeks though. And there are a few "issues"... As long as you got the greenbacks and you really trust the shop doing the work, I think it's probably worth it to let THEM try and figure out how to get it back in there with the motor mounts on!!!

rynberg

Both David's and my cars are daily drivers so we need them up and running as soon as possible. The best way to do that is have an expert fix them. Obviously your situation is completely different, as you KNOW your car will be down a while.

How are we little girls because we don't want to pull our own engines? In case you didn't notice, this is how societies work -- some people specialize in certain trades or skills and other people trade services or money for their work. Are you a little girl because you can't design a concert hall or recording studio (what I do for a living)? No.

Grow up buddy. Owning an FD doesn't mean you have to like or be good at working on cars.

David, sorry for trashing your thread, I'll shut up now.

RonKMiller

REAL men work on their own cars.

Even if they **** them up sideways and blame it on bad engineering from Japan.

ZeroBanger

Its not you that were trashing the thread!! No worries!

edscholl

then you're too easily offended! =)
but to answer your question, no, i wouldn't be offended if you called me a grease monkey. why would i be? =)

edscholl

since i have a second car, as well as a motorcycle, and you can't afford to have your car down, that definately shoots down your theory about who has better financial means, eh? =)

you're not a little girl because you don't want to. you're a little girl because you can't. =)

unfortunately, owning an fd practically DOES mean you have to be good at working on cars, unless you like to be w/out it for long periods of time as you ship it off far away to get it worked on.

but seriously, i didn't mean anything by the little girl comments. lighten up. i was just reponding to your snippy litle comments in response to my post on how long it takes to pull an engine. sorry david. =)

edscholl

versus everyone else who ***** 'em up just cruising down the highway at 70mph and congratulates mazda on their fine engineering job?