engine rebuild questions
 

I am debating on building another engine on the side. My s4 t2 engine is still running, but I am doing some research and had a few questions. My car would be street/ track driven

1) Is everyone running diferent apex seals because of the price of the oem. I saw a few like goopy, and rotary aviation. Some people swear by oem seals, and there were a ton of debates on the others. I'm leaning towards oem.

2) tons of people use Atkins gasket kits for water and oil seals, I haven't heard many postings about Pineaple racing seals. Is it the price?

3) Main and rotor bearings, it seems like not a lot of people change them. Is that because these bearings usually can outlive the life of the apex seals? I've used the press millions of times in my life, are they that easy to damage? It just seems I would make sure I line up the groove properly by marking the bearing with a square.

4) I really want to test wpc coatings, what parts would be best to do if I had some extra money to wpc coat, bearings? Would apex seals be good to coat or would that screw with breakin.

5)I'm thinking about porting my first engine. It doesn't seem as crucial as porting a cyl engine. I would thinking just port out the scribed marks for proper port timing, and make the transition smooth back into the stock castings, maybe port the throat a little. Or do people really pore it out? Porting template company recommendations? Mazdatrix, pineapple, or others?

6) I'm dreading the "clearancing the side seals". I saw a rebuild video where the guy said he has a rotor mechanic do the whole assembley and clearancing on the side seals. Anyone do that, price range?

Thanks in advance. I know all these little things add up, but I think the only thing I can live without is the wpc coatings and take the time to clearance my side seals

anyone with good insight on one of the questions?

i track my fd and beat the crap out of it. I only use oem seals. i have racing beat modified stationary gears, i would recomend replacing the rotor bearing as well, clearancing side seals is not a hard task it is just time consuming.