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The ports I won't change at all size wise, but will polish them up a bit, the engine already makes great power and torque as is so I don't see any need for improvement in the porting area, the weight reduction of the rotating assembly and compression ratio increase should be enough to yield the results I'm looking for, but we'll see how that goes when I actually get to that point
Custom Renesis/RX-5 Atkins rotary rebuild kit along with the Elite Rotary 10MM stud kit showed up, now just waiting for the Rotors to come back from CLR Motorsports where they're being balanced and my Renesis Killer Bee �� build can get going
So some unexpected complications with the Killer Bee came up and the car is down for now, so to get the car back on the road I picked up a recently rebuilt 12A that I bought off of a friend and while the Killer Bee is out i'll have more time to diagnos whatever went wrong and take the correct course of action for it from there. Hopefully it's something simple and stupid, but i'll know more this weekend. It could be a number of things, but as of now the motor is locked (will turn, just really ******* hard to turn by hand) so it's down for the time being which is why I bought the 12A. I'm just hoping my irons and housings are fine because i'm still good if they are or if it did drop an apex seal and killed a housing I still have one spare RX-5 housing as well. But until I pull the motor apart I wont really know for sure. Will be posting a video about this soon as well that might explain things better and will post here when it's up as well.
Awesome news! Pulled the header off and was able to verify that all 6 apex seals are intact, my Dumbass forgot that the car was still in gear which is why I thought the engine was seized, it actually turns by hand relatively easy (still harder than it should though). The fact that there is glitter in my oil means that bearing failure had occurred and I’m guessing the engine got stuck on one of them while driving due to low oil pressure, so it’s looking like the engine is still in good shape to rebuild with the renesis stuff (fingers crossed �� )
Got an update today regarding the renesis rotors that are being balanced at CLR. It's possible that they could be ready by the end of next week and if that's the case then they'll be shipped back the following week at which point i'll share the end results from balancing here. Aside from that alot has gone on this week and I have a 3 day drill this weekend so pulling the killer bee and installing the 12A wont take place til next week instead of this week like I had hoped, but it'll get done and **** will work itself out.
Pulled the engine out today. Was going to drop the 12A in right after, but when I went to install the clutch and flywheel I noticed that there was no pilot bearing and instead just a fucked up pilot bearing sleeve, so that needs to come out and then i'll just pop in the pilot bearing from my new clutch kit and it will be good to go and possibly have the engine in the car tomorrow.
I know I should run a seal, but any idea why numerous people say it's not necessary to do so? just curious. Also here's what i'm dealing with, the sleeve looks as though the outer lip has been cut off and the dude I bought the engine from said this is how he ran it for 4 years which is sketchy as hell obviously. Also apparently no auto parts stores stock the seals, but do stock the bearing itself. But as for the sleeve I think i'm going to try the dremel method that was suggested in another thread seeing as the puller I tried using earlier just snapped before even trying.
The aftermarket pullers never work. Dremel is the best way if you don't have the correct puller. Be careful to not cut too deep past the hardened race and into the shaft's much softer steel. A seal is a good idea every time. It keeps the grease in and prevents it from drying out.
No, F that dremel. I've done it that way and to hell with that thing. Just get the piolet bearing puller from Harbor freight. Its like $50 but its worth its weight in gold if you don't have to fight with that damn dremel. That's just my personal opinion though.
Use Mazda trix to get your seal. They ship VERY quickly and they actually stock the grease seal. My local Mazda dealers don't carry that seal (how dare they).
Ok i'll look into that. But enough on that for now, I wanted to answer a question that alot of people have been asking about this build about porting and, while i've said it before, that I have no plans to change the port sizes and just smooth and polish instead, I couldn't help but notice that the primaries on my Racing Beat manifold are much smaller than the R5 center ports (looks more suitable for 3B REPU irons), so I will be port matching the manifold. I'm not sure how much it will really affect anything, but i've never heard of optimal flow being a bad thing in any way. Also included is some pics of the ports on the killer bee, it appears to have only been ported in the upper area of the primaries and the rest left stock (secondaries in top pics and primaries in bottom pics). So the port job looks to be very minimal, but regardless it put out great numbers and I still have no desire to port any further, so again just smooth out and polish is all that is planned.
My old method was using a tungsten bit on the Dremel, but I just did my GTUs pilot bearing a couple weeks ago actually and used this tool. I had to grind away the tips some so they would slip inside the bearing. About 1mm on each tip needs to be ground off. You will need to brake the roller pins and inner race out with a pick and hammer then stick the puller in and crank it out. Time spent was about one hour including grinding the tool to fit.
Thanks i'll look into that NCross. Also have another update regarding the build. I spoke with Carlos at CLR yesterday and he let me know that my rotors and counterweights will be done and ready around the middle of next week and, depending on shipping time, I should have them back by the end of the week or beginning of the following week. Then, once they're back, I can begin clearancing side seals, which I know will just be the funnest part, and prepping the engine to rebuild. But before that takes place, i've cleared my weekend to both tear the engine down for inspection and also get a bit of work done on my RX-8 as well, so we'll see where I stand when that happens.
Finally tore the engine apart and, while not exactly in the most favorable condition, all major parts of the killer bee look to be in fair-decent shape. The iron's step wear appear to be minimal (will have to measure to be sure, but seems to be fine) and the condition of the housings seem to be okay. There is some flaking and the front housing is the worse of the two, but will compare to my spare housing and decide which is best to use from there. But the best part of this is that I can move forward with the build and begin prepping everything for the rebuild (although the renesis rotors are at least a full week out from getting back from balancing).
Also it turns out that all 3 irons have been ported, or so it appears. The intermediate plate's ports have obvious evidence of port work that were visible from outside the engine, but the front and rear plates weren't as obvious as their ports appear to only have a very minor notch in the upper portion of the ports. And, I may be incorrect about this, but I believe that I have nitrided R5 plates as well (Based on the minimal info google has on them anyway)
I've been looking over my housings and debating whether or not to use my spare housing which has a nearly perfect chrome surface, but also has a larger ported exhaust port and, based on feedback recieved in another forum, I think that using the spare housing and port matching the better of my killer bee housings would be the better course of action to take. As i've said before I have no interest in changing the ports on this engine, but in this case it's necessary for a better end result.
The spare RX-5 housing does have chatter marks (nothing bad, but are there), but has no flaking or any gouging/scratches or anything like the other two housings that do in various areas, so i'll be sending the spare and the best condition out of the killer bee housings to be resurfaced.
*And yes I will be adding an exhaust sleeve to the spare as well
So I don’t need to worry about my center iron from the killer bee anymore Thanks to Erick Krewson for helping me get an amazing deal on this beautiful Y cast center iron through Atkins Rotary, probably the cleanest used plate I’ve ever seen in person too. Sadly this also means that the killer bee will no longer be a full R5 or Cosmo engine, but it does have tall ports and is nitrided so I’m not losing anything by using this iron. Now I just need to port match it to the old R5 iron and polish and it’ll be ready to go
So i’ve decided to not use the killer bee housings anymore due to the chrome flaking on the edges even though, resurfaced, they’re perfectly useable and I shouldn’t have any problems using them, however, I do want this engine build to be as perfect as it can’t be the first time around (or second since this is a rebuild really lol) so I’ve sold the housings for $400 for the pair and with that I bought another RX-5 housing with no chrome flaking and another front R5 cast iron to save on resurfacing and renitriding cost (which was far cheaper to do than the $640 I was quoted through chips - non optional price for 3 irons). The new front and center irons will be match ported to the rear iron which is still the same killer bee iron that came out of the engine so my original goal is still intact and I can still call the engine a killer bee after this (just now realizing that im pretty much replacing the whole engine now too lol). Also the newly acquired housing will be match ported to my other spare housing, sleeves re-added and ported and then sent off to be resurfaced.
The rotors and counterweights still aren’t back yet, but I’ll call Carlos on Monday and see where those are at as far as being done. But hopefully everything goes smoothly and this build can be wrapped up within the next few months
12-16-17, 06:29 PM
�� build can get going
(fingers crossed �� )
