Boost Lee

iTrader: (3)

I'm not sure why, maybe I was burnt out from work or something. I called my boss on the 18th and told him I wasn't coming to work for a week. I just needed to stay away from the job. My first vacation in 3 years. I was looking forward to just chillin out, making some progress on GT4, finding some hot ladies and getting them addicted to what I do, maybe paint the house. I remember thinking... GOT IT!

I'll fix that turbo FC in the driveway. It's a 1988 White TII, that's so utterly clean it's almost disgusting. I could tow start it but it wouldn't stay running and was pouring smoke out near the turbo. Despite my best efforts, I couldn't get it going even with a charger attached to the battery. A cheap man's compression test revealed 60psi across the band, So I pulled the engine to do a rebuild.

I live in Tacoma and Atkins is only 30min away so I figured I could have a rebuild done by the weekend. Today is still Thursday the 18th. The engine came apart easy to reveal chunky rotor housings (BOOO) but really clean rotors (YAAAY). No biggie I can still do a rebuild... but do I want it ported while it's apart? Hell yeah I do! But not enough to do it myself. Well if i'm gonna rebuild it this weekend I'll skip the port.

I planned to go out and pickup a rebuild kit and gaskets on Friday, but work kept me late. I called Atkins and Dan the man himself delivered everything I needed and more. He said he'd refund me for everything I didn't use. (How awesome!)


Saturday morning I started cleaning parts only to find my cast irons and rotor housings were just out of spec. I ran around the garage and secured a set of good rotor housings and 3 sets of Cast irons (I've had lots of failures in the past). Maybe Dan can ID what's usable... He met me and evaluated my parts. "Dude your cast irons need to be resurfaced."

That was the end of the weekend plan to rebuild.

Monday morning I went to Atkins with 2 sets of rotor housings, 3 sets of cast irons and 2 sets of rotors 2mm and 3mm. They actually cleaned all the parts for me, and determined which ones were still useable. 1 set or housings were awesome the other were chunked up, 1.5 sets of cast irons were useable (a front one had to be resurfaced. But they set me up with a good one and took the resurfaceable one. The 3mm rotors were busted, the bearings were worn and the apex seal slots were bent in from something .... i dunno what ;-) ...

I then asked about porting... and they ported the housings for me, RIGHT THERE!!!

So all said and done in that one day at Atkins, I got a set of ported housings which were then cleaned up. Rotors cleaned and packed (which includes grinding the side seals to size), and a whole bunch of advice. I went home and started building the engine.

That night I noticed the bearings in the stationary gears were gold... I'm no goldfinger.... back to Atkins for $35 or so in bearings and free pressing! I went home and started building the engine....again.

When I was done, I took it back on Wednesday and they compression tested it. 145-155psi across all faces. YAAAY! I spent two days putting all the accessories on, I found a S5 exh manifold and turbo in the garage... those went on. emissions stuff stayed on. Everything was beautiful!

Put the engine in the car and no smoke ever. Starts each time after 2 seconds of cranking.

Ok... so for the costs.

Rotor kit $420
Gasket kit ~$200 i think
Other gaskets ~$200
Porting $Too cheap to mention
Cleaning $Free dollars and freety free cents
Advice and instruction $FREE
Stuff I didn't use ~$200 (REFUND!!!)

So all in all, I spent about $750 in parts and maybe $200 more for labor and cleaning. To get a smooth running 13BT in a super clean car.

I'd like to extend a thanks to the Atkins shop for being patient with me and joking around as well as taking as much time as you did to make sure that this engine build went well!

89FCVert

Great Story!

Atkins, Sounds like a bunch of great people!

z-beater

^lol read a little more. Glad to hear you had a nice experience...

Fc_Dc_Mobile

thought you needed too break in a motor in the car for a few hundred miles before you see accurate compresson readings! ? so what am i missing. ANYWHO i had A guy from wait i cant say i dont think he wants attention yet ..anyways. i had my engine rebuilt for 840 that was with a gastkit kit. so far running fine. so yea if you want to do alittle work you can shave thousands of dollars off...

Atkins Mama

Hey we thought you would never leave the shop, but thats OK the bribe with the donuts works for us......... hehehehe

Rotarbeast

just dont bring anything back thats "on warranty."

pp13bnos

iTrader: (1)

Not a hater, but that seems like alot of compression for a rotary. Shure this is'nt a piston engine?

DJAngelicon

I am glad to see that there are peoples happy with other peoples services. In the end if you are happy, then let it be. =)

"No need to hate more on others but instead we should support each others."

Congrast! on your engine work.

-Angel

Boost Lee

iTrader: (3)

With all the vaseline and extra crap that is in the engine, compression is a little bit higher immediately after the initial build. After running it the first time the compression drops to a more reasonalble 7.2 bar or something like it. But the initial test after putting on the rear plate and other crud is just to ensure you've got equal compression throughout the engine.

Hyper4mance2k

iTrader: (40)

Your car is sick BTW... Let me know about intercooler piping. I need to get some done soon.