As i read many vendors websites, i notice they mostly prefer to receive the core as-removed. This creates a quagmire within me; I know i have the technical skills and tooling to rebuild the engine, however the cost and effort is not justified if I can have one shipped to my door ready to drop in for the same or LESS (worst case scenario). But i cannot perform the cost benefit analysis without inspecting the hard parts.

What was the deciding factor for you when you faced this decision?

 

Haven't done it yet, but I'm leaning towards the Mazda reman.
They are reportedly better quality now.
You can have them shipped to a dealer near you, and you have to give them your old core or it's $1k more.

 

https://www.gossettparts.com/oem-par...e-n3h302200rv0

 

Great Link. I work for a manufacturer so I have a shipping dock and source for discounted freight.

Thank you for the note about the increasing quality of the remans.

 

Mazmart took a fresh reman apart on this site. It had almost all new parts. You cant duplicate the cost of that engine doing it yourself, never mind your time. Assuming they are all like the one he took apart, it is the best value at this point for stock engine needs, I think is the new consensus.

 

Here it is:
https://www.rx8club.com/series-i-tec...azmart-265994/

 

Two things happened:

I had a "budget" (read: crappy) rebuild done and it sucked (and cost almost as much as a reman in the end).
Mazmart posted photos of a fresh reman that looked good and reported that all the remans they'd seen for the last few years have been that way.

So, yah, I went reman.

Do a google search for "N3H3-02-200R-V0" (with or without quotes). Find a good price at a dealer near you or one that has reasonable shipping costs.

Here's my story:
https://www.rx8club.com/series-i-tec...enesis-267220/

One of my friends thought he was going to rebuild his Renny himself. He got it opened, saw that the parts cost was going to be more than a reman and changed his mind. The put the engine sort-of-mostly-back-together (all the nuts/bolts were finger tight) and got a reman. The dealer he went through took his hastily re-assembled engine as a core.

So, as long as it doesn't look like the engine was abused or deliberately destroyed (or is missing parts), you're probably safe to disassemble and have a look before making your final decision.