Jonathan Pun

Hey I'm fairly new to the rx7 community as I dont even have my car yet, not till next week. I've been watching a lot of videos and was wondering if there was a way to tell if your engine has had a rebuild. Also if its recommended to learn to rebuild your own engine or not. I think it'd be fun to do but I'd really would love to do it with some reference material such as a schematic. I'm really looking to do as much maintenance and everything on the car myself for a hobby/for fun. As a little background I just got into loving the car scene and stuff in the last 2 years and have no experience actually working on a car. Though I have been working on airplanes (HC-144 for those of you who wanna know) as a whole now for a year.

Barnahadnagy

Coming from aircraft you are unlikely to have much trouble, at least thats our experience on the FC. You can definitely rebuild your own engine, we choose to not do it in order to get the irons lapped and nitrided, along with some laziness, but a full rebuild is not particularly hard, nor is removing everything. Keep in mind this is on a non-turbo FC. As far as knowing if it has been rebuild, you could have some obvious signs, like they could use gasket maker instead of seals for the coolant seals. Another sign, on the FC, would be 2 piece apex seals as they came with 3 piece ones originally. On the FC there is also the eccentric shaft bypass thermo pellet that is usually removed or shimmed when someone rebuilds the engine.

We found the FSM + Haynes to be good enough as far as schematics go, along with documenting the disassembly process, however there is also video material online, usually paid (for example on Atkins' site) for engine rebuilds.

Jonathan Pun

Oh sweet thanks for the info! I'll definitely check this resources out!

diabolical1

iTrader: (3)

welcome to the board.

a free copy of the FSM (for any generation Rx-7) can be found at Foxed.ca

i agree, if you've been working on planes, then you will likely not have much trouble with a rebuild. furthermore, whatever questions you may have has probably been covered already and even if it hasn't, someone will get an answer for you.

congratulations. what year car are you getting?

Sgtblue

iTrader: (16)

I haven’t seen it addressed much, but a tip FWIW:
I’ve only done one complete rebuild but the experienced guy that held my hand and guided me thru it was insistent that everything be cleaned and de-carboned thoroughly. I can remember that job being tedious with not a lot of fun and glory like bolting on new parts. Coincidentally he was also an Airforce pilot. That rebuild was 13 years and 50k + miles ago and still going strong, so....

diabolical1

iTrader: (3)

that's an excellent point that slips through the cracks a lot (as you've said.)

yeah, a lot of a rebuild is pretty boring and sometimes even discouraging (at least the first few) because it's a lot of cleaning and measuring for specs. the reassembly process itself is sort of the reward you get for making it through the boring parts.