UPDATE:

So, I had a little hic-up last night with parts and all.

I received my 8.5:1 rotor from Kevin Landers yesterday. Cleaned very well and recommend to everyone. So I put it right next to my other "good" rotor and notice that the RR rotor has a MUCH deeper compression recession..................This STELLAR motor was running S4 N/A 9.4:1 rotors. :(

I was a little pissed since this was all i needed to start my build......so I thought. Anyhow I emailed Kevin and he agreed to send me another TII S4 rotor for a great price if I shipped him the cleaned S4 N/A rotor.


Now to the IRONS,

As I tore into the wet boxes caused from our thunderstorms all day(thank you post office fucks) I opened up the NEW S4 rear iron that I bought from Mazdatrix. The street ports from BDC was beautiful and so so so CLEAN.

Then I open the next box and inpsect the intermediate iron. This unit was slightly used from a jspec motor from japan2la. Again the iron and ports were GREAT.

On to the next box, I open her up and there I am staring at ANOTHER rear iron that is ported.?.?.?

To be honest I was pretty pissed, not at Japan2la or BDC BUT at the fact that this will burn more time from me getting on the road. I called BDC to insure he didn't mistakenly port a iron out of his stock that was for someone else. He called back and said that those were the irons he got from japan2la and he felt silly he didn't catch the mistake. He missed it due to receiving and porting my new rear iron 2 weeks before the other 2 irons showed up. He just got back from Vacation too between the elapsed time frame. He also stated that he would do a front iron port for no charge once I get the situation figured out with Brian @ Japan2La.

I am awaiting word from them today.


FUN STUFF!!!!!!!

Rotors
http://i721.photobucket.com/albums/w.../GARAGE113.jpg

http://i721.photobucket.com/albums/w.../GARAGE112.jpg

Irons

http://i721.photobucket.com/albums/w.../GARAGE114.jpg

http://i721.photobucket.com/albums/w.../GARAGE115.jpg

The second rear iron :)
http://i721.photobucket.com/albums/w.../GARAGE118.jpg


Ports are GREAT compared to old engine

http://i721.photobucket.com/albums/w.../GARAGE117.jpg

http://i721.photobucket.com/albums/w.../GARAGE119.jpg

http://i721.photobucket.com/albums/w.../GARAGE116.jpg


I talked to Brian at Japan2La and he is sending a front iron to Brian at BDC ASAP to get ported. He was very polite and I recommend him as well.

I guess I will start clearancing side seals for this one rotor for now.:icon_tup:

Yeah ya better. I just finished clearancing all my rotors. Had to buy a new feeler gauge set as the one I had wasn't going thin enough. All my side seals are between .025mm (.001") and .038mm (.0015") Took about 3 hours to do 2 rotors. Glad I bought 14 side seals again :rofl:

Dude...... I did a few 250 mile laps around CT to get my engine broken in in time for LimeRock. Would've made it two if we didn't warp those Apex Seals on the dyno :banghead: I agree though, winter project, get on the fucking road! Summer's 1/2 over already.

Nice NICE ports. Very well done I must say.


wait a minute........... no pics of housings? :icon_bs:









:001_005:

I know I know! I try not to think about how much of summer is gone already. This little hic-up doesn't make it any easier. FUCK I wish I was just rich and didn't have to work full time.

Haha, I tried to take a picture of the housings BUT the surfaces were so smooth and shiney that all I could get was pictures with a huge glare, hehehe.

Those things are nice bro. I hope the RA seals don't eat them up too much.

After about 1 hour.....
http://i721.photobucket.com/albums/w.../GARAGE012.jpg


What turbo are you runing.

Turbonetics 62-1

:rofl: Glad you like them. I still need to get to the effing PO and send out that vid. Also got something else I'm tossin' in the box that will make your rebuild a shitton easier.

The RA seals don't seem to beat up on the housings too much from what I hear. Especially if you're running premix too.... are you?w

Regarding the RA seals, do NOT use the green bottled gel type superglue. Two out of the 6 assist pieces broke off last night. Infuriating. I found some red bottled superglue with a brush applicator that seems to work wonders.

Good to know about the glue. Thanks man.

I am ONLY running pre-mix. I am thinking of putting the OMP set up back on, a little extra cash but will be worth it.

What is the best thing to clean the rotors one final time before wraping them up until stacking the motor? I was thinking just gasoline. To actually clean the irons the first time I was gonna use WD-40/ brake clean. WD-40 works great but am unsure if it leaves any harmful residue.

I used diesel back in the day for cleaning the rotors.

Thanks again for the video bro. I have probably a week and a half hold back waiting for this front iron. At LEAST 2 ground shipment cycles due to the fuckers weight.

sean... just so you know.. my dd is soooooo much cooler than your fc hahaha lmao! im parkin her this weekend me thinks .. im not sure i have enough money to autox this weekend after i register and stuff. but man.. only problem is its gonna be an hour away and gettin time to work on it is gonna be tough tough tough. then i can start my own rebuild thread ::)

So...........Japan2la still hasn't shipped my iron to BDC since the hic-up last WED. :cuss::banghead::cuss::banghead::cuss::banghead:

Lame!!!!!!!!!!

gay

So the iron got shipped yesterday. I have at least a two week wait now. shitty.

I am however starting to clean irons and small accessories. I wonder if I should just soak the irons in something like gas or simple green?

In regards to the rust in coolant jackets, some of those bastards are small enough where i cant get to them with wire brush let alone the dremel. My intermediate iron just has a small amount of surface rust(no major chunking). I am sure that is acceptable and can be left alone correct?

Sorry about the Q'S, just trying to negate what is overkill and what is acceptable.

OH, the small black rubber inserts on the corner seal eyelet..............needed or not?

So I did some more cleaning today. So far I have:
1 rotor cleaned
rear iron cleaned
Intermediate iron cleaned sort of...
corner seal eyelets and rubbers cleaned
oil control rings/springs cleaned
Rotor housings cleaned

Today when cleaning my intermediate in found some interesting pitting ion the water seal grooves. It was actually reversed pitting like mineral deposits of some sort. I used a apex seal and a dremel ss wire wheel brush to clean them. Now the pitting actually looks like pitting.

Not too much around the bottom or top of iron but seems to be more prevelant on the sides. I am not to impressed by the water jacket condition of these parts by Japan2La. Iron Side seal wear is VERY LITTLE, just can tell this iron was ripped off a static motor and not even cleaned.

I did take a ss brush and wheel to the jackets and got most of the rust off, I am just concerned about the unaccessable areas.
Brian mentioned something about a BOIL at a machine shop. What exactly do they use in the boil(no harmful chemicals)

Here is some picks of the pitting, IT LOOKS WORSE THEN IT ACTUALLY IS, very small depth pits.

http://i721.photobucket.com/albums/w.../GARAGE126.jpg
http://i721.photobucket.com/albums/w.../GARAGE125.jpg
http://i721.photobucket.com/albums/w.../GARAGE124.jpg
http://i721.photobucket.com/albums/w.../GARAGE123.jpg
http://i721.photobucket.com/albums/w.../GARAGE122.jpg
http://i721.photobucket.com/albums/w.../GARAGE121.jpg
http://i721.photobucket.com/albums/w.../GARAGE120.jpg

I would consider using some Hylomar in those fireseals for longevity with that pitting........ anyone else have some input on that?

I dunno what they use when they Boil them..... but it never seems to hurt the old iron boiner motors.

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

SEAN just in case you dont check the montana section in the "other forum" text me about a pot luck that should be going on next sunday at the "other" kyle's house.. but you should read the post anyway

Update:

I have everything in and cleaned. I WAS going to build on Tuesday BUT I ordered a twin EGT set up that I will get Monday afternoon. I have decided to wait until I get my exhst mani drilled and taped before I get the motor in.

I will have monday, tues and wed off the week of the 17th. IF i actually get the EGT probes in on Monday and have the mani drilled and tapped by Tuesday I might just take Thurs and Friday off.

Regardless I am ready to build and have watched so many damn rebuild vids/ read the FSM I can build this fucker in my sleep.


Hopefully the break in will not be too time consuming. I think I will average 60-80 miles a day. More on the weekends.

SHIT, Do I need to get a different front counter weight now that I actually have 8.5:1 rotors instead of the S4 9.4:1 rotors?

I cant remember if I need a different one OR if S4 and S5 was the only difference between all models...

Nevermind, I know what to look for. My S4 NA rotors ARE indeed s4 because of the maching process (cast opposed to S5 milled) in the recessed bevel. So I can use the front counter weight becasue my TII rotors are the same. You keep the counter wieghts SERIES specific.

........:willy_nilly::willy_nilly:

Yup.

So you start stacking yet?

For breakin, here's what I usually do

Start and let her idle for 15 minutes before I rev her a little. And at that point it's just a few slow blips to 2k or so. After a 1/2 of run time I shut her down. I repeat that the next day but a few blips to 3k. Pull the plugs and clean them off.

Start driving. For miles 0-100 I keep the revs below 3500 and yes it is difficult
101-200 - 4500rpm
210-300 - 5500 rpm - Change oil
301-400 - 6000 rpm
401-500 - 6500 rpm
501-600 - 7000rpm
601-700 - start adding boost but keeping it to a bare minimum - again, difficult.
700+ miles - dyno.

This should entail at least 8+ heat cycles as well and a comp test before the dyno. Good luck bro, keep us updated.

Lol... your breakin cycle is vastly different then mine. Perhaps this is why I'm on engine #4....

Perhaps you should share.......... BTW - I'm on engine #4 as well.

When I helped my friend finish up his "stroked" SR20det (well I guess its an SR22det now technically) he ends up calling me about 2 days after driving it around for break in and says. "Hey... I kinda did something bad" and in typical a typical fashion, similar to reading a TTT story where the IMPORTANT information is left out til the end, my heart sank thinking the worst with the engine. Then he says "I couldn't help it and took it to 6k once, do you think it will be okay?" and I let out a sigh and told him he's good but don't do it again. :rofl:

Alright....motor is stacked! Had a buddy assist yesterday and besides a couple hic-ups it went smooth for being my first solo build.

Had a couple corner peices break the super glue due to very small corner seal eyelet mis-alignment(to much petro and rotating the rotor once placed in the housing to check for binding ended up probably moving the eyelet ever so slightly). I DO HAVE TO SAY that Halomar is more of a bitch to apply then the pet jelly. I got a hang of applying the halomar after the intermediate housing but I think I got a tube of it that was too thick.

Only thing I started to doubt myself on AFTER it was stacked was if I inserted the small apex seal srings in correctly. I did long springs first, then slid the apex/spring partailly down and then put the small spring in until it hit the bottom notch of apex seal. I used a flat tip jewelers screw driver to push the small spring down to ensure it was on the notch. Anyway, I don't know why I started to doubt myself BUT I had to get a dead rotor and rotor housing and put in a spare apex seal with spring to see what installing the small spring WRONG was like. Of course it went a hell of a lot deeper down if you missed the notch and overall reassured me I did it right.
I also have 6 audibly even pulses when I spin the motor so that was reasurring.

I am a pussy and worry too much anyhow.


Brian, break in seems short compared to the 1500 mile recommendation. :)


Thanks for the help Kyle!

Update soon

My breakin period was always just keep it out of boost up to 4K RPM for the first 100 miles, varying the engine speed (no highways, all back roads, stop and go). Pretty boring part. Then same procedure but revving to 6K until 500 miles (it would sometimes hit small amounts of boost, less than 2psi). After 500 miles I let it boost 6-8psi to 6K RPM. Then from 500 to 1000 miles I keep the boost at 6-8 but take it to 8K RPM... after that its fair game.

Proceding all of that though I would typically have already let the engine run/stop about 4 or 5 times. The initial startup I let it run for a min of 30 minutes provided no issues come up (fuel leaks, coolant leaks, vac leaks etc)...

So my procedure is a little more "risky" I suppose... but then again, I know guys who slap motors together and beat the snot out of them within the first 100 miles, so who knows... it all depends I guess.