I recently bought 2 ported rotor housings off ebay that were suppose to be in *mint* condition with under 40k miles on them. Get them today looked at them real quick and they look good. However, when I took a better glance and felt the surface a little bit I noticed that there are hairline scratches starting from the top of the trailing plug holes to the top of the leadings. For the record the seller is cooperating with the situation and will resolve the issue. I planned on starting my rebuild next week but I think that might come to a halt

Now for the pics:





This is the same housing btw, the worse of the 2

Also noticed the exhaust port wasnt beveled on the closing edge

 

At a glance, they don't look bad. With mileage there is a tendency for the apex seals to wear a significant band between the spark plug holes with varying degrees of scoring depending on mileage. There appears to be some evidence of that already. In the same area, there will be some tapering at the sides along the edges. This will be evident because the chrome will have been worn off. On rotor housings with that condition, there is a significant amount of visual discontinuities and polishing. The photos you show look relatively uniform. Another area of concern is along the bottom portion between the spark plugs and the exhaust ports. This portion is where significant chipping occurs along the edges or more polishing and scoring/scratches. Also, and especially common on 3rd gens, is cracking around the spark plug holes. Clean that area well and take a careful look as that would eventually result in coolant ingestion or combustion gases getting into the cooling system. Try to characterize the amount of wear between the spark plugs. If it's not a depression and it's just a series of thin scratches you may be OK. If a wear band is starting to develop, they would still be usable but compression may suffer a bit.

 

Can you take more pics Charlie?

 

What angle would you like my friend??

 

And perhaps not use a flash...just get some good ambient light.

 

used rotors I'm ok with, but housings are so critical to compression and max power that I'm not sure why you would skimp on not using new ones, especially considering the overall cost of a rebuild these days

just my 0.02

 

ha, I thought I recognized that username. NC hmmmm.......

 

Those are certainly useable and would make a pretty strong engine, based on what I see. Mild streaking by the trailing plughole is pretty normal for a used housing, especially an FD.

It looks like there are none yet, but will soon be cracks by the leading plugholes on the chrome. YOu can see where the metal there has protruded right where it meets the plughole at 3 and 9 oclock, causing the apex seals to skip over a small section and allow carbon buildup. Best take a grinder and lightly touch up those high spots, as they are no doubt causing some compression loss as the seal skips. The act of grinding high spots or cracks down will cause a little blowby and comp. loss in that spot, but nothing as bad as leaving it alone.

Bottom line those look like about a 4-500 dollar set of housings and should produce 110-115psi compression in the rebuild depending on other factors. IF you are picky then sell them and get new ones. If you just want it to run well again and new housings won't help you sleep better at night, then run these.

I wonder why perfectionists try to find perfect used housings, of which there really are not many, instead of just going new? If you know you are that picky, then don't even bother with the used housing market. Used housings can be ran with great success and generate very good compression and last a long time, but none are ever visually perfect in every way, even if they only have 15k miles on them.

 

Thanks Kevin for the post, I think that I am going to end up using them...