FD owners dont want to spend more than anyone else, but they want something that is going to last. Why use worn down housings that are not going to last as long as new ones, just to save some money? I would do it right the first time and save the headache.

Jason

 

I consistently notice the attitude that goes something like "if the average part costs X, and this part here costs X + $100, then I will buy this part, because it MUST be better, and my car deserves nothing but the best..."

I've rebuilt many an engine with less than 20k miles on it, some mazda remans, some $4000 pro-shop builds. I've got one in the shop right now with less than 10k on a professional rebuild that spun bearings...bottom line, none of the rebuilds are bulletproof, regardless of what parts you use or who does the build.

Even before recent events caused the cost of new rotorhousings to rise about 40% and availability to drop, it cost you about $1000 to spring for new rotorhousings (closer to $1300 now). IF you gave people the choice of having $3000 into a block with new rotorhousings and 125psi, or having $1500 into a block with used housings and 115psi, which do you think they'd choose? What if you told them that they can take the spare $1500 they saved and put back for mods, or for rims, or for paint, or as a safety margin for the next time they fubar their engine up with a tuning/mod mistake.

That's well and fine, and a great mentality, but it doesnt always work out that way. There are probably many members browsing this topic right now who have replaced more than 2 engines in 5 years. Odds are that those were either remans or professional rebuilds. I can usually build (and warranty) two engines for the cost of building one engine elsewhere. Would you honestly say that one new housing engine will outlast two used housing engines? Even if the new housing engine makes a few more pounds of compression and lasts a few thousand miles more than the used one, it isn't going to outlast 2 of them. Besides, you can make a tuning mistake or just raise hell and kill a high dollar engine just as quickly as a used housing engine.

 

Kevin, I agree with you on some things and I also agree with Jason on some things..

I do agree that New Housing is better than using your old one.. especially if your builder do not spec the housings, plates, rotors, etc and just put them back.. But I agree with Kevin in that if you do spec it out and everything looks good. I see no need to spend extra 500-1000 on a new housing.. The thing is that I'm not sure if every builder takes time to spec each part at least couple of times to make sure everything is in within spec?? Thats a lot of time spent and comes out less than 20 bucks an hour for labor.. Most builders just want to crank it out and just do a visual check.. Watching my builder definitely gave me more reassurance about my engine.. Sure, it could all be f*cked up by bad tuning.. But I sure don't want to pull my engine again after couple of months.. Sometime, my time is more important... Hence I want to do it right first time.. Don't get me wrong Kevin, I'm sure you do a great job!

 

I didn't get the impression that Jason was saying that new housing *must* be used.

My impression was that he was suggesting that posting rebuild adds for $1500 can be misleading *IF* the housing and/or rotors need to be replaced. Kind of like saying MSRP's for cars when you know it's going cost more to take the car home.

 

I think its fair that rotary resurection makes adds for rebuilds at $1500, because the impression I always got was that it was for a basic rebuild mind that the housings and or rotors, and perhaps even some of the seals were reusable. Obviously you couldn't find out that until you broke the motor down, and charge accordingly.

 

I've put this out in rebuild debates before, and I'll do it again here. Go buy or build an engine with new housings to stock specs and put it into a stock car. Note the cost of this new housing engine (as available to the public), probably in the $2200-3000 range. Now I'll build a used housing engine for a fair amount less, and I will also note the cost of the engine. I will then apply the difference in cost toward mods, such as a streetport, exhaust, fuelpump, etc.

Then we both dyno. Odds are, both engines come with roughly the same warranty, and I actually stand behind mine (some builders do not). So longevity really isn't that big an issue...it's not like FD's last 100k on an engine regardless of builder. Most people dont DD their FD anyway, so it's a moot point at this stage in the car's life.

 

You must not get to many FD's in there. The majority of the ones I get have blown a seal and trashed at least one housing. Of the 30 old housings I have sitting here only a couple could be used in a motor.

Jason

 

sorry to thread jack but:
Jason, I have been waiting on HKS replacement filters for about a month now and havent heard anything back...please give an update.
Neal Weese

 

I sent you an email on Monday. Send me a PM.

Jason

 

Actually I am glad he hijacked this thread, that reminds me, Jason I need to send back my Defi guage, it isn't calibrated right. My question is how do I take off the Autometer guage pod without destroying the little pins I stuck it on there with?

 

About one every 2-3 months, versus about 5 FC's a month. As we all know, just about all the FD work out there is high end, for reasons discussed above. People just think that I am too good to be true I guess, and move on in their selection. I can honestly say I've yet to have anyone complain about my work in an FD. I have had a couple guys post recommendations here and elsewhere after they got their cars back.

That's not just FD's, that's almost any rotary. I have a shelf with about 100 core rotors, housings, and irons, all useable. Some of the rotorhousings have almost no wear, some have a little, some have more. I tear apart the customers core, appraise the damage and give them replacement options and costs, and let them evaluate their own needs. I do charge extra for rotors and housings and other hard parts that require replacement...the base prices listed on the webpage are for a fully rebuildable engine...say one that has worn oil seals, or is getting weak on compression but has not broken any seals, etc.

 

Well if you would rebuild my FD engine and Streetport it and give me a 1 and a half year warranty on all defects to do with the engine, I would give the $2,500 your site says it would cost to do it. That sounds good to me. $800 for labor, $1,500 for the engine rebuild, and $200 for the street porting with a 1 1/2 warranty? I'm all for that. The warranty does apply to all engine problems correct? I only run 10 pounds of boost.

 

Just pull on the pins and they will come out. You can reuse them. Which gauge did you get?

Jason

 

I ordered a boost guage and a temperature guage, the white faced ones. The temperature guage is fine but the boost guage sits on 4 when the car is off. RotorSports Racing told me the guage was just calibrated wrong.

 

This thread just turned interesting and then someone hijacks and now its off topic.. COME ON!! this is why there is a function called PM!

Anyhow,.. Kevin, I think it does seem too good to be true.. Like Jason said, Most 3rd gen engines I've seen that needed a rebuild are usually have apex seal blown out.. and usually takes out the housing and turbos.. And some extreme cases, end plates and intermediate plates.. Most engine that blew out with coolant seal can be lapped and put together without too much issue.. Some, just need a new coolant seal.. pretty damn cheap rebuilt in those cases.. But the thing is that, I'm beginning to see how important it is to make sure all the housing and plates need to be within spec.. Specially with engines that overheated. Those might have wrapped housings, plates, eshaft, etc..

My question to you is, do you spec all the parts before it goes in?? I should clearify that, do you measure all the parts with fine measuring tools before re-assemble?? If so, your price is very good.. My builder showed me how he specs and made me spec one of my intermediate plate and it took me at least 1/2 hour. Luckily, it was already lapped and perfectly flat..

 

Oh.. one more thing.. how do you guys feel about using T2 rotor housing in 13b-rew engine?

Someone pointed out to me before about the difference in two... I forgot what that was..

 

I would like to know this too.

 

Simple fact of economics: You want a good engine- expect to pay a fair price. If however you want a used engine, or a rebuilt engine with used parts- you'll pay less. Frankly all engine builders pay near the same price for parts, because Mazda is the only source for the high ticket items. For instance we worked very closely with Bruce in developing the Rotary Av seals- yes we actually built the engines to test the first batch of seals. The seals have been redesigned 3 times now. We also have an exclusive on seals made for us. As far as using used parts- I got a FC outside our shop thats stuffed full of "acceptable" rotor housings that meet Mazda's specs- we won't use them in our engines. It only takes one bad engine to get a bad rap & our reputation is too important to take shortcuts. We get a lot of engines in our shop and it amazes me when I tear down some of them. I just rebuilt an engine for a customer's T-II that had recently had an economy rebuild.To begin with the engine had NA rotor housings- the exhaust sleeves had the "bridge " cut out and a an ugly slag weld to try and fill the EGR ports-- The ports looked like a hamster was trapped inside and chewed its way out. I've played this game long enough to know whether used parts are acceptable for a particular application, and in 90% of the cases there is no reason to re-use rotor housings unless its a refreshening of a race engine with like 35 hrs of race use- 80,000 mile housings in a turbo engine are not going to make tight compression, I don't care what seals you use.
If you weigh the costs of "warranty" repairs, having to redo stuff etc. eventually all reputable engine builders come to the same conclussion- Its essential for a business' survival to charge a fair price and do the job right the first time, and that usually means using only top quality parts and checking and carefully prepping every part prior to assembly.
Thats our philosophy anyway
Bryan Smith
RotorSports Racing Inc.

 

I'm sure he does. Depending on the history of the motor, all the hard parts should be thoroughly inspected and measured, esp in cases of overheating.

 

Back to the subject at hand.....I would say, if you are a rotary fanatic like most of us.....just go for the self rebuild.....as long as you're going to be patient. If you're in a rush to get on the road, you will probably fail. Take your time, replace any parts that you feel might be done(best time, while the engine is out), and learn about the rotary engine. Good Luck

 

I believe you should read the warranty terms on that same page. IT explains it all pretty well. I dont know what more you could ask for, when compared to the vague or nonexistant warranty terms of other builders.

****, I just got a call on an rx-8 yesterday. Yet another mazda dealer is refusing to warranty an 04 model because of "customer abuse". I'd venture to say that I honor my warranties as good or better than mazda themselves. Even if you do something stupid that I deemed abuse, I'd still help you out with 75% of the costs or something, not just tell you to go get fucked.

As for turbos, obviously all externals and controls are the responsibility of the customer to source and replace if need be. As for the internals, I believe some of you are still not understanding, or fail to read. Above, I agreed that most all blown rotaries suffer internal damage to a rotor and rotorhousing at very least. These are thrown away, and OTHER GOOD USED CORE parts from my shelf are used as replacements. You do have to pay extra for these parts that I supply, but not new part cost. So you still save a ton.

You can usually smell an engine that overheated when you take the first tension bolt out. I normally won't use any parts except rotors and rotorhousings, and I am hesitant about those. Same goes for an engine with an oiling failure...I usually either find another core to use or piece one together off the shelf instead, unless everything looks excellent from the first core. The majority of the engines, however, just have blown apex seals that require a rotor and rotorhousing...standard stuff.

I go by the FSM for all building techniques. In fact, that's how I first learned to build engines...me and a copy of the FSM, and a seal kit. So yes, all parts are checked for warpage and wear. After a while, you can just look at a part as you disassemble a core and decide, within 90%, whether or not it is something you want to use. Of course it still gets checked after cleaning more precisely, but you get the idea. I suppose it takes experience.

87-91 13bt housings have a coolant passage drilled out at the top of the rotorhousing adjacent to the LIM. You'd have to plug this in some way, as the FD does not use them. Also, there were several changes made to the coating on the sealing surface of the rotorhousing. ONe such change was made between 85 and 86, another between 88 and 89, and another between 91 and 93. Each time the housing coating got stronger and lasts longer, and wears less. In fact, the 93 housing is so much better internally that mazda could remove 2 of the 4 oil injectors from the system, as it didn't require as much lubrication.

Bottom line, older housings chrome flake a bit more over time. For the short term, say 50k miles, it wouldnt have an impact at all, I wouldnt think.

eh...what? You just contradicted yourself. We all know there are tens of manufacturers of aftermarket seals for rotary engines worldwide OTHER than mazda. Some cost considerably less than OEM seals and some arguably perform as well or better. We're not here to debate seal qualities between manufacturers, but it is easy to find aftermarket seals that are more cost effective for a streetcar than OEM.

The only difference (with year range being equivalent) in NA and t2 housings is the coolant passage for the stock turbo (if you're running aftermarket turbo this may not be necessary) and the exhaust diffuser. You can cut the diffuser out, or swap the sleeve altogether. This is a common practice, and I don't see a problem with it.

 

Thanks Kevin.. Thats very informative information..

 

while you got the engine out, throw in a manual and get rid of that auto =)

 

I want the engine . I would like one to just have and take apart at my demand. Maybe an extra rotor to make a nice clock out of.

Ex: Taking a rotor housing with the rotor and putting a small digital or analog clock in teh middle of the rotor. Then making a device that can generate enough power to turn the rotor while the clock stays where it is. Need a Rotor to do it. Hoping I won't have to use mine..lol

 

I want to!