RotaryResurrection

iTrader: (8)

I can get at least 2 guys in here to give their firsthand experiences if you'd like. You might wanna rethink the whole "calling BS" line.

Blake

John who? If you mean John from Apex Restoration, you might want to call him and ask what actually happened.

As far as reliability goes tuning is everything. I was talking about longevity. As in having a motor last 100,000+ miles when properly taken care of. And if you read it again, which I suggest, you will see that I very clearly stated that floorsweeper engines are not necessarily a bad thing if that's all you can afford...buy why pay a professional to do what you can do just as well yourself? You don't have to agree with that, but it is my opinion.

Blake

Exactly. No one can build an indestructable engine, period! All we can do is build the best one we know how and hopefully the customer treats it right. But we are not perfect. Mistakes can happen and defective parts are still a possibility. That's where a good warrantee comes in and I think we have the market beat with 5 years on that one. The question is not, did someones motor fail that was not their fault, but how was the matter taken care of? We often get motors sent back for a post mortem and while most all of them are tuning or maintenance failures (broken apex seals, overheating, etc.), once in a while we find a defective part or perhaps something that was overlooked. However, those cases can be counted on one hand and none of them can say we did not offer to fix the problem or give a refund. There will always be cases of customers who blew up their motor and won't admit the responisbility.

Part of the risk of being on the premium end of the market is that people sometimes do think they are buying and indestructable engine and are careless with the tuning or cheap with the fuel system. One guy sent us a blown up core which we rebuilt with ceramic apex seals and returned with the advice to carefully clean the entire intake tract. Guess what? He returned the engine a short time later and said it blew up when just cranking it over...hmmm. Took a look inside and found STEEL apex seal fragments! In a ceramic apex seal motor. Guess he didn't follow our advice about cleaning the intake tract. One customer returned a motor twice for burning oil, but it turned out to be that his brand new turbo had no oil seals in it! We helped him troubleshoot the problem over the phone and told him it could not possibly be the engine but he apparently did not want to believe the new turbo could be a problem so he didn't even check it. This sort of thing is very common when you build a lot of engines, so you get used to customers who jump to conclusions about causes. As for John's case (Apex restoration), if that is who the previous poster was referring to, he blew up one motor with tuning and the re-fresh used Hurley seals and springs (at his request) but the springs detempered and went flat immediately. Sucky quality aftermarket parts! Is that our fault? John is a good guy and a good customer and we took care of him. Last I heard, he is happy as a clam.

If any unsatisfied customers are out there, please step up. But be honest. Did we or did we not offer a full refund? That Banzaitoyota character always sidesteps the truth of the matter, which is that he was offered a refund. I can understand his frustration at what was apparently our fault (we didn't get to tear down the second engine, but I have no reason to disbelieve him), but why be so vitrolic when a refund was offered? The incident was over 3 years ago (again, before my time), at a time when Rob expanded the business by hiring a bunch of people to turn out motors to meet the demand. That was a bad decision and it cost us a few customers. But everyone was taken care of! Case closed.

As a relatively high volume, well known engine builder, people will always talk crap. We accept that. Sometimes it's deserved but most times it is not. All was can do is be as honest as possible, build the best engines we know how, treat the customer right and let the chips fall where they may.

Blake

Wow, two guys! Out of how many thousands of customers of our in the last 20+ years? Is one of them a character called Banzaitoyota, who turned down a refund? Is the other some shady guy with a screen name like Fastrotaries or something, who claims that all our motors are garbage and that has a "friend" who sent us three motors (or whatever the current story is) and they were all defective, but refuses to tell us who it is and who's description matches no known customer? Please, bring forward customers with names and let them first say "they refused to honor their warrantee" or just keep quiet. We take care of our customers. Even the ones who blow or overheat their engines get incredible deals on a refresh-job...usually just for the parts cost.

It is impossible to have 100% customer satisfaction, but we do our best to be fair and that seems to make 99% of customers happy. The last 1% are usually pretty tough to please and I really doubt there is much we could do short of comitting suicide that would satisfy them.

RotaryResurrection

iTrader: (8)

John Glave is who I was thinking of.

Why does budget have anything to do with the ability of a person to build their own engine or not?

You're saying that people shouldn't pay a "professional" to build them a cheap engine...but by the same token you expect them to pay you to build them an expensive one? The parts all go together the same way, bud.

In fact, I hold the opinion that almost anyone can be trained to assemble an engine from all new parts in a very minimal time. That is a cakewalk. There is no cleaning and no inspection to perform. You just take parts out of their wrappers and go at it. On the other hand, it takes a lot more experience and knowledge to differentiate between used reuseable parts and non reuseable ones, as well as a LOT of time in cleaning those old parts up. And then it takes a lot of confidence to warranty those used parts in a rebuild as well...something a lot of shops won't/are afraid to do.

I could offer a 20 year warranty, but if I decline all the claims that come in and call them 'customer abuse/negligence" then it doesnt mean jack, does it? I can think of 3 forum members right now who have warranties declined by your company for reasons not clearly stated. There's banzai, trout, and that guy in atlanta...93blackFD or something like that. If I recall correctly, that is.

Sure, I've had some warranty claims too. I am usually fair with people even when I think it is their own fault...I generally split the costs with them, with me doing the labor for free once more, and them paying for any parts required. I have yet to have a case brought to me where we took the core apart and said "this was clearly my fault for letting this seal slip out of place" etc.

I would agree with that completely.

RotaryResurrection

iTrader: (8)

Also I'd like to make some comparisons relating to your comments about reusing parts versus replacing them, and the cost/profit involved. We'll compare the most common rotary, the s4 NA. Assuming a good core that is getting weak, I can refresh this for $1000. Roughly $500 of that is my labor/misc. materials, and the other half is seal costs.

Your site shows a $4000 streetported s4 NA shortblock with no core charge and free shipping.

We'll call the first $1000 free shipping and free core. Shipping is usually $150-250 depending on customer location, and since you are using new rotorhousings, the "core" consists of 3 irons, a shaft, and 2 rotors. These parts from an s4 NA are worth roughly $100-200 in reuseable condition. Let's even give the benefit of the doubt and say that you lap the irons for 4 or 500 bucks. That's still not really $1000, but again, we'll give the benefit of the doubt.

The next $1000, we'll say that's for new rotorhousings.

We'll call the next $1000 the cost of all the internal seals. HOWEVER, in your "engine building thoughts" thread you say that you prefer to reuse some of the seals...which just so happen to be the SAME SEALS THAT I USUALLY REUSE. If you reuse the same things that I do, then you spend about 4-500 bucks on new seals. Even if you replace everything, the cost is not really $1000. But, again we'll give the benefit of the doubt.

So...where's the other thousand going?

Now comes the 2 big points.

1) You apparently define a 'floorsweeper" as an engine with used rotorhousings and some used seals. Okay...but, if you reuse some seals too, then the only difference between a $1000 floorsweeper and a $3000 engine of yours is a $1000 set of rotorhousings? Wait a minute...that math doesn't add up to me.

2) You sit there and claim that building a "floorsweeper" is more profitable than building an 'all new parts" motor such as what you might offer. But, based on the math shown above, it's clear you're making DOUBLE the profit for a "new" motor than a "floorsweeper".

I do not expect you to divulge your company's budgeting or pricing as a breakdown, but I have done this for my builds several times on this forum and elsewhere to show people what exactly they are paying for, and where the money goes, since I have nothing to hide regarding what is replaced vs reused. Anyone with basic math and reasoning skills can figure this out for themselves, though.

I mainly have a problem for you making comments and posts that tend to "talk down" on the aspect of the market that I attend to, meanwhile you don't do things much different than I do, but then you charge two or 3 times as much and all the while claim that your company makes less money because of it. That is hypocrisy if I have ever heard of it.

Blake

Not sure who that is but, of course, I have no involvement with the engine building business. Did he have a materials or workmanship issue or did he blow his engine up and expect a free replacement?

Yes, that is exactly what I am saying. If you are on a budget and using used (i.e. dirt cheap) components, there is virtually no risk to building an engine yourself. If you are, instead, using a couple grand of parts, a small clearancing error can destroy a lot of valuable parts and it may cost you much more to do it twice and perhaps still end up with the same problem.

So, you believe new parts don't require inspection and clearancing? Interesting. As for differentiating between reusable and unreusable, that's easy. All springs and soft seals (except our HD Water Seals, which are intended to be) are not reusable for obvious reasons. Apex seals are not worth reusing. And the rotor housing are the fastest wearing components in the engine, so those are junk unless you only want half or less of the original life for the rebuild (and we are talking sloppy seconds, not the best half of use). Everything else requires careful inspection using the right tools and techniques. Plate wear gauge, certified straight edge, feeler gauges, bore gauge, magnetic base dial indicatior, certified V-blocks, yadda yadda. What is truly reusable on a "good or better than new" engine vs. what will last a year or two takes a lot more than the Mazda factory specs; it requires years and years of experience to know what will truly last. If you are just trying to get a year or two out of ther rebuild, an enormous amount of wear is acceptable.

So, in your opinion, a warantee covers misuse and abuse? Are you claiming that you can build a motor to survive anything a customer might try, like ping the hell out of it, overheat it, drop parts through it, run it out of oil, etc.? Seriously? Good luck with that one. I would like you to offer a 30 day indestructability warrantee and try to stay in business long enough to honor the claims, let alone anything longer. We offer a 5 year MATERIALS AND WORKMANSHIP warrantee. We have never claimed to build an indestructible motor. Nobody honest ever would.

You clearly stated that we declined Banzatoyota's warrantee claim, if I read you correctly. That is incorrect, as you should know from reading my previous messages. Swing and a miss. So, you will excuse me for doubting those other "names"...give me real names (not screen names or "that guy" references) with real facts of people who were denied a warrantee claim for materials or workmanship defects. In other words, cases where we screwed up; not customers or their tuners screwing up and trying to get us to flip the bill for their mistake. Keep in mind that the cause is not always apparent until the engine is torn down, so there are bound to be cases of people who believe it was not their fault yet the evidence says otherwise, upon closer inspection. Some people accept the post mortem conclusions and others go into denial. They are free to come here and watch us tear the engine down...

Blake

That $4,000 motor, which was sold a while ago to a crewmember of a CHAMP car racing team for his own ride (IIRC), had streetporting, oil mods, lapped and re-nitrided plates, heavy duty water seals, yadda yadda. And the free shipping was air freight. It was priced a bit at a premium because it was (1) our core and (2) ready to ship upon payment, as opposed to our usual turnaround time. Believe it or not, some people want things NOW and are willing to pay a bit more than if you make them wait a month or two. As for your "profit" claim, please differentiate between labor and profit! Profit is what you get above and beyond material, labor, depreciation of assets and overhead. You can build a floorsweeper (called such because it is from parts that should end up on the floor, not in a quality engine) in your garage with unskilled labor. A quality engine with a warrantee requires an experienced mechanic in a real shop environment, using a lot of specialized tools. Even if you make, say, $25/hour above the rate you pay your journyman or master mechanic (Rob is a Mazda Master Mechanic...one of two in our state, I believe), you have to bill a LOT of hours to cover the shop rent and other bills before you can talk profit!

Yes, I do believe there is more profit in building a floorsweeper than a quality engine. You can dispute that all you want, but I know intimately what the costs are involved on both ends of the spectrum.

I don't get your point about our reusing "some seals". "Some" comes down to side seals, corner seals, and oil control rings (metal) as long as they are in-spec. We always replace apex seals because it would be stupid to put used seals on virgin rotor housings. The side seals wear mainly in length, not height, and the grooves are not all the same length, so you can often find a good spot where they clearance to your spec with no additional work. Corner seals are quite durable and used oil control rings that are not overly worn are sometimes a better risk than new ones, which can have sealing problems if not broken in correctly ("seasoned" is sometimes a good thing). What it all comes down to is building an engine to last as long or longer than the original when treated correctly vs. building something to last "a while" -- maybe 30K, maybe 50K or more if you are lucky -- and getting the worst half of the use (sloppy seconds). I happen to think a quality engine is a better investement in the long run, but fully understand people just wanting something to get by. Perhaps you may blow stuff up and don't want to risk a good motor, or you may sell the car or swap to a different motor in the next couple years, or perhaps you just don't have the money to invest. Lots of good reasons. I build floorsweepers for myself all the time, because I can do it so cheap and know I will want to try something else shortly. However, I would not pay anyone to build a floorsweeper for me, but I would pay someone like Rob to build me a quality engine because I see how much goes into it.

I don't build customer engines and, in fact, have no formal association with that business. I don't make or lose money based on how well Rob does his job. I own half the parts business and that's it. But I do see everything come and go and am always impressed with the attention to detail. And I know Rob is not getting rich despite staying very busy for all these years. He has stated -- and I believe it -- that he would make more profit doing clutch jobs day-in and day-out. I have seen him, in fact, set aside an engine building job to do a clutch job and come out the better of it.

Blake

As this thread is supposed to be about the exhaust porting templates, I thought I would get it back on track...if I am allowed.

We just added another video to our RebuildingRotaryEngines.com site on how to use the exhaust porting jig and template kit: http://www.rebuildingrotaryengines.c...ting-templates.

Node

iTrader: (1)

those are dead sexy, way to go pineapple!~

doridori-rx7

iTrader: (3)

This product, looks to be miles ahead of what those clowns at RB give you, I ordered one RP template from them, after some quick measurements the actual port shape scribed onto a $0.75 pc. of aluminium, it was twisted by more then .032" off plane. ?! I call them up and they " meh, that's how it is.. too bad.".. wow. This product seems to cover all potential pit falls and allows you to do the exact same ports each time.. with no misses. People may see this as a simpleton way of doing it, but when consistency and time are all worth money, this design is gold.

diabolical1

iTrader: (3)

exactly! i guess it took a minute for me to realize that there was something more rooted ad personal than what was being said on the surface - and that's none of my business - i'd just like to see this thread back on track, and the consistency-factor that this template provides is what i think makes it a good product.