proz07

iTrader: (6)

i agree i would like some updates aswell only because i like hte way you dont care what anyone else thinks you "should do" your doin what you want/need
awsome thread
z

Mahjik

iTrader: (1)

No updates yet guys. It's been too darn hot around here to work up any inspiration. Everything is pretty much ready for the motor to be pulled. I'll be picking up the hoist this evening from my buddy but it probably won't be until next week when the engine is disassembled. I'll be doing some traveling over the weekends for the next few weeks so my garage time has been limited.

sevensheaven

iTrader: (1)

I think some of us want to know what went wrong inside that engine worse than you do Mahjik!!

rash_rvg

iTrader: (1)

If Mahjik failed the 1st time, the rest of us are doomed

good luck.

Mahjik

iTrader: (1)

lol, that might be true. My buddy brought over the hoist last night so it shouldn't be too long. I'll be heading out of town this weekend so I'm planning on pulling the engine out next Wednesday.

I had planned to replace just about the one thing(s) that didn't get replaced when I put everything together: the oil injection nozzles. I guess now I'll have an easier way to get to them.

Naw. I wouldn't use myself as a measuring stick for anyone else to do a rebuild. The problem is that sometimes you don't know you are making a mistake until its already done. Its being able to learn from the mistake and apply that knowledge going forward. I just hope am I'm able to see what went wrong.

RTS3GEN

This was always my position as you know Kyle! I know you are terrific with the wrench, and I am confident in my ability to learn new things as well. But when it comes to engines in general, it really isn't that much more expensive to let a professional do the job with the right equipment and tools for measuring etc.....THis is where I prefer to pay for experience and expertise and you know how frugal I am when it comes to my cars!!!!!!! Hope you figure out what went wrong. I'd offer up some help but I'm up to my elbows in Lotus parts atm and soon to be up to my elbows in Viper parts next weekend.
Art

DaleClark

iTrader: (55)

Hey Kyle -

Sorry to hear of the problems! Hopefully you'll be able to tear it down, get some answers, and have most if not all of your parts re-useable.

My guess would be a bearing problem, either on the stationary or rotor gears. Did you re-use the bearings or have new bearings installed? It's very tricky to properly install new bearings, and doing so can cause more problems than it solves.

Guys, don't let this discourage you from building a motor. It's really not that hard at all to put a motor together - in fact, it's far more challenging IMHO to bolt all the crap back on to the short block.

That said, you're likely gonna mess some things up on your first motor. My first motor in my old TII had all sorts of front cover problems - I used the wrong O-ring for the front cover and had low oil pressure. Then, I crushed the needle bearing in the front bearing stack, causing a LOT of slop in E-shaft - push the clutch down, and the front pulley would move forward! All problems I fixed, though.

Not to mention the first few motors I built I knew NOTHING about clearancing side seals. I'd take the old side seals, stick them in wherever they would go, and there you have it. Motors ran just fine, made good power, etc.

I encourage people to build their own motor. It's even better if you can have someone experienced help you out to make sure you're not making simple mistakes. But, if you want to be a true rotary bad-***, you gotta be able to build your own. I've built at least 20 motors now, and have learned something on every one.

But, with anything else on the car, if you do it yourself you have to be prepared to goof something up and have to go back in and fix it. But, that's how you learn .

Good luck, Kyle, and keep us posted! I'm very interested to hear the post-mortem!

Dale

sevensheaven

iTrader: (1)

Well, Dale I think you hit it on the head. It's way more challenging to put all the external components back on, hook it all up, install it and get it to work, than building the engine it's self. I feel pretty lucky my first one is still holding togather. I feel theres no shame in a little failure either. It's the money thing for a lot of us that hurts the most, not the pride. Your a better man to be able to pick up the pieces and try again. The best thing that can happen here is that we all learn something from each other. Good luck Mahjik were all behind you!

Robbierx7

iTrader: (1)

Every engine builders nightmare right here. Rebuild an engine as good as you can, install back in the car and somethings wrong meaning it's all gotta come back out and tore down again..man every engine builder pro or home diy'er goes through this stage, and unfortunatley for you kyle it's reality!

I know exactly how you feel and even though it wasn't so bad for me, the initial thought when i fired my engine up was "oh no, i don't believe this"

I did the full rebuild due to perished water seals (irons were fine and reusable) Had the same problem as dale by crushing the torrington bearing behind the front cover. Luckily for me the engine was still on the stand, but i was still pissed becuase i installed the sump, water pump,omp etc. All this had to be ripped back off. Still i managed to get a new bearing and install without removing the sump.

After getting all the **** back on the engine, i got it back in the car, started right up and it didn't sound too good. A very loud rattling coming from the engine. My initial thought here was a bolt or nut or something has been dropped down the intake into the rotor chambers. At this point i was panicking, simply because the car wouldn't be ready for the ring trip. Any way it turned out to be the clutch slave cylinder popped out into the bell housing. It was rattling round, so the engine and gearbox had to be seperated to get the little sucker out. The story doesn't end there though.

I managed to get the car running sweet. Put 600 miles on it before the nurburgring trip. Went there for the weekend, came back and managed to get to london before the low oil pressure light came on. Pulled into the hard shoulder to find there is no oil in the sump at all. I got towed back home and it turned out to be the banjo copper crush washers leaking on the front cover. Thankfull it is all sorted now. First thought was that bloody sump is leaking but thankfully it's not.

Anyway i hope you enjoyed reading my lil story. Just thought it would make you feel a bit better knowing you not alone. Im looking forward to finding out what the problem was. Good luck bud!!

Mahjik

iTrader: (1)

I hear ya Art. My main issue is being able to track the car without worrying about the car being down again in the future. I wanted to be able to learn to build the engines as my goal was to build up a spare engine in the event I toss another seal. Then I would be able to be back on the track in short time, and then take my time rebuilding the blown one for it to be the spare.

I don't think I could afford to keep 2 Pettit motors in rotation, or at least I don't think my wife would allow me the $$$ to do that.

My mistake was getting too crazy with this rebuild. I concentrated on trying to do "cool" things rather than learning what the heck I was suppose to be doing. I would have been better off the first time out just doing a standard rebuild and calling it a day. I believe I could have kept my focus on the learning process itself and left the experimenting for a future rebuild.

Depending on what the damage is, I might go back to that idea. No more fancy rotors or anything like that. Just a few basic things for the rebuild and then call it done:

1. Engine studs (gotta have 'em!)
2. Streetport intake ports

and leave the rest alone. I have thought about just using remans so I could just basically have disposable motors but I'd like to at least run a streetport so we'll see how it goes.

Thanks Dale. I expected to break a few eggs the first time out but I would have hoped I had a problem before I had been driving the car around.

The rotor bearings were not new. I debated on replacing them since they spec'd out ok. I have a few theories about what the problem is/was which lead back to trying to do too much the first time out. I'm just hoping its something that I can pinpoint so I can at least learn from it.


Thanks Robbierx7 and sevensheaven. I'll hopefully know more soon!

Mahjik

iTrader: (1)

Just an update. I took some time to do some MUCH needed garage cleaning and reorganization over the past 2 weeks. I like my garage MUCH better now. As you can see from the picture above, the engine is not disassembled yet. I plan to be cracking it open either tonight or tomorrow. You'll also see another engine behind it.

Yep, I bought a used full block. I will be transferring my 'shiny' stuff to this used motor and I will install that for now. I'm a little tired of the car being a garage ornament and would like to hit the track a few times this year before winter. So, I'll use this motor while I rebuild mine with all the 'cool' stuff I really wanted to use.

I'm not giving up on the project. The goal was always to have two engines so I'm pretty much there. It will just be a little bit longer before I run an engine which *I* built myself.

BTW, if anyone needs any stock parts, toss me a PM as I'll probably be selling most of the stock parts off the extra engine.

CrispyRX7

iTrader: (139)

You mean like this? The one on the left is my primary build. The one on the right (on the stand) is my spare.
Crispy
- with an FD garage ornament for the last 18 months.

Mahjik

iTrader: (1)

Damn Crispy!

That's what I'm trying to achieve! Very nice work!

GoodfellaFD3S

iTrader: (213)

Chris, those shiny parts look pretty damn good

Mahjik

iTrader: (1)

Some good news and some bad news.

The good:

The engine is finally disassembled. It looks like it was a stuck seal. However, in this case I don't believe it would have "worked itself out". I had a rotor damaged during shipping when getting them coated. I had it milled to fix the damage, but apparently the tolerance was still too tight. I will admit that I was concentrating on getting the corner seal into the rotor more than making sure the apex seal tolerance wasn't too tight when getting it milled. The good thing is there is no damage on anything as nothing really "broke". So, aside from buying some new o-rings I should be able to put it back together after getting the rotor milled a little more to keep the apex seal from sticking.

I will say that its a pain in the **** to take out those racing engine studs. That probably took me over an hour just undoing those.

The bad:

All this stuff has unfortunately aggravated the herniated disc in my lower back. So I spent the rest of the evening last night on painkillers and muscle relaxers as I could barely stand upright.

yuichiror

iTrader: (1)

Damn! Glad the motor is is good shape, sorry about your back. Take it easy for a bit Kyle.

sevensheaven

iTrader: (1)

Very goods news! Take it easy for a little while now, you can sleep easy and all the goodies and work you did from before will all be happy when you get it slapped back together again!
Will this post have a happy ending? Stay tuned!

DaveW

Kyle, glad the engine problem was not a major screwup and damage.

On the back problem, have you ever tried an inversion table? Sam's club has them for around $125. It has worked wonders for me (I had pain like yours - I could only stand for a few minutes at a time a few years ago) and for several people (young and old) that I have recommended them to. It places the back in tension, allowing things (vertebrae, discs) to realign themselves without surgery or chiropractors. I use it without fail twice a day.

PM me if you want more info.

Dave

aznwired

What kind of radiator hose you used? Where can I get some too?

Mahjik

iTrader: (1)

The SS radiator lines came from Summit Racing. The fitment was horrible so I threw them in the trash and replaced them with red Samco hoses.

RX7 8U

iTrader: (1)

Hey Mahjik......from someone with a herniated L5/S1 disk I know your pain! When Sciatica kicks in you will be in agony for many months....as I am now. I can't do a thing other than type on a computer. Cortizone shot #2 coming up in a couple days. I hope it works this time. But, I just heard about the Robert McKenzie PT method to fix my disk. All I can do is try it and hope..........and I'm glad I got my rebuild done before my back blewout. Take care of that back!

Mahjik

iTrader: (1)

Alright, a fellow hunch back.

Good luck with the shots, I just did shot #7 last week. Yep, #7 so that means I'm on my 3rd round of the 3's. Feel great don't they? I've been dealing with this for about 2 years now. I'm in the gray area between whether my doctor does the shots or recommends surgery. I'll see how this 3rd round does. If it doesn't help, I'll request surgery.

Now, for an update on the car stuff. I have just about everything ready on the JDM motor. The target day for install is this Wednesday. For those thinking about getting a full block JDM motor, let me just mention a few things:

Don't expect to just be able to "drop it in". I don't know if they do this with all of them, but they basically sawed any connection off to pull the motor. So the wiring harness was sawed off. For me, I didn't care as I had purchased a new US harness for my project but this is more for those who may plan on getting around buying one when getting a JDM full block.

The engine was filthy. Now I didn't expect a used engine to be clean, but it was covered all over in oil and grime. My main concern was more as to where the oil was coming from... I resealed the oil pan as I'm using an oil pan baffle and a oil pan brace (not to mention the oil pan on the JDM motor looks like someone took a sledge hammer to it). I'm hoping it was just a pan leak. Granted, I could have resealed the front cover while everything was off the block, but for what I plan to use it for that was more effort than was needed.

There were many broken components on the motor, but for me its not an issue as I'm using my parts. This again would be for someone who is looking to just "drop one in". I did look through the exhaust ports and the rotors have a ton of carbon build up on them. I'm not all that happy about that but you get what you pay for. I'm not saying its a bad motor, heck I haven't even fired it up yet. Just more of an FYI for those thinking about getting one.

I'm trying to make one of the last track events this year which is in about 3 weeks. If the motor will run and allow me to make that event, I'll be happy. I plan to start rebuilding my motor after that event so it will be ready for the spring.

Mahjik

iTrader: (1)

A productive week so far. The components were put on the JDM engine, and it was dropped into the car last night (big thanks to my local buds for help). I still have to hook up all the usual connections/hoses and fill full of fluids but with luck, it will be driving this weekend.

I'll get started on the rebuild of my motor next month. Even though there are hardly any mileage on some of the parts, I'm going to replace a few things here and there since it's a part.

dubulup

cool head lamps

xoxosmileyface

Mahjik,

This has been a very interesting as well as informative thread. Thanks for spending
the time to document your rebuild. Good luck on your new motor as well as the
second rebuild. Hope to see you running around the streets of KC soon.

Btw when you said that you wanted to get to race one last time this year, were you
referring to the autoX event at the Woodlands next week? I am planning on heading
up there with a couple of my friends. I hope you get a chance to race.


John