as far as I remember the MSP's chrome is thinner than REW, which is the reason why it flakes like there is no tomorrow(read:CHEAPER)

Mazda made some changes later, just not sure if they made it "Thicker" or not. later revision housing "seems" to last longer, better process maybe? who knows.

 

Forgot to throw in a pic of the rear iron. At first glance didn't look horrible but did see a pretty visible groove that has formed by the exhaust port. Haven't measured the step wear yet so we'll see, but I'm not sure the 0.002 of material removed during lapping would make that disappear.


Middle iron. I was worried what this was going to look like after discovering all three corner seals on the front face of the rear rotor were broken. Just like the rear iron at first glance seems ok but again that groove in the exhaust port is even more pronounced. Plenty of carbon buildup too.

 

Middle iron removed. I love this shot for some reason. What a cool engine!


Rear face of front rotor and eshaft.

 

Took a little careful wiggling but the Eshaft came out unharmed. I'm still waiting for the V-blocks to come in to measure runout but the journal surfaces look pretty good.

 

Mr Smutter GREAT PICS M8...love the camera work!..

What are the Bearings like in Rotors and Stationary Gears?

You are the 3rd owner (yes?), what interest me about later Rotaries is how clean (in 9 out of 10 cases) the water galleries (coolant) are, I guess you don't know 'if' coolant was ever flushed or changed?..virtually zero corrosion....a 1000% improvement.

Yep, the MOP injector lines are crap, and generally will not last past a decade (or less)...it is basically the same material for the past 40 years, now with banjo's and a one way valve (S1)...with the Series 2's having EMOP's on top of barrel the injector lines are very short (< 6 inches) and have no valves....but still in plastic.

Thank you.

 

pretty clean rotors for the milage.
lead sparkplug hole doesnt have cracks does it?
Some evidence of the oil getting a little hot i see
dont get me wrong man--but i think you may be better off just getting a reman and rebuilding it?

by the way--great pics and thanks for sharing your teardown like this.
dont forget to check your oil injectors

 

I didn't notice any cracking around the lead holes on either housing but to be honest when I saw the degree of flaking and chatter I didn't really bother inspecting too thoroughly after that.

I'm with you on the idea of just getting a reman. Especially if any one of the three irons can't be reused. Once I figure that out I'm just going to have decided how much do I really want to build my own engine. That's really what I set out to do since I feel like I've been building up to this over the last decade. There is that very real possibility though that I could end up spending what it would've cost me to get an engine from a builder like Pettit, and screwing something up and then be out a few grand and STILL have a car with no motor...Decisions, decisions.

 

Front Housing, more of the same...


Also discovered another broken corner seal from the front face of the front rotor AND a broken Apex seal as well. I'm wondering if it happened recently because the surface of the housing didn't look to gouged up other than the severe flakage.

 

Mmmmm...shiny!



Noticed one small half circumferential scratch on one of the rotor bearings. Probably my fault at some point during disassembly/handling?

 

The corner seal seems to leave a fairly deep groove. It must flex a fair bit to cause the wear.

 

hrad to see - but is the same step as i had in mine ?

 

Good thread man.

Man, just get a rebuild from a reputable builder. You won't save much doing it yourself and there is always a chance of screwing something up. The housings are done for sure, just check the step wear on the irons and then you will know for sure what your rebuild costs will be around. The eshaft is cheap, no point in using that one.

 

That's definitely the way I'm leaning at this point. Everything kind of hinged on whether or not those irons were reusable. Granted I haven't measured them yet, I'm thinking just the visible wear, especially by the exhaust ports, and broken corner seals etc. is enough to not really want to use them again regardless.

Hopefully sometime in the next few days I'll have time to clean up those irons, measure the step wear and continue moving forward.

 

so what modifications are required to avoid such wear issues.

I think a well balanced motor should make a big differance. It will be interesting to see a breakdown of a properly built an balanced motor as a comparison.

 

i am getting a gut feeling that this is not the oridginal engine?
I am also thinking that this engine has seen some high rpms--multiple times.
But ---I am guessing.
Great thread and kudos to the op.

 

when a stock engine goes beyond 8.5K rpm for an extended period of time, the rotor WILL psychically strike the iron and leave a few marks here and there.

balancing is one thing, CLEARANCE is another thing to do, just to be sure that the rotors will never have a chance to touch anything.

ur irons will look much better if u do the work on the rotating assembly, but that's another couple hundred bux on top of whatever u were doing. and honestly if ur car is mostly just stock and just goes to couple autox or track days. unless u r a perfectionist, I don't see any point of spending the few hundred bux on the work. ur engine gonna look like crap after 100-150+K anyway. might as well save those money for a new Iron or re-nitrite down the road.

 

That did cross my mind a few times. There was some suspect scuff marks on the firewall and heatshields I can only imagine would occur during possible an engine removal, motor mount change, or maybe even a clutch replacement. Unlikely. After calling mazda to confirm the engine had been "branded" the guy said it had never had a reman installed at any mazda dealer.

I'm not sure what you need to do to get branded by mazda, but one thing is for certain, the original owner beat this thing to death while probably neglecting the oil level and coolant system.

 

I like the modifications Xtreme Rotaries do to improve the roraty engine: Xtreme Rotaries - Side Clearancing

The extra detail in stepping in the corner seal should prevent some of the wear issues. They also do a lot of other good stuff as well.

 

not surprised, there are more idiots in this world than good guys.

especially if that idiot know he/she will not keep the car for life

 

Does the front cover have the reman plate on it or did one of the housings have a weird coin glued to it? The plate from the mazda reman plant is common, the coin glued to the housing is rare but we did see it on a local engine we tore apart.

 

Not familiar with the reman plate or the coin but I'll take another look. Any chance it's a gold doubloon I can cash in for a R3?

 

Ha---if you do let me know
If this engine was branded by Mazda then ---yep something was up--dont know what but something.
The sides of the rotors sure are super clean--------- yall must have good gas up that way.

 

Must....keep.....cleaning.....
Should be getting a few more items from pineapple in a couple days!

 

Looks good so far!

My $.02 if you are confident enough to tear apart and engine you can put one back together.

Get your irons lapped and nitrated, if you have anything over .003 of wear on the irons.

Get new housings and spec out your rotors, get OEM mazda seals and do the rebuild yourself.

It's a fun way to bond with your car .

 

do you mind sharing what you've got coming in?