Scalliwag

It's really gone much slower than I thought it would. At least once the game plan was in place anyway. I really hoped to have at least one running motor by now.
I have a 20lb. kit of Devcon that should be here anyday to use in the water jackets around the pport tubes.
But I ain't planning on using the Devcon until after the housings are plated.
Well I got to suck it up and go out in the garage now. It's wet and cold outside and you would think I would have a heater in my garage. NOPE!!! Not dumbass me!!!

Scalliwag

Here are pics before the milling process after I made the tubes for Ken's housings and installed them.
If these housings were useable they could be puttied and used right now.

setzep

Jesus! Now thats a PP! suckers HUGE!

Scalliwag

52.7 mm I.D. (2.075")

banzaitoyota

Have you seen Judge ITO's Baby Peri-Port? Yours looks great!!! Quit playing around and get some coating done!!!!!

Scalliwag

Nope I haven't seen it. Are there any pics posted?

es

I know I'm chiming in late here, but I was reading through the racing beat catalog last night and they claim the GSL-SE 13B DID have a different petrcoidal shape due to the smaller rotors & should NOT be interchanged with later housings/rotors!

Also there was info on rotor clearance or what I've seen referred to as "Race Clearance" on this forum.

For those who missed my post about mazdas clearance revision to FD rotors see pics here:
LINK

Scalliwag

Update-
It is to the put up or shutup time and I was really wanting a brand new housing to dial my equipment to and see exactly what a true new measurement would be. I made up my mind to buy one because it was really bugging me. I talked to Ken Scheeper's about it since it is his car that is being the guinea pig and he was going to try to help me get one for a good price.
Well Ken talked to Chris at Rotary Performance and let him know what was going on and Chris ended up letting me use one of theirs! That was cool as hell of them.
So I got the housing in the still sealed box... oooh like a kid at Christmas! I open it up and there she was... the best looking thing I ever seen that didn't have ****!
I whip out the bright lights and start to scope every little detail. Right off the bat I noticed what a person that posted real early on in the thread had mentioned, the surface has some type of a coating that really appears to be graphite based. You can tell it is only temporary and allows the seals to break in.

Another thing I noticed was something that was bugging the **** out of me. The apex surface where the exhaust port is at grinds off quicker because there is less surface area being ground. Even though I would polish to a to a shape it always appeared as if the area next to the exhaust looked different and gave the effect it may be a smidge deeper.
Well low and freakin' behold if a new factory housing is the same way! This is not a big deal to you guys but your wallets aren't as heavily invested in it as mine
That was not the only areas that appeared blemished either. Nothing bad but definately what I expected.

So now I actually think that because of my worrying and extra effort tweaking trying to eliminate any blemish I think mine will actually look better! At least better than this one.
I can't get a tight enough picture to show you the details but I can assure you that I am going to show them to Ken and Chris. There are a couple of lines as though the tooling stopped in a couple of places for example.

David Sanchez tried scratching my test housing with the end (and corner) of a flat head screwdriver last night and put a lot into it and we could not believe it. You could barely tell anything touched it. I told David that since I have pretty much finished playing with the original test spray housing that we could go off on it and see just how it would do. I did not think it would hold up near as well as it did. We did the same the to one of his bad housings and we left are marks on it.

BTW Ken's housings are going to the spray shop on Monday.



[img http://webpages.charter.net/mikeroberts/new03.jpg[/img]

Scalliwag

Well finally the housings are ready to be sprayed. THey will go to the shop in the morning. Pictures to come.

banzaitoyota

Eagerly awaiting results

Resource

Have you gotten it started up yet?

Scalliwag

Dropping Ken's set of pports off at the spray shop tomorrow

moprblms

wow a pport how to way to go scalliwag
cant wait to see th end results

Scalliwag

The spray shop has a backup on parts that have to be sprayed with the same spray gun they are using on the housings. They said they should have them back to me by the end of the week or early next week at the latest.

FYI- I started a new machine for grinding/lapping side housings using the same spray coating.
Fortunately it will be much less $ to build than the others were.
I did not like the surface grinders or lapping machines that I was seeing on the market. It was not even just a matter of cost as much as design. I am only resurfacing the area on the side housings that the rotor seals run against.
I think the machine I am making will be much more cost effective as well as better suited for the application.
I will post a new thread on that after the machine is done and I start playing with the test housings.
One thing that is cool is I will be able to seal off and spray over the side ports for side housings that will be ran with pports. That should be interesting.

Scalliwag

For those of you coming to the RX7 Swapmeet this coming weekend in Fort Worth, I will have the original test housing there.
I will also bring a stock scrap housing and let everyone sprape the two with a screwdriver (or whatever) so they can see what this stuff is like. The stock gets scored deeper and easier than the coated housing does.
IF the spray shop has Ken's ready I will bring one out for you to see in it's freshly sprayed form.
If they get me them to me by Wednesday I will try to work on them in the evenings and try to get get one finished before the meet.

Also I talked to Chris Ott (at Rotary Performance). He let me use the new housing for measurements, etc. He told me that Mazda does use some sort of light coating on the wall of new housings and that there was some sort of internal talk at Mazda as to the value of this "break-in" coating.
So that makes me wonder (out loud) about a couple of things. As mentioned probably 50 or so posts back where the guy from Armacor told me that the coating has an "amorphasizing" process that occurs during low pressure polishing. The stuff starts out pretty hard but it gets crazy *** hard after you do that.
Grinding under pressure does not change the molecular structure.
I am thinking that it may help the seals seat better to let the apex seals "work harden" the surface.
The surface would still be about as hard as the original surface so it may not have any effect.

After the test phase starts I will start a new thread. This has got to be so long that something with a quick recap and how it is working out may be easier for the newbies to navigate through.

Cheers!

ok enough of demo...i want to buy some housings... especially ones that are ported already

how much.

Scalliwag

Are you talking pports or side plates?

Cheers!

just basic exhaust porting for a street port on the rotor housing.

Scalliwag

I will be resurfacing for $300 per housing. The only porting I will do it making pport modifications (boring the holes, making and installing the tubes)
Since people are sending me their housings I don't wan't to be accused of selling their porting ideas so the safest thing to do for me is to just resurface.
There are several people I could recommend for the port work though.

SPOautos

$300 for a reman housing??? I can get them brand new for about $450. I thought they were going to be cheaper than that.....like $300 a set or something

STEPHEN

Scalliwag

Sorry about that. It costs more than that just to get them sprayed and about 4 hours machine time (milling/ polishing). You can get a new housing for around $450 and if you break an apex seal and damage the housing you can buy another new housing for $450. You can get one resufaced for $300 and if you break an apex seal and damage it you can get it fixed for $100 because I only have to have it spot sprayed and then repolish.

But understand his is not technically a reman housing because Mazda used hard chrome and this coating has a much higher bond strength (less risk of flaking), higher hardness (resists scoring), greater thermal efficiency, and has 4 times lower coefficient of friction than hard chrome (less wear).
With the new oil and water seals on the market and using the same coating on the side plates with the new equipment I am working on I am anticipating the motors to endure over 200,000 miles.
I know that comment raises some eyebrows but think about why most the rotary motors fail; seals. Apex seals, oil seals, and water seals. Less friction (just barely higher than teflon) will help both the apex, side, and oil seals. The new teflon encapsulated o-rings are supposed to be much better than stock and unless you make a habit of overheating they should not give any problems at that mileage either.

I have to prove this process and in a best case scenario it will not be for everyone. Some people will still use worn housings to save money and others will pop out $900 for new ones. The hardcore builders and people that have had a fairly new housing get damaged and had to be replaced again (ouch!) as well as people who are planning on keeping their cars for years to come.

No7Yet

Scalliwag;

I'm one for results. You're making some bold claims, and they may have merit, but have you actually built a motor using this process? If not, have you pieced together an engine using these housings and checked rotor-to-rotor-housing clearances? How certain are you that the coating, when applied to an end housing (iron), will stay truly vertical (i.e. 90 deg plane from e-shaft centerline)? How certain are you that the rotor housing will maintain the exact same epitrochoidal shape as a Mazda housing?

You also make the claim that the coating you're applying is harder in a number of ways than Mazda's coating. I happen to have some SAE documents here that detail the hardness and material makeup of the two coatings Mazda uses for the rotor and side housings. Would you care to reveal your numbers, and perhaps some techincal information and references regarding its makeup and testing procedures?

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary support.

Brandon

No7Yet

Also, you seem to not be aware that the MCP coating that Mazda uses has pores on the micron level - far beyond anything you'll be able to see with the naked eye. I've also not seen any indication that you're certain of the makeup of the metals which coat the side and rotor housings - how can you compare them if you don't know what they are? You also seem to lack any solid knowledge about the levels of combustion temperatures and pressures that rotaries endure, and the duration and type of stress that they place on various components, especially in comparison with piston engine combustion faces (hint: rotor housing combustion faces don't ever get the chance to cool down).

You've got an admirable goal, but I think perhaps you need to do a little bit more homework.

Brandon

Scalliwag

Brandon,
I suggests two things 1) Try a little respect for one and 2) Read a damn thread before you go popping off.
So much of what you just popped off has already been covered in earlier posts.
You would note that the material I am using is used in coal crushers and boilers if you had read the thread. You would also know that boiler temperatures are higher than the engine gets and that a coal and aggragate crusher would destroy any hard chrome surface immediately.
So before you start telling me about "doing my homework" you need to do yours and read the freaking thread first.
I think that talking to people such as Professor William D. Nix of Stanford University as well as other people that are experts in the field of metallizing and metallurgy as well as plating speciallists I have done more homework than you on the subject.
Sorry if I sound a little pissed but for soemone to come along mouthing off like you just did without knowing jackshit about what has gone into this pisses me off just a bit.
I've done enough homework to have the interests of Rotary Performance ready to help through all the testing process as well as an NHRA-Import drag racer (Ken Scheepers) willing to run the first motor built.

No7Yet

I have read the thread, and the issues (none of which, I'll note, have you addressed) that I've asked about were the first to come to mind. And it's not as if there were one or two unanswered questions! I'll admit that I missed your hardness numbers, but I stand by every other question I've asked.

You can drop all the names you want, but I promise that I can counter with many more. I do work at a university, after all. According to your own posts, every person that you've consulted with has admitted to knowing nothing of the mechanics of a rotary engine. The only evidence I see is of conclusions based on speculation and conjecture. You don't even know how Mazda applies the coating to their rotor housings! Steel sleeves? Please!

Even beyond that, I've only questioned material issues. If this were such an easy and cheap process (because let's face it, you have nowhere near the resources, both intellectually and monetarily, that Mazda does) don't you think that Mazda would have started offering it earlier? Even a basic understanding of marketing would see how fallacious it is to believe that there's some sort of "conspiracy" within Mazda to deprive people of affordable rotor and end housings.

You're at the point where people are offering to send you money and parts, and it seems as if you're accepting it all. In the interests of professionalism, don't you think it's time you started answering some hard questions?

Brandon