RotaryEvolution

iTrader: (30)

well the engine has been done for about 3 weeks now but before having time to throw it into the car i had an old customer come in with a smoking issue. turns out the turbo ate the ceramic bearings and spit metal through the engine, tearing up the irons.

the irons were basically irreplaceable since they were matched to this particular engine so it took a chunk of time reviving the irons to new condition and working on a new nitriding process which we will offer shortly if everything turns up fine with his engine. previously i was only quoted for mass production runs on nitriding irons but when we dropped them off the price became more reasonable for single sets versus 7 complete engine iron sets(21 irons!). i have also concluded that i will never lap an iron again without re-nitriding them, once beyond spec already the irons are already 100% through the nitriding and will wear rapidly even when removing as little as .0020" from the plates, the OEM nitriding is much thinner than the assumed .0040" thickness most builders figured on.

i was very pleased with the results but i didn't have time to take before and after pictures of the whole process but the 200k mile irons basically should have a full new life now. the nitriding plant assured me their process is modern and should be superior to the process that mazda used to use on these engines.

reconditioning the irons still won't be all that cheap but still much cheaper than a brand new set of irons, at roughly $600 to recondition a complete set of 3 irons. which gives me hope, because i have plenty of old worn out parts that should now be revivable including a thick cast S5 turbo rear iron which i considered scrap. renitriding alone will be $300 per set of 3 irons due to clean up, it is a very dirty process which leaves a lot of nitriding debris in sensitive areas that has to be thoroughly cleaned up.

in the 3 weeks while the plates were reconditioned another turbo sandrail with a blown rear rotor and a low mile C code 20B were rebuilt, so in the meantime here is another picture. this 3 rotor late series block had, at most, 15k miles on it prior to the seals getting stuck from some minor water ingestion.

j9fd3s

iTrader: (3)

the S2 Rx8 transmission is made by Mazda, the 6 speed variant appeared in the NC miata in 06. the ford connection is that it appears to be related to the P type transmission Mazda built for the Ford trucks starting in the mid 90's.

Mazda has the transmission plant, Ford has a nice lawn in front of the HQ building

RotaryEvolution

iTrader: (30)

owns the building and paid for the machinery/tooling.

but yes, it was specifically set for the mazda cars but wound up in fords as well.

RotaryEvolution

iTrader: (30)

here's a current compression test of the old engine, i'm going to try and romp on it for a few days to run as much water through the AI as i can to clean the internals before pulling the engine out.



the cranking speed is a little low(223RPMs calculated) so it should be about 10psi higher. only a few faces actually made it above the 85psi threshold after normalization.

and i'm really digging this digital compression tool, and yes, unfortunately i did calibrate it properly up to 115psi. since i was driving the 8 lately i got a little too lazy to bother doing anything with the TII but i had to drive it today and it was being a bitch about starting after i stopped to grab some energy drinks. so i flushed out the water tank, put in more water and reset the settings to dump full water injection at about 5psi.

rotaryB-2000

fabulous work !!!!!!!!!!!

RotaryEvolution

iTrader: (30)

thanks everyone.

it's been a while since i really beat the crap out of this old engine, it still somewhat amazes me that i can't break it now even with the compression in rather bad shape after so many miles. the tune is still about 5 years old now without even checking it with my wideband. but i'm not feeling any responsiveness pick back up so decarbonizing the engine with the water injection seems to be doing nothing to help revive it so it will be coming out soon(i'll do a last compression test on it before it comes out just for comparison sake of driving it hard versus not).

j9fd3s

iTrader: (3)

at least all the water now = less carbon = less cleaning later.

RotaryEvolution

iTrader: (30)

i did wind up putting the engine into the car when i needed to use it around christmas time as it was once again entrusted with my daily driver title. the engine is still in the process of being broken in, but i will have to rebuild the turbo before i can do any retuning since the T70 bearings were shot and the compressor was just barely beginning to touch the housing.

the car has been sitting more or less since moving and buying a new daily driver. the black magic e-fan motor seized up just before moving so it's more or less just parked until i have time to fix that and the turbo rebuild or swap. i also will probably go ahead and do the V-mount intercooler upgrade that should have been done years ago.

i also tore apart the old engine, to my surprise the 220k+ mile engine wasn't in bad shape. the seals had clawed up the housings though which is why the compression dropped to fatal levels. the seals though were still within spec for height after 80k miles. the rotor housings weren't a disaster and honestly they could survive a resurfacing. so in all honesty the old motor that's been in the car for a decade can still be rebuilt and go back into service at some point.

the water injection however wasn't working so it never did get a steam cleaning, but it didn't matter because the rotors were still quite carbon free.