Scalliwag

Yes but watch the ends of the apex slots at the corners. They are easy to trash with any powered tool and can get dinged with hand cleaning in some cases too

BDC

That's right, Mike. The apex/corner seal grooves are extremely sensitive. When handling rotors, consider them like 200 year old China glass wear (seriously).

B

Mr BiG G

ok then i think i'll use the dremel instead of the angle die grinder......but what kind of biut can i use to take the surface rust off?....could i sandblast it instead?

Scalliwag

Heck, fine steel wool and WD40 would handle that

Mr BiG G

okie boss.....and wat do u think of that caswell inc...chrome polishing kit? i think it would be usable on the surface of rotors and rotor housings....u think it's a good product? recommend any other polishing products/kits(kit cuz im a nooonooobie at polishing)

87GTR

iTrader: (61)

here is my housings and irons back from the sodablasters

http://rx7.cyberosity.com/87GTR/proj...e/nov-06-2003/

Scalliwag

Read the free buffing manual on their site. Chrome plating is a lot diffent that aluminum. The manual covers what to use on all metals. It is a pretty thorough write up.

Mr BiG G

ok aren't rotor housings chrome plated? and what about rotors?

Scalliwag

Neither are chrome plated. The only area chromed is the hard-chrome sheet metal insert that the apex seals ride against in the rotor housing. You would not want to get too crazy polishing that area though because it may cause huge problems sealing later on. Any polishing removes metal. Any metal removal risks causing chatter and blow-by. There is a fine line on what you can do there. When in doubt don't do anything more than clean the surface thoroughly.

Mr BiG G

oh ****....so that is a sleeve insert.....i knew it.....cuz i saw the line on the side......but when i cleaned it with a roloc brush i couldn't see the line any more cuz the dirt in the line was gone.....has anyone tried making these sleeve inserts? that would be a better idea in my opinion rather than machining and resurfacing

Rx7carl

Cant be done that way. The process is called Sheetmetal insertion process (SIP). the band is put in the mold and the aluminum housing is cast around it. The band has teeth on it so the aluminum grips it, making it a permenent one piece assembly.

Scalliwag

Damn G you bust me up! There is so much that goes into these that it would make your head spin. The equipment to cast and/or machine a housing is incredibly expensive.
I have liked the idea of taking an aluminum billet and having it machined and then a high wear/ low friction coating applied (something that goes on at less than a couple mil so it would not affect the finished dimension or require more machining)
The part that sucks is that I would have at a minimum $2500 per housing because of the machine time alone.

I would rather walk into Mazda and drop 8 bills for a new pair and clean the graphite coating Mazda uses for break in and have the wear surface coated.
Billet side housings would be a more beneficial project because the exhaust ports could be added as well as any intake porting could be made however you wished.
That is where the power is at

Mr BiG G

hmm....but u know if someone really took it upon themselves to make the chrome inserts for housings and also installed them which is not really hard to install u just have to heat up the housing to expand it and mega freeze the insert....and they were made in large quantities....trust me it wouldn't eb too expensive and that way they could have watever wear coating on them too.....hopefully some day wen i ahve my own shopa nd im making the big bucks i'll try being this person....imma need ur help tho for sure! i'll pay u altho im sure u wouldn't mind doing it for free .....hmm so making the sideplates out of billet alluminum is good eh...maybe we can make billet aluminum sideplates with exhaust ports in them holy **** man too much plans and too less money.....another question....does anyone make like aftermarket rotors? like how they make titanium pistons or watever.....couldn't someone also make aftermarket rotorhousings?

Mr BiG G

and carl....the stock sleeves have teeth....wat if u dint make teeth....i'm sure the thing wouldn't just slip out....so u wouldn't have to do the sheetmetal insertion process or watever....direct inserts! and i also read something about cryogenic treating of piston engine blocks....couldn't we do this to our housings and stuff? i think the only negative thing to this is that it gets brittle....

Scalliwag

Racing Beat makes cast aluminum sideplates at about $1200 each. No rotor housings.
There would not be a practical way to remove a SIP. The teeth are angled back. Since the two are interlocked there is now way to heat or freeze one without the other. They designed it that way knowing they had two different alloys with two different rates of expansion.
I have played with a lot of metal and alot of fabrication work and this is something I would bet my house on. That is as sure as I could ever get.

Rx7carl

Truth is Scalliwag is right. If you want cheap rotor housings, its cheaper to build and race a car and get the discount from Mazdacomp.

EDIT: fixing drunken mispelling.

Scalliwag

wHEN i'M DRUNK i CAN'T FIND THE DAMN CAPS LOCK!!!

Mr BiG G

ok the stock sleeve has the teeth right? so couldn't u somehow break the sleeve out instead of heating it or watever.....and then the new sleeve wouldn't have teeth....is billet alluminum lighter than cast aluminum?

Scalliwag

The teeth are extremely close together and very unlikely that even if you made a crosscut through the SIP you would not be able to pry it out.
But let's pretend we get it out. Now you have to form a perfectly symetrical and seamless within an INCREDIBLY tight tolerances. Any variances will cause seal chatter and/or breakage and/or no seal or low seal and/or rotor binding. Then you have to figure out how to fuse the new SIP into the casting because as covered earlier it will have a different expansion rate and that will cause separation which is unacceptable (or Mazda would never have put any teeth there to begin with)
Billet aluminum is actually heavier than cast aluminum but the pro's outweigh the con's which is why all the top fuel cars and serious V8 class cars use billet blocks, heads, crankshafts, etc. Casting is much cheaper for production run parts. Billet is cheaper in a small run and stronger. They also usually have tighter tolerances.

Can we go back to cleaning parts? All this x-plane'n is killing me Lucy!!!

Mr BiG G

awww man how come all my plans are so near impossible

Scalliwag

You just need more experience with working with fabrication type work. Right now you make assumptions on how you think things should work and they just are not always that simple.
Once you get some hands on experience and get a good feel of what it takes to make things work you will do alright.
As a matter of fact the more you learn like that you will see why some of these ideas are not as practical as you thought but at the same time you will start coming up with ideas based more on what you are familiar with.

Don't let any of this discourage you at all. It is all a part of the learning process.

Mr BiG G

i know i know....and congratulations on ur thermal spray thingy....and to think we were just talking bout ti and u said it's really expensive....lol

Scalliwag

Nobody was more shocked than I was. That was the last ting I expected to be connected to that hose.

Mr BiG G

ahahaha i know that ish is gonna come in real handy for u.....maybe i should send my stuff down to u to get it ceramic sprayed.....some day