I am already planning on using hylomar on the seals, mazdatrix reccomends it for every fire seal installation. I swear I almost am gonna just go NEW parts route down the road. I always find some bullshit falsified part condition by some "reputable sources."

I swear if I EVER open a shop or sell parts, INTEGRITY will always trump my pocket book!

That pitting is more than likely from the motor sitting static for a while, probably from a Jspec motor that sat in a shipping yard for a while... it doesnt look too terrible though as Brian mentioned, a lil hylomar and good OE seals and you'll be set.

A friend of mine's shop has an acid dip "boiler" they use to wash blocks and heads, I'll have to ask him what they use to clean them as far as chemicals. I have some spare housings we could dip and just see what happens as they're junk anyway...

Yeah I think that pitting will be alright. Maybe as an extreme measure you could mask up the face of the iron, and smear a little mylomar right in the seal groove to fill the pits, then the typical light coat on the fire seal and you should be fine.

I do see some pitting like that on a few irons i've used in the past, but generally not that much on one. Just like, a couple pits in one groove, and the rest is fine.

As for the boiler, the chemicals used can vary, but its generally just an industrial desgreaser thats super heated and sprayed on the parts in a dishwasher style cabinet. That pitting was definetely not caused by it :)

The pitting is caused by a combination of two things...
1) (Hot) coolant from the coolant passages promote corrosion.
2) (Hot and corrosive) gases from the combustion chambers.

It's normal.

It's important to get the grooves cleaned as much as you can.
I like to run a small, flat screwdriver in the grooves.
A larger jewelers screwdrivers work nicely here, but it hurts your fingers if you do this a lot.
The seals + sealant (Hylomar has been already mentioned) takes care of sealing very well.

As for "hot tanking", it's dunking the parts in a very hot solution of cleaning chemicals.
Whether you know it or not, most metals are POROUS.
If you don't believe me, torch the irons - you'll see oil seep out of the metal!
(The stainless steel "sleeve" on the rotor housing surfaces are notorious for this.)
The hot tanking cleans the oils and crap that have leeched into the metal itself.
This promotes better sealing with all the seals and sealants.
This is not necessary, but if you can do it, go for it.
Quick & dirty option is to shoot the irons down with BRAKE CLEANER (NOT carb cleaner, as carb cleaner still leaves a residue, while brake cleaner does not).


-Ted

Thanks for the info Ted.

I have access to a heavy duty parts washer that sprays turbine engine equipment up to 150*F with a chemical called citri-clean. Very potent chemical and is used on titanium aircraft engine parts, so I assume it won't hurt iron.

I knew I should be using brake clean. I have been using carb cleaner the last week and found residual gunk on the smooth iron surface.

Not that its hard to find, but make sure you use non-chlorinated brake cleaner...

While that is true, and I should've mentioned that, sorry, I have found that carb clean left to soak for a few minutes does wonders at breaking up crap that brakeclean won't. Just what I've found. I believe it's gum-out??? that doesn't leave as much of a residue if any at all. I know it by sight, not by name.

I've found that old sideseals are some of the greatest cleaning tools around ;)

So much gentler on yourself than the clorinated stuff and cleans almost just as well.

So today I spent what felt like a LIFETIME clearancing side seals for both rotors this afternoon outside on my porch sipping on some beer.

The average clearance for the side seals is about.003, one is .004 and another is .0025 :)

I really tried to get .002 but my skills are sad and frankly I was on a time constraint. They are good enough for me.

I also finished cleaning up my Rotors(Kevin cleans them for ya but I double check), oil control rings and springs, E-Shaft, side seal springs and....my garage.

BDC recieved my front iron from Japan2la today and finished by late afternoon. SHould see it here HOPEFULLY fri or sat. The all in need to do is check the front casting and determine which o-ring/teflon/gasket set up I need and order from Mazdatrix asap.

Hopefully should stack it next week and back in the car by 2nd week of August.

****What brand was that super glue to use Brian? BTW i got your DVD's and syringe, thank you! That will come in handy with the petro.

No worries Sean, that syringe is awesome. It will get vaso into the side seal area ;)

It was super glue. It was in a red bottle, and it was NOT a gel. I cannot remember excately what it was called but I would remember it if I saw a pic of the bottle - sorry.

Those sideseal clearances are awesome by the way. Try to get a digital comp test BEFORE you start her up and then again after about a 1/2 hr run in time. I would also use slightly more 2-stroke oil for the first few hundred miles and don't rev her past 3500 for the first 100 miles either - as per RA.

Thanks Brian for the tips.

Well yesterday I finsihed cleaning all my small parts to include stat gears, thrust bearings, chain, ect ect

I did watch the mazdatrix video and it did have some helpful tips but in no way is a video manual(they even claim that it is not a manual on the dvd cover). BUT it did have some cool tricks and tips that I didn't know...for example lapping by hand, basically putting two of the irons on top of eachother with some valve grinding goo in between. Rotate for an hour or so and you are lapping pretty accurate. The machine is WAy faster but for anyone that is cheap and your iron wear is very small might be worth a try.

I also found some inspection material useful and helped identify my oil pump casing as bad. It had two scars on the inside. I have a shit load of extra pumps so I found a 2-2 pump in great shape and swapped the case. **I had no idea there were two pump types: 1-2 and 2-2, one has a thicker center oil journal while the other is half the thickness.


All I am waiting on now is the front iron. BDC said it looks in great shape and I should have it by sat or mon. I am gonna order some new OCR springs since mine are unidentifiable and for shits and giggles order some new side seal springs too.

Did the clearances get worse as time went on?? Beer >= Rotor Clearancing :rofl:

haha...actually, I started worse and got into the "zone" when my buzz kicked in. The constant sound of grind..grind..grind on the stone was hypnotizing yet soothing:)

Quick question guys, I was told it would be wise to order a few different size spacers for the front assembly stack just incase my freeplay is larger then factory spec. I have the K spacer right now BUT mazdatrix doesn't even show the K spacer not to mention all the letter spacers are for the 3rd gen front end? HMM?

Also, what do you consider a bad thrust washer plate? I have a small spot on the thrust plate that shows maybe 4 small thrust bearing indents fron the needle bearings. Not deep by any means but Mazdatrix recommends replacing the bearings, washer plate and main bearing plate. My main bearing plate looks fine with no "notches".

Those parts aren't overly expensive. Besides the time it'll take to get them shipped to you - I would go ahead and replace them. Do you need to? Probably not - I've resused them before with similar conditioning as you mentioned without any ill results but I know on all my builds moving forward I will probably just put new ones in since they're cheap enough.

I agree, I would replace them, not to expensive but it may lead to some issues setting the endfloat. Bad endfloat = bad timing, certainly not but much but it is something that physically happens.

I've never seen a "K" spacer, maybe a "C", or an "A"? I've got an "E" sitting on my wall JIC the ones that I have are too short I can just machine it down but hand to fit.

Machining it down by hand consists of taking a piece of 320g DA paper and sticking it on my SS work bench and sanding it down in a figure 8 motion while rotating it, flipping sides, constantly checking it with the micrometer, etc etc etc.

What other tips did the MT vid have? I'm a little intrigued.

Other tips were pretty common shit that I have heard of, for example gluing the apex seal end piece offset so the glue breaks upon torque. Another was the reason for the rubber center on the tension bolt that runs down the exsht port side which is made for vibration dampening. The rest was assembly preferences that included halomar application, rtv sealeant to front and main seals, End float spacer tricks which included flipping them around to increase or decrease endplay. HONESTLY for 29.00 dollars it is worth it if you never have put an engine together BUT most of these tips I have read on the forums or are available there. Kyle Mohan did a great job narrating the DVD btw.

I did end up replacing the thrust washers, bearings and bearing plate. total cost was like 68.00, not bad considering it elimanates the next possible failure :) :)

update soon