QuestionableChoices

Hi everyone! I just read the forum rules, and I see that I can't post anywhere but here for the time being, so I'll start of with an introduction.

I'm an old guy with a rotary history, and just recently jumped back in the game. When I was a kid (~30+ years ago) I bought an '82 FB from as local used car lot, and promptly drove it through a stone wall. There was too much body damage to fix it, but I found an '80 SA with a seized motor, so I swapped the motor and trans into that one. Unluckily for me, one of the apex seals either got stuck or broke, so I have up and ended up selling the whole thing for parts and picking up a running '79. I drove it for a while, then sold it to my buddy who took it to college in Florida.

I haven't had a rotary since but I've always had a soft spot for them. My son is approaching driving age, so we picked up an '04 RX-8 with low compression but a bunch of upgrades over the winter.

The car is a 6 port manual with the Grand Touring package and about 120k. It has a newer SS exhaust, a new clutch, Bennett Built ignition, new adjustable coil overs, new brakes with drilled and slotted rotors, and a Jagermeister bottle for a windshield washer tank (classy!).

We are mid-engine swap (factory reman) at the moment and have run into a bit of a snag, however I'm not sure I can post my question here and I don't want to get kicked off the board before I even get started. So I'll just start by saying hello and including a picture of the current state of the carnage.



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dannobre

iTrader: (3)

You are allowed to ask questions here... no problem. Ask away ...

QuestionableChoices

Thanks for the clarification on the rules. Fortunately I think I answered my own question.

Yesterday was a heck of a day. While removing stuff to transfer over to the reman engine, I managed to break the fuel distributor block and one of the oil injection lines. That second mistake is apparently not a cheap one. Whoops. Anyway, while we were figuring out our next move, we tried setting the primary injectors into the new engine and discovered the holes in the housing are significantly bigger than the original engine. After having already broken a couple things I was beginning to panic.

Here is the original engine with an old seal placed in the hole on the right. You can see it's a snug fit:


And here is the same seal on the new reman engine from Mazda:


You can see the seal falls into the port and there is a huge gap between the seal and the edge of the port in the housing. I didn't realize at first there is a ridge that the seal fits snugly into once it's installed on the primary injector and firmly seated in the hole. I think my confidence was waning after having broken a couple things in the morning, and now I thought I was up against a big hurdle. Turns out I just needed step back, take a deep breath, and look a little closer as what I was doing.

So I'm good for now, but I'm sure I'll need help going forward. Forums like this one make wrenching on old cars possible. Years ago Binder Planet made fixing my 1980 Diesel Scout possible. I sold that and bought a 1995 LandCruiser which needed way more work than I realized. It took me years to get that all sorted out with the help of ih8mud, and now I've sold it and moved on to something completely different in this RX-8. I'm looking forward to having a high revving rotary again when this is all figured out!

QuestionableChoices

Thanks for the clarification on the rules. Fortuneately I think I answered my own question, but I'll post my experience here in case anyone can relate to a similar panic attack

Saturday was not my best day. While working with my son to strip everything off the old engine to move it to the new one, I managed to break the fuel distribution block (not too expensive), and one of the oil metering lines (expensive). We were about to call it quits for the day, but decided to see how the primary injectors seat into the housing. Turns out the ports in the housing on the new engine are a lot larger than the old one. The seals from the injectors fit snugly in the original, but when I took one off and cleaned it, and checked it against the new engine it just dropped into the port uncentered.




I started to wonder if I ordered the wrong engine, which is definitely the type of stupid mistake only I could make. I took the above pictures to document the difference and ask around to figure out what I was missing. It wasn't until I looked at the pictures that I could zoom in and see the ridge of the recessed area where the injector seats into the housing. Maybe I should wear my glasses when I'm working on the car? Anyway, alls well that ends well, even if I have to shell out more $$ for the new oil injection lines. My son was quick to point out they were really brittle, so better we replace them now than discover they were cracked after we finished installing everything.

So it was a false alarm on my end, but I'm sure I'll be back for advice as we work through this. I've been a member on several boards over the years, and without sites like this it would be much more challenging to maintain old cars like these. I had a 1980 Diesel Scout that I maintained and modified in ways I couldn't have done without Binder Planet. I "upgraded" to a more modern 4x4 when I sold the Scout and bought a 1995 LandCruiser which was a much bigger project than I initially realized. That truck took me years to get sorted out, and again I couldn't have dreamed of doing things like rebuilding the front axel without the help of ih8mud. The FZJ80 is gone now too, and I'm looking forward to enjoying a high revving rotary again!. Thanks to everyone in advance for keeping resources like this going!