No you really can't. I have a friend who knows Gibson personally. I called her up to ask her opinion of his engine building skillz...... she didn't lie. But she choose her words carefully. Regardless, it was still the cheapest way to get this thing back together. And now I have a NEAR PERFECT set of RE Housings to sell too.... any takers?

The rest of the stack went..... meh. I had to do the front rotor twice because the assist piece kept breaking. I figured out the trick though,
take a piece of release tin foil and place on a flat surface.
apply glue
put pieces together
fold foil over apex seal and place a thin piece of sheet metal over joint
hold everything tightly for 60 seconds
peel foil off
using a razor, shave the glue away.

Then on the rear rotor I was removing a corner seal to set the apex springs in. The seal popped out and fell into a cooling passage :banghead: I got lucky and was able to retrieve it with a magnet. The last corner seal I pulled out with a magnet, as I will be doing for the rest of my life.

So the stacking went ok, but assembling everything has been slow and painfull. Everything being ceramic coated I'm chasing everyt thread and last night broke a tap in the turbine housing..... oh I was pissed. So now I've got a date at a machine shop later today.

Thanks T, looks like I had to order a few more little pieces that won't be here until Thursday. So I'm going to assemble everything I can and hopefully get it in the car Thursday night. Hopefully fired Friday, cruising around over the weekend.

What exactely was wrong with them? The shape of the ports, more exactely the "tips" weren't radiused much more than stock. They were cleaned up slightly, but nothing drastic. The finish on the ports looked like was just stoned, something that I really don't do alot of, most of my porting starts with a cutting bit, then I feather it in as much as possible, sometimes not even a single pass with a stone before going to the sandpaper rolls. WHen cleaning up Gibsons work, I used some med grit rolls and then alot of work with "the flapper". In my experience the flapper does a very good job of finishing off the port, especially where it meets the plate surface. It's slow going without a doubt, but it's always easier to take more material off than add some in :rofl:

Anyway, a few shots from the stacking adventures on Sunday

http://rotarycarclub.com/rotary_foru...1&d=1237908524

http://rotarycarclub.com/rotary_foru...1&d=1237908524

My newly acquired S5 n/a housings that I ported and swapped the sleeves on

http://rotarycarclub.com/rotary_foru...1&d=1237908524

The rear plate needed ALOT of work. Probably a good 45 minutes worth of clean up, here's the result though

http://rotarycarclub.com/rotary_foru...1&d=1237908524

http://rotarycarclub.com/rotary_foru...1&d=1237908524

The SLOW process of re-assembly begins

http://rotarycarclub.com/rotary_foru...1&d=1237909447

MMMMMMMMMMMM, ceramic coated goodies

http://rotarycarclub.com/rotary_foru...1&d=1237909447

And that'll do it for tonight. Need to powdercoat the waterpump ASSEMBLY as well as build a new 2-stroke tank. Chadwicks idler was bigger than I though and now my tank no fit no more. Nothing against the idler, its a beautiful piece, just slightly bigger than I thought it would be. Not a big deal though, perfect excuse to build a new tank, bigger and better fitting. The old one left something to be desired anyway, good excuse I guess. This will actually be the third tank..... I still don't know why things take me so long :rofl:

http://rotarycarclub.com/rotary_foru...1&d=1237909447

Sounds like your engine adventures went a lot smoother than mine. I'm trying to figure out if I want to buy a pressure tester or build one from lowes/homedepot. For some reason I have 1 inner coolant o-ring left over. It's causing me to second guess my work so I'm going to pressure test the coolant passages to see if I did remember to install all the o-rings or if I just screwed up somewhere and forgot one o-ring. Honestly I don't think I screwed up but it's causing me enough doubt that I want to make sure. The funny thing is, I installed all the Outer rings--so I can't think of any reason why I would suddenly skip installing an inner ring since I do them both at the same time (outer and inner).

Sexy stuff man!

The ports I saw of dave's (no pics, although the guy who has the plates may...) was basically this. Picture a stock primary port, and monster street port on it. Now, instead of actually PORTING the runner and bowl to its new larger shape - you simply taper from the street port back into the stock port............yeah, seriously. I thought he was shitting me because I've seen some weird stuff, but that was a whole new level.

(The plates were out of their silver "800whatever-HP" widebody FC that barely even started)

The ports on your block look really great now! Nice build!


I'll keep my fingers crossed for you on a sure first-start attempt!

Ouch, sorry man. I hate to say it but I wouldn't chance it, I'd pull it apart. You're talking about the gas seals right? The orange ones? If you know you started with the right amount, I wouldn't waste the time with a tester. It may hold during the test but once combustion pressures start, I doubt vaseline and holymar will hold it. I'd just be safe and crack the thing open.

Thanks. I'm satisfied with the intakes, and really happy with my exhaust ports. I haven't needed to port anything in years so I practiced on a pair of junk housings. Like riding a bike though, by the time I got to the one pictured, it was my third attempt.

Seriously, that's what these pretty much looked like. The secondary ports are really just smoothed and feathered almost stock ports, which in all honesty is what I was looking for. I don't want big ports, I want a civilized 400RWHP. THe primary ports though, are probably just like the ones you're referring to, the angle to the plate at the tip is pretty abrubt. I would have to do some SERIOUS cutting to make it the way I would really want but then the port itself would be huge, so eff it. I cleaned it up the best I could and we'll see what it does.

The trailing edge of the port is pretty much the inverse of this port

http://i246.photobucket.com/albums/g...9/DSC03421.jpg

David Jerome porting stolen from Charlies thread

Alright, I'm off to the hydraulic shop for some goodies :D

Damn, T! How long have you been aaround rotaries to get to this level of build quality? It looks like there is lots more for me to learn yet, your work looks simply amazing!

Thanks Max.

12 years....... 12 years with rotaries. I bought this car when I was 18.

Sad part is I've only driven her about 1,300 miles in the last 5 years. 2 years to paint, drove 1,207 miles in the year she was on the road, then Feb 2007 she came off the road for the swap, 4.5 hours of running/driving before the motor popped, and now hopefully she'll fire Friday... fingers crossed.

I hope to have the rest of the motor assembled tonight, except for the few allen plugs that I need that will be here Thursday... or so I hope.

Hmmmmm, that's assuming I can jury rig the 2-stroke can until I can build a new one this weekend. Too much to do! three weeks til DGRR!!! ARGH!!!

That's the thing. I'm not sure if it's an extra one or not. I know if it is not an extra one then it's one that should have gone on the intermediate housing since that's the only one I can't vividly recall. I'll go ahead and break it apart just to make sure I have it all together. *Sigh*

yea im busting ass to get my FB done before i leave for basic training. Time constraints suck.

TT, I went ahead and tore it down again. I had all the seals installed. I guess I did get an extra fire seal. First time for everything.

Wow.... that's interesting. Don't you feel better now knowing though?

Yeah they do, especially when you realize that there is a teflon front cover seal missing and you're going to pay 10X the price of the part in shipping to get it here by the weekend :banghead: I may have to call in a favor @ the dealership.

You've come along way from a carb'ed 12a to a 'squirted ITB 13B 6P though. I likey the motor. I thought about building a crazy n/a motor than realized that for not that much more after all was said and done, I could go turbo. Then the project became 3x what the n/a would've been. You planning on attending DGRR?

So I did get a few things done tonight. I went to the hydraulic shop and had them silver soder a -6AN fitting onto the oil feed line. Then I got a -6 - -4 adapter. A -4 would've been ideal but the size of the fitting would've required it to be drilled out that it would leave too little matterial. I generally CAN'T STAND adapters, but I can live with this. Note - this is not the actual line I'll be using..... I ordered an all black fitting to go along with the theme

http://rotarycarclub.com/rotary_foru...1&d=1237951133


Something else I decided to try, No more stock fasteners. The last motor I had I either powdercoated or painted all the fasteners. It didn't last. So this time around I'm changing everything out to be either a stainless acorn nut, or a button head. It's also been brought to my attention that I'm getting old and grumpy. Little things are starting to piss me off, like different length fasteners. So I studed the front cover with stainless and loctited them in there. Now all I need is a handfull of acorn nuts and washers. Should limit the grumpiness a little ;)

http://rotarycarclub.com/rotary_foru...1&d=1237951133

This porting was already done. It always surprised me how little time Mazda spent on the oil system. I think this 1/2 mod is something that alot of people over look when building an engine. Sorry if this makes you break the engine apart again vex ;)

http://rotarycarclub.com/rotary_foru...1&d=1237951133

Something else I thought I'd try with this build. I never liked the fact that there isn't a positive seal with the oil pump. Yeah it's machined, yeah people never seem to have a problem with it, but wouldn't it be nice if you were a little more certain about the pump not pulling in air or pumping out oil? I thought I'd give this a try. A good friend of mine has a CNC mill, he accepted my challenge and this is what we have.

http://rotarycarclub.com/rotary_foru...1&d=1237951133

Insert the o-ring, apply a smear of hylomar on the OUTSIDE of the ring only, this keeps it from getting into the pump itself, and we should have a pretty well sealed oil pump. We'll see though. I'd like to see 30 psi @ idle as opposed to the low pressure warning light flicker when she drops to idle. That always causes me a little concern. Meh, we'll see.

http://rotarycarclub.com/rotary_foru...1&d=1237951133

I'm starting to hate you :)

In a good way. Lots of good thoughts on the oiling system though. I'm all for studs as well... I'm going to use full studs in my next build instead of tension bolts...

I have no idea what you did there or how to do it. Maybe when I aim to break some things on the car with the power of the engine ;). Right now though, I'm looking to get into the mid to upper 200's.

If your oil pump isn't on yet, take a look at the galleys. THey're rough cast, with no real flow lines to them. I spent a 1/2 hour just smoothing everything out, especially on the vacuum side of the pump.

lol - thanks... I think :rlaugh: Wait a day or two until I start getting the car back together. I did some things there that you'll want to kill me over. For example, have you seen my engine harness yet?

Nice job on the oil pump. Did similar mods on mine. I used some silk thread as per Allen's (13b-rx3) suggestions, the oring was beyond my capability/willingness to invest in. Very badass though sir! :)

Engine harness eh? I have not seen yours... hell, I haven't seen mine in about two years :)

I'll give you a hint: I'd be tempted to thieve his harness for what's on it and how it's made.

I'll snap a few pics of my harness.... Maybe link a few from TeamFCS3

So, another slow night with not much accomplished. Still powdercoating and prepping a bunch of stuff. The last part is coming in tomorrow..... the nylon seal around the o-ring in the front cover :banghead:

Anywho - since I'm a pic whore.... here's some more

New EGT probe and the stainless line is for the ole' e-map

http://rotarycarclub.com/rotary_foru...1&d=1238041854

Turbos on and all the oil/coolant lines run. Yes I powdercoated the coolant lines. I'm trying not to miss any detail this time around

http://rotarycarclub.com/rotary_foru...1&d=1238041854

And the twins pretty much done.

http://rotarycarclub.com/rotary_foru...1&d=1238041854

Waterpump assembly just sorta hanging out. Not going to snub that up until I get the front cover completely dealt with. Which will hopefully be tomorrow


http://rotarycarclub.com/rotary_foru...1&d=1238041854

http://rotarycarclub.com/rotary_foru...1&d=1238041854

so many wires and lines!

For the front cover do you wait until you've mounted it before putting on the front ring (I think it's an oil control ring or something--the orange one)?

Being that this is going into an FC, any reason why you decided to keep the RE water pump housing and cap configuration?

I'm drooling over your progress though... looks very very clean!

Your not planning to use a CAS system either?

If he's waiting for the nylon seal, its likely the o-ring that will cause 0 oil pressure if it falls out or breaks. The one coming off the oil pump feed in the front iron. should be mounted when the front cover is (finally) mounted along with the front cover gasket etc.

LIES! That's the simplified version of everything. You should see what a stock 13B-REW or RE looks like!

If you're referring to the front e-shaft seal, than yes. I generally set the end float..... which took 4 hours today (lots of sanding that spacer down on by flat/level/true workbench with some 320gt paper, restacking everything, retorqing the hub, rechecking, and repeating but I got it to .0018" :icon_tup: ) flip the motor so the e-shaft is vertical, stack everything for the last time, instal the oil-pump sprocket, chain, put a little hylomar in the oil passage, put the nylon ring in, the o-ring, lay down a bead, put the gasket on, lay down a bead of rtv on top of the gasket, put the front cover on, torque that down, put the oil-seal in, put a little oil on the inside of the seal, put a little oil on the front hub, install the front hub, replace the o-ring on the front hub bolt, then a smear of silicone on the bolt itself, torque that down to whatever I was using when setting the end float. That's important to note. If you torque it down more than you were doing when you were setting it, it could be out of spec. I used 105 ft/lbs. Slightly higher I know but it makes me feel all warm inside.

Yup, that was the one I was waiting for. Apparently Gibson believed that the hardware store nylon washers were good enough. When the engine arrived, I saw a nylon washer, assumed it was the right one because there was a good bit of casting left visible so I only ordered the o-ring. When I went to assemble everything the o-ring wouldn't fit. My mistake for assuming. Oh well, didn't hold me back, there was plenty else to do.

Actually it's an FD waterpump assembly ;) You'll see why I went this route when I get some pics of the HMIC system up. It works oh so well and looks OH so sexy

Thanks... Now I just need to get it in the car..... actually I need to get some stuff on the car. It hasn't changed in a week. Kinda depressing.

No, I am. I just tapped the opening off for paint. I actually stabbed the CAS tonight as well as
Finished the end float
Installed the Front Cover
Finished the turbos
Finished the fuel
Got the UIM mounted
Modified and Installed the Oil Pan.

Left is to powdercoat all the springs on the TB and assemble it, put the motor mounts on, finish the mounting for the coils, but I can't do that until the motor is swinging........ oh, dissasemble and powdercoat an Alt.... Yeah, trying not to miss any detail. Hopefully it doesn't keep me from actually attending DGRR.... um - new used wheels will be here tomorrow. Need to refinish them which will take about a week probably..... Anyone wanna come help out this weekend? Free beer.

So yeah, I cut off the drain plug and welded on a -10AN bung. No more changine gaskets and no more drain plug leaks for me! And with the Banzai Brace there shouldn't be any leaks, and if there are, they'll be easy to spot because I powdercoated the pan Plantnium SIlver. I would've liked to have painted it, but I used the last of the paint last night on the Pre-spool, wastegate, and turbo control actuator.

Note to anyone using the 13B-RE oil pan with different housings, the baffle for the regulator needs to be trimmed. I learned this AFTER I layed down a bead of RTV. I was beating the shit out of it cursing the Banzai studs until I looked at it and realized what the problem was..... Oh well, it's curing now.

i am completely envious of the extent of your build. but my car is in the very beginning of the build. just finally got the bay completly stripped and working of cleaning cleaning and more cleaning.

BTW, to update my earlier comment:

What I like in the build the most, is that this car follows both Function AND form! To me, this aspect is very important, because a lot of people tend to focus on one and ignore the other.

Its been a long weekend, where's an update, lol....

Agree w/ Max BTW...

This is crazy man! I thought I was the only one that had this wild idea that my FC would be ready by DGRR 09. What was supposed to be a 7 year project for myself and my 9yo son was jump started 3 weeks ago when I trailered a dead TII back to the shop. Now the project has turned into a 6 week deal. As of this past week we were still pulling things off. This week and until 4/15 we will be busy installing the new stuff and fabbing up the new parts.

Not trying to jack your thread...just wanted to say that you are not alone brother and great work so far. If you need some help on that aluminum welding let me know...I tig everyday. Let's get these cars ready and hookup at the Gap!

Todd B.

Thanks!

LOL.... a good friend of mine was helping me stab the motor in today and was making some comments about the "form" aspect of it. He seems to think that its a little much. So my comment was, "So you're saying that when we do your car, if we can't get an oddball fastener in Stainless, you're not going to powdercoat it?"

He sighed and rolled his eyes as I pointed out a few bolts that I powdercoated last night :rofl:

Thanks... update coming now as I just got out of the shower after spending a LONG time on it today. Some bad things happened.... dropped a washer and couldn't find it. Thought maybe it fell into the y-pipe... took the compressor housings off the turbos.......... SUCK. A few other little things slowed us down. Hoping to fire her off tomorrow....... err later today at this point.... sigh.

Thanks Todd. Definately come find me. My TIG'ing has improved greatly once I got a powersouce that could handle the 60A that the machine needs. Trying to weld 1/4" AL with 110-115A just won't cut it.

Sexy build, man. :icon_tup: You have good skillz.

Alright, so here's the update. Got the engine finally assembled late Friday night. Here's a few shots of that.

Turbo's finally . FINALLY finished.

http://rotarycarclub.com/rotary_foru...1&d=1238394643

I also modified the stock oil pan and powdercoated it. Banzai pan brace as well

http://rotarycarclub.com/rotary_foru...1&d=1238394643

Shots of the completed engine

http://rotarycarclub.com/rotary_foru...1&d=1238394643
http://rotarycarclub.com/rotary_foru...1&d=1238394643

And my Exedy twin disc clutch. I LIKE this clutch. Its a little grabby, but not nearly as hard a pedal as the old ACT with the Extreme PP. I used to love stiff clutchs, the stiffer the better, than I had ~65% of the cartilidge removed from my left knee. Now I don't Like them so much.

http://rotarycarclub.com/rotary_foru...1&d=1238394643

Thanks

So here's why my engine harness is specieal. It plugs into the firewall :D Never again will I have to drop a motor in, run a harness, and then put the engine back together. I've gotten spoiled.

http://rotarycarclub.com/rotary_foru...1&d=1238394974

Chassis harness run.... top secret, I should even be showing this off.

http://rotarycarclub.com/rotary_foru...1&d=1238394974

Oil Coolers installed

http://rotarycarclub.com/rotary_foru...1&d=1238394974

Bulkhead fitting for the oil coolers

http://rotarycarclub.com/rotary_foru...1&d=1238394974

And the oil coolers plumbed

http://rotarycarclub.com/rotary_foru...1&d=1238394974

Tight fitting fitting. 120* I believe. Yes they are run in series and yes I have my reasons for it

http://rotarycarclub.com/rotary_foru...1&d=1238395194

Mocal Oil T-Stat

http://rotarycarclub.com/rotary_foru...1&d=1238395194

And finally in its new home

http://rotarycarclub.com/rotary_foru...1&d=1238395194

http://rotarycarclub.com/rotary_foru...1&d=1238395194

Intake piping

http://rotarycarclub.com/rotary_foru...1&d=1238395194

I'd say, "look what arrived from the powdercoater," but I am the powdercoater. I leave you all with this teaser pic of a frame I built to mount some "stuff." The stuff will be mounted later today.....

http://rotarycarclub.com/rotary_foru...1&d=1238395380

I can stand on the end closest to the motor and only get ~1/2" of deflection out of it. Shit is STRONG. All 6061 AL

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pXfHLUlZf4

I can't wait to see this thing finished. Freaking awesome. That firewall harness connector is genius!