Rotor Housing Resurfacing
Rotor Housing Resurfacing
I see a couple services being offered on ebay and other sites. Has anyone utilized this? Has any company figured out how to do this reliably? I remember seeing posts about a shop trying to develop a technique to re-chrome them, but as I recall it never came to fruition..
Thanks!
Thanks!
All I will say is beware the ebay one and do your research. Most take off far too much material or leave a rough/uneven surface which causes issues with longevity and sealing. After dealing with and having problems with all of them, I started offering the service myself. Price is $150 per housing. General turnaround time is 1-2 weeks.
Thanks. I have an engine I rebuilt and I'm getting it tuned soon.. so in the back of my mind im preparing for the moment where it blows up on the dyno, haha. I'm probably just paranoid. You still have any of those Mazda motors left?
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Originally Posted by OG BBF
$150 per housing!? What a steal, here in the uk they are charging $450 per housing!i live in the wrong country!
UK the wrong county for owning FD's? I disagree, don't forget you guys are RHD and have loads of cheap Jap imports and parts. Cheapest place I bought parts is from the UK by far.
Joined: Oct 2001
Posts: 6,279
Likes: 728
From: Florence, Alabama
"Personally I wouldn't trust Judge Ito to chrome a Trailer hitch. But that's just my experience."
my experience also.
as to "resurfacing".. or honing of rotor housings:
every build i do with housings that have been previously used either gets a hone or new housings.
some housings have so much 11 o'clock chatter that they are not able to be saved. there is only so much chrome to work.
most higher mile housings have a chromey look to them which is appealing to 60s bumpers but does not retain lubrication. new housings show a dull finish from the oil-retaining cross hatch.
properly honed housings lose the shine.
the quality of a hone service is supremely important.
while there are numerous shops offering the service, like anything in life, there is a qualitative spread of output. get it wrong and you have a crappy engine.
you want two things from a shop offering the service:
1. a rejection of the housing if it isn't serviceable
2. an excellent job if it is
do not discount the importance of #1. there is a commercial ($) motivation to doing the job as well as a disinclination to being the bearer of bad news.
in the long view you want the call w the bad news as it is the path to a proper engine.
there's lots of 21 century advances impacting our turbo rotaries, more efficient turbos, better apex seals, AI and rotor housing honing. each, however, require proper choices within the newer options.
do your homework as to honing.
Howard
my experience also.
as to "resurfacing".. or honing of rotor housings:
every build i do with housings that have been previously used either gets a hone or new housings.
some housings have so much 11 o'clock chatter that they are not able to be saved. there is only so much chrome to work.
most higher mile housings have a chromey look to them which is appealing to 60s bumpers but does not retain lubrication. new housings show a dull finish from the oil-retaining cross hatch.
properly honed housings lose the shine.
the quality of a hone service is supremely important.
while there are numerous shops offering the service, like anything in life, there is a qualitative spread of output. get it wrong and you have a crappy engine.
you want two things from a shop offering the service:
1. a rejection of the housing if it isn't serviceable
2. an excellent job if it is
do not discount the importance of #1. there is a commercial ($) motivation to doing the job as well as a disinclination to being the bearer of bad news.
in the long view you want the call w the bad news as it is the path to a proper engine.
there's lots of 21 century advances impacting our turbo rotaries, more efficient turbos, better apex seals, AI and rotor housing honing. each, however, require proper choices within the newer options.
do your homework as to honing.
Howard
There is no one to my knowledge who has successfully rechromed the housings. I do a very mild hone which will take out minor chatter and imperfections. Any chrome flaking will not be addressed by the surface. The most I'll take off is 20 thousandths. Others do more and it causes issues. I've seen many resurfaced housings that were trash before and are still trash after. Do your research.
As to re-chroming/re-coating the housings I had a horrible experience using JHB Performance to apply cermet coating to used housings, but they are no longer around it seems. The housings ate my seals in the course of a few thousand miles. Luckily I pulled down the engine before major damage occurred. Wrote off the money I had spent on a bad product and ended up using brand new housings.
If you look at the manufacturing process they cast the aluminum around the chromed steel insert. I'm sure there is a reason for this and my suspicion is that there are issues plating chrome to the steel insert after it is mated to the aluminum.
20 thousandths... of an inch??? I didn't think the chrome was much thicker than 5 thou a side from the looks of it.
If you look at the manufacturing process they cast the aluminum around the chromed steel insert. I'm sure there is a reason for this and my suspicion is that there are issues plating chrome to the steel insert after it is mated to the aluminum.
20 thousandths... of an inch??? I didn't think the chrome was much thicker than 5 thou a side from the looks of it.
Full Member
Joined: Jun 2013
Posts: 243
Likes: 2
From: LONDON
GarageREG in the UK charges about £125 per housing...not sure of their work quality though...
UK the wrong county for owning FD's? I disagree, don't forget you guys are RHD and have loads of cheap Jap imports and parts. Cheapest place I bought parts is from the UK by far.
UK the wrong county for owning FD's? I disagree, don't forget you guys are RHD and have loads of cheap Jap imports and parts. Cheapest place I bought parts is from the UK by far.
a engine Mazda compression tester is around £1k and if you can find a 13b engine that's running it'll cost you around £2-3K....and yes plenty of import parts available ....but when you have to pay 20% vat on the item, customs and duty charges, courier handling fees....it works out more expensive than you think
.but thanks I'll check garageREG out
not wrong country for owning one. Wrong country for pricing. The cost of a 20b conversion out in the states is 50% cheaper than it is here!
a engine Mazda compression tester is around £1k and if you can find a 13b engine that's running it'll cost you around £2-3K....and yes plenty of import parts available ....but when you have to pay 20% vat on the item, customs and duty charges, courier handling fees....it works out more expensive than you think.
but thanks I'll check garageREG out
a engine Mazda compression tester is around £1k and if you can find a 13b engine that's running it'll cost you around £2-3K....and yes plenty of import parts available ....but when you have to pay 20% vat on the item, customs and duty charges, courier handling fees....it works out more expensive than you think
.but thanks I'll check garageREG out
Yeah I know you UK guys have steep import costs to pay for non EU products...and I understand the higher costs for certain services. But I have never seen running FD sell for so cheap as they do in the UK...you guys sometimes make me jelaous
Sorry for off topic guys.
Senior Member
Joined: May 2015
Posts: 336
Likes: 14
From: UK
All cars in the UK are way cheaper than in the US. They depreciate a lot faster for a few reasons:
1. The weather - Rust kills most cars and after a few years it starts to show on most of them that aren't protected from the start. After 10 years many cars are considered scrap or uneconomical to keep going simply because of rust issues.
2. Smog and road worthiness testing (called a MOT) - Much more comprehensive than most US tests for cars and done each year including the annual emissions test. Sometimes you need a new bushing, shock absorber, or you need to replace your arches or sills because they are too rusty, etc. and whilst it seems trivial the cost of the part and labour could be say £500 but your car is only worth £400 so you try to sell it or scrap it due to it being considered uneconomical to run. And lots of people in the UK don't turn their own wrench as is more common in the US. A lot never even open the hood of their car and wouldn't know how to check the oil. FD owners are obviously an exception.
https://www.gov.uk/government/upload...klist-vt29.pdf
3. Afraid of most things over 100,000 miles. Granted, 100,000 miles in the UK is probably equivalent to 150,000-200,000 miles in the US due to the shorter distances traveled, crappier roads, etc. Obviously, that is a generalisation and probably more compared to the West Coast etc. where there is a lot of open space compared to the East Coast of the US.
4. Insurance and road tax costs. Insurance is expensive here, like very expensive. Road tax is an annual charge you pay to the government to drive your car and cars are typically taxed on emissions (not the FD though as it is too old) so you can be driving a VW Golf GTI from 2010 which has the same motor as one from 2014, but the theoretical emissions are quite different so the 2010 car might cost twice as much to drive as the newer one in road tax. I think DMV costs which would be sort of the equivalent are stupid cheap like $30 per year whereas road tax here can be up to £515 per year depending on how dirty your car is. In addition to reliability scares, this is a huge reason why you can pick up the majority of RX-8s for less than £1,000 even though many are perfectly good cars still.
Car tax bands 2016/17 - Vehicle road tax rates UK 2017
5. Finally, gas is expensive as hell. About the equivalent of $5.60 per US gallon at the moment for basic unleaded. This is why 3.5L V6 or 5.0L V8 economy cars aren't standard issue over here and most people drive an annoying 1.5-2.0L turbo petrol or diesel something or other.
On the plus side, we can import whatever we want from Japan and don't have that retarded protectionist 25 year rule, plus we have a lot of race tracks in the UK which are only a few hours at most from home compared to the US where you probably have to drive pretty far depending on your location just to go to a track in the same State. And, we are also only a short ferry ride to continental Europe where there is much more to see and more tracks to enjoy with our cars.
Rant over
1. The weather - Rust kills most cars and after a few years it starts to show on most of them that aren't protected from the start. After 10 years many cars are considered scrap or uneconomical to keep going simply because of rust issues.
2. Smog and road worthiness testing (called a MOT) - Much more comprehensive than most US tests for cars and done each year including the annual emissions test. Sometimes you need a new bushing, shock absorber, or you need to replace your arches or sills because they are too rusty, etc. and whilst it seems trivial the cost of the part and labour could be say £500 but your car is only worth £400 so you try to sell it or scrap it due to it being considered uneconomical to run. And lots of people in the UK don't turn their own wrench as is more common in the US. A lot never even open the hood of their car and wouldn't know how to check the oil. FD owners are obviously an exception.
https://www.gov.uk/government/upload...klist-vt29.pdf
3. Afraid of most things over 100,000 miles. Granted, 100,000 miles in the UK is probably equivalent to 150,000-200,000 miles in the US due to the shorter distances traveled, crappier roads, etc. Obviously, that is a generalisation and probably more compared to the West Coast etc. where there is a lot of open space compared to the East Coast of the US.
4. Insurance and road tax costs. Insurance is expensive here, like very expensive. Road tax is an annual charge you pay to the government to drive your car and cars are typically taxed on emissions (not the FD though as it is too old) so you can be driving a VW Golf GTI from 2010 which has the same motor as one from 2014, but the theoretical emissions are quite different so the 2010 car might cost twice as much to drive as the newer one in road tax. I think DMV costs which would be sort of the equivalent are stupid cheap like $30 per year whereas road tax here can be up to £515 per year depending on how dirty your car is. In addition to reliability scares, this is a huge reason why you can pick up the majority of RX-8s for less than £1,000 even though many are perfectly good cars still.
Car tax bands 2016/17 - Vehicle road tax rates UK 2017
5. Finally, gas is expensive as hell. About the equivalent of $5.60 per US gallon at the moment for basic unleaded. This is why 3.5L V6 or 5.0L V8 economy cars aren't standard issue over here and most people drive an annoying 1.5-2.0L turbo petrol or diesel something or other.
On the plus side, we can import whatever we want from Japan and don't have that retarded protectionist 25 year rule, plus we have a lot of race tracks in the UK which are only a few hours at most from home compared to the US where you probably have to drive pretty far depending on your location just to go to a track in the same State. And, we are also only a short ferry ride to continental Europe where there is much more to see and more tracks to enjoy with our cars.
Rant over
Last edited by cib24; Jan 4, 2017 at 11:44 AM.
as to re-chroming/re-coating the housings i had a horrible experience using jhb performance to apply cermet coating to used housings, but they are no longer around it seems. The housings ate my seals in the course of a few thousand miles. Luckily i pulled down the engine before major damage occurred. Wrote off the money i had spent on a bad product and ended up using brand new housings.
If you look at the manufacturing process they cast the aluminum around the chromed steel insert. I'm sure there is a reason for this and my suspicion is that there are issues plating chrome to the steel insert after it is mated to the aluminum.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wzszhvib44
20 thousandths... Of an inch??? I didn't think the chrome was much thicker than 5 thou a side from the looks of it.
If you look at the manufacturing process they cast the aluminum around the chromed steel insert. I'm sure there is a reason for this and my suspicion is that there are issues plating chrome to the steel insert after it is mated to the aluminum.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wzszhvib44
20 thousandths... Of an inch??? I didn't think the chrome was much thicker than 5 thou a side from the looks of it.
Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 31,833
Likes: 3,232
From: https://www2.mazda.com/en/100th/
4. Insurance and road tax costs. Insurance is expensive here, like very expensive. Road tax is an annual charge you pay to the government to drive your car and cars are typically taxed on emissions (not the FD though as it is too old) so you can be driving a VW Golf GTI from 2010 which has the same motor as one from 2014, but the theoretical emissions are quite different so the 2010 car might cost twice as much to drive as the newer one in road tax. I think DMV costs which would be sort of the equivalent are stupid cheap like $30 per year whereas road tax here can be up to £515 per year depending on how dirty your car is. In addition to reliability scares, this is a huge reason why you can pick up the majority of RX-8s for less than £1,000 even though many are perfectly good cars still.
for instance my Rx8 was $95 to register when i bought it in, the actual registration was $39, but they charge for the sticker, license plate, CHP, roads, CHP (its actually on there twice), etc etc. with single spacing the fees are about half a page. or if you like $56 was just fees and other nonsense*
the FC i just registered was $239. i didn't see the breakdown of fees, but since i just bought it, there might be some sales tax on there. other than that though the difference in registration cost is a mystery.
oh the other hand no MOT, only a really **** smog check that everything passes anyways. so when you see the roadkill guys driving rusted out junk, for example its legal here.