I'm working on building up an aggressive street ported 12a to replace my
current stock port. The current engine is very strong and still has a lot of
life left in it and I intend to use it in another project.
What I have are 2 engines I've purchased over the past 2 years. The first
is a 12a that was rebuilt with a full Atkins Kit C for 75 bucks. This engine
died swallowing a bolt. You can actually see the bolt threads on the exhaust
port as it exited. Very entertaining, I'll get pics for you later. Anyway, for
the money and if it had been built with a full Atkins kit C then its well worth
it. The second engine is a original 12a that was just plain worn out
and had little compression in the rear rotor.
We will call the first engine A and the second B. Engine A I purchased for
$75.00 and engine B I got for $50.00. Since this is a budget build my goal
is to do a SP 12A for just a few hundred. So far I've got $125.00 into it.
I expect a soft seal kit to be about $120.00 and then I may need to get
few hard seals here and there. For porting I have some folks I can borrow
or make templates from. Might get this done for less than $300.00, actually
I have to because otherwise my wife will notice
So the the A engine looks like it really has all the new stuff from an Atkins
kit C. The apex seals are all like new as are most of the side seals. I'm still
disassembling it but I have to think I can save some coin reusing a bunch
of this stuff. The rear rotor is toast as it got beat pretty badly as it
moved that bolt thru its rotation. When I got the engine the rear rotor was
full of coolant. I flushed it with oil and wd40 and spun it with a my impact
when I first got it to flush it all out. Surprisingly the rear housing has no
big gouges or scores in it. I have to clean it up and measure it to make
sure its good still but it looks pretty good. The front housing and rotor are
in great shape. Reusable for sure. Too bad the rear rotor is trash because
I think this is an 83 rotating assembly.
The B engine is beat. All the seals are I'm sure out of spec and all the springs
are pretty beat as well. The good news is that its an 80 12a. I like this
because I want to use the side plates. Also the rotating assembly is in
good shape. The bearings are worn but just showing a lot of copper, no
scratches or weird wear marks on the eshaft.
So my plan is to use the rotating assembly from the B engine along with its
side plates and use the housings from the A engine as they have no flaking.
So heres some of my questions. I will be measuring all clearances and so
forth to make sure any reused pieces are in spec. I would like to try to
reuse as much of the hard seals from the A engine as possible because
that engine really wasn't run enough to even break in the engine. It sucked
down a bolt and blew its coolant seal shortly after being installed.
1. Can I reuse the apex seals given they meet spec?
2. Should I reuse springs? They all seem like new.
3. Most of the side seals came out intact. Use em?
4. The oil control rings on the rotors came out with no problem. Reuse?
5. The corner seals are mostly good. Reuse?
6. Can I pull the bearings from the A rotors and reuse them? They look
brand new, no copper at all!
7. Where the bolt went thru the exhaust port theres a gouge. I'll have to get
a picture up of that but I'm thinking the street port of the exhaust may take
care of it.
I will of course get a complete soft seal rebuild kit for the rebuild.
I know this thread is useless without pics. I'll get some I promise. I have to
clean things up this weekend and then take the pics.