Okay so we had a nice warm day today so I made a mad dash to get as much of my motor put together as I could w/ the short daylight hours. Heres a few pics of the build. All the internals are a new Mazda seals.
The only concern I have is a slight gap between the housings and irons. This happened once before on a motor I put together but found the problem to be an extra o-ring placed around the top dowel pin. I removed it and the problem was resolved.
This is different because it seems to be exactly the same on both side. Its wide enough to squeeze a razor blade between. I noticec that the black outer coolant seals were thicker than I've ever seen before. I think this is the reason. I'll recheck everything in the morning,. Compression, by the way sound solid w/ 6 powerful swooshes!
Pics arent in any particular order.

 

Looks good. I did the same thing with the o-ring on the dowl pin but instead of putting two orings like you I accidentally put an oil filter houisng o ring on one of the dowels and had the motor all torqued up and was going through my left over o-rings and to my surprise it hit me.

Can you give more specs on your build like what kind and brand of apex seals, rotors, carb and manifold you plan on using, in what car, etc.? Looks great though, keep us posted on your build and progress.

Oh, regarding your gap in your stack. I don't know if the water o-rings would cause this as they should compress unless the gap is equal all the way around. Maybe a pinched o-ring? Also, did you check your housings and irons to make sure they are square with a flat edge to check for warpage?

 

I decided to use all OEM Mazda seals including the apex seals. The motor is an s4 that I street ported using pineapple racing templates. New rotor bearings placed by KDR Performance. I'm still undecided on what route to go as far as keeping it fuel injected or going carby. I didnt check the irons for warpage as they looked great to me, but I'll go over everything again and see where the problem is. I have a mint set of T-2 housings if needed and a set of irons that just need to be ported. SO lets hope for the best. Thanks.

 

things look good to me! streetports touch me ... what can i say? maybe when i build my first bridge or peri, i'll sing a different tune.

anyway, for your problem ... the only thing i could come up with is maybe your apex seal side pieces aren't seating right??? it would have to be something incompressible and that was all i could think of off the top of my head.

 

I'm gonna tear her back down in a few....just waiting for it to stop raining!

 

sweet

 

Looks good in the photos, but I would say maybe to clean the flat surfaces again, get off ALL the residue carbon on the legs, old rtv and over-spray as well. Same for the aluminum housings, they should be perfectly clean if possible. Other than that, should be a very nice engine! Good luck with it and keep us posted.

 

Okay heres what I found today. After carefully breaking down the motor every seal was where it needed to be. Housings were checked and are flat (no warpage). I did notice that the black outter seal is relatively thicker than any previously used seals. So I put it all back together and the gap was there until I bumped up the tension bolts to 35lbs and now she sealed perfectly. I dont think 5-7bs above the factory setting is going to do any damage to the internals. I've read of guys going as high as 45lbs w/ no problems. I'm thinking I'll let these coolant seals compress than go back and torque to spec.

 

35lbs is fine.....we usually torque them down to 38

 

Thanks bro!

 

Now I need to set the end play, oil pan couple thing here and there and then the motor part is done! Then comes the other parts ie:headers, presilencer, intake.....etc
Cant wait to get this thing done!.

 

Does it take more effort to rotate the engine by hand now?

 

No not really. It may take slightly more effort but nothing significant.

 

Looks great!!! Make sure and get lots of video of it running!!!

 

Latin270 hows the build coming? I'm getting a engine to work on don't know if I should go 1/2 bridge or street like yours. It looks really nice wondering how it workin.

 

I'll probably stick with 30lbs.

 

ive gone up to 55 with studs, engine maybe got a little harder to turn but not much.

however with the stock bolts i just dont see a reason to go past 30, the engine needs to expand and contract.

 

Hey Latin did you do the exhaust port w/ the streetport?