As most of you already know, we took apart my rx-7 specialties motor a few months ago in order to "freshen" it up for the new season.. unfortunately, some things were not in proper order and an entire rebuild of the motor was required...
It's now been 2 weeks and about 500kms since the new motor has been installed in the car, so I figured I would just post some impressions:

The new motor is now using S4 rotor housings and rotors.. we unfortunately could not salvage the S5 housings from the old motor..

The "streetporting" done on the secondary plates were made larger and cleaner than the original portwork.. The primary ports also grew in size quite a bit.. almost to match the secondaries..

The exhaust ports were actually ported this time, rather than just being "cleaned" up..

Stock mazda 2 piece seals were installed along with with FD corner seal springs and corner seals (this time they all had the rubber inserts installed)

New oil control rings as well as rotor and stationary gear bearings were also installed..

Enough with the motor details..

After the motor was fired up and let run for a little bit, we decided to take a look at the compression numbers.. with about 20 mins total running time on the motor, it cranked out 85psi... already, the motor has more compression than my old motor .. yay!

The old motor used to never want to fire up cold.. it would require alot of cranking before it finally caught.. however, it always fired up okay with a warm motor..
As I get more mileage on the new motor, Cold startups are getting easier and easier.. It now fires up without excessive cranking when cold.. usually within the first few rotations of the motor.. I still have some rough idling while the motor warms up, but I attribute that more to the wolf3d's lack of flexability then anything..

At idle, the car has a nice lope/brap to it.. you can definitely hear the overlap, it's not glass smooth, but it's definitely a much stronger idle than the old motor.. you can also feel quite a big diffrence in exhaust velocity when standing by the mufflers..

People will tell you that they don't port the primaries because you will loose too much low end power.. I was initially afraid of this.. and perhaps that would be true in an N/A.. however, I can tell you that compared to the old motor, I have no lack in low end power whatsoever.. in fact, I probably have gained... cruising around in 4th gear at 2000 rpm, then accelerating, the car has no problem whatsoever pulling through....

With the old motor, I was seeing pretty late spool times on my turbo.. 14psi wouldn't hit until well over 5000rpm... I am now seeing 14psi boost in 4th gear by 4000rpm... that is a substantial reduction of lag.. the car is completely transformed into a diffrent driving experience..

When i got to the higher rpm ranges at higher boost on the old motor, I would see quite a fluctuation in readings on my wideband.. No matter what I did to my fuel/timing maps, I could not get them to be steady.. I have now noticed on my new motor that my readings on the wideband stay quite steady when on boost.. tuning is alot easier.. the motor is quite a bit more sensitive to little changes I make in my maps, unlike the old motor, which would require larger changes before I would see a diffrence in readings..

All in all, the car is up and running.. I won't know for sure until I get on the dyno as to what it's potential is, however in comparision to the old motor, It certainly is making quite a bit more power and is quite a bit more driveable...

Next: Ebay Clutch Update:

I decided to take a risk and replaced my ACT 6 puck unsprung disc + Heavy duty pressure plate with a XTD clutch kit purchased off ebay....
The ebay clutch kit came with a 6 puck SPRUNG disc, pressure plate, release bearing, pilot bearing, and clutch alignment tool.. total cost to me shipped to my door was $300... how coudl you beat that? cheaper than buying a stock clutch!
Once we finally got the motor and tranny back in the car and bled the clutch, I hopped into the car to check pedal feel... gone was the heavy leg workout that the ACT heavy duty pressure plate gave.. the clutch pedal was very easy to actuate.. some friends mentioned that it felt easier than a stock clutch setup...
This initially scared me, since I wasn't too confident that the clutch would hold up to the car's power... but I guess we would find out soon enough..

Driving with the clutch is very very easy.. It's not grabby at all, unlike the ACT 6 puck, which was basically an on/off switch.. driveing in traffic is a breeze.. It's such a nice change from the old setup..But is it going to slip??

Well, let's put it this way.. my old motor put down 371rwhp.. with about 320ish ft/lbs of torque.. My new motor feels quite a bit stronger than the old motor.. I have been giving it some boost lately.. and the clutch has held up.. I havn't had it slip... Mind you, I have not done any real hard 6000rpm launches on the clutch, nor do I plan on doing it with this setup, But so far I'm quite happy and impressed with it... I figure that this clutch would definitely hold up to a stock/mildly modified setup and would be a great choice.. mainly because of the price.. On a more heavily modified car, I belive the clutch will hold up so long as it's not put through too much abuse.. I'm sure that I could overpower this clutch easier than I would have been able to with the ACT setup.. but I think that it will do it's job just fine so long as I don't over do it... The real test I guess will be when I get back on the drag strip.. we'll see how it holds up there...

All in all - 2 thumbs up on the new motor, and 2 thumbs up on the cheapo XTD clutch setup !

 

iv been looking at these clutches my self now that mine is starting to slip if i jump on it around 4k.. how many miles have you put down on it so far? and your rite for the price it works for me rite now being that i need to stop dumping big money into to this car.. lol

 

....500km on new engine and you are already at 14psi!?!?!?!!?! Hahahaha, if I didn't love you before, I do now!!!! You da Man! GO Wolf GO!

Any pics of the porting?

Nice work Chris. Soon it will be time for a 400whp dyno.

I'm not sure I could live without my leg-cramp inducing ACT XPP, though.

 

Laugh.. I am sure alot of people will give me flak about my motor "break in" procedure.. probably better to call it my motor "breaking" procedure instead..

The only thing I'm really concerned about is spinning the new bearings in the rotors and the stationary gear.. but while I'm giving it some boost (and the motor is loving it ) I have yet to take it beyond 5500rpm.. I should have 1000km's on the motor by next week.. so we'll do another compression check and see how things are going at that point .. but so far so good....hehe.. yeah.. go wolf go.. actually I'm really contemplateing going the route you took and moving to a haltech.. this new motor is really begging for more load points.... Hey, why don't I see your numbers posted on the dyno day you guys had??

Unfortunately we didn't get a chance to take pics of the new porting.. my bad.. I just wanted to get the motor back together as quickly as possible so I didn't bother stopping for photo ops

I'm really don't miss the ACT at all after switching.. maybe I'm getting old and the 'ol left leg isn't like it used to be... It was a chore driving with that clutch around town... but we'll see how long this ebay clutch holds up.. I may have no other choice then to either change my driving style or go back to a heavier clutch...

Chris

 

The car is a whole different animal that's for sure. Right from the moment you hear the thing start you know things are alot better under the hood. The car used to take a few spins to fire up, and it always sounded weak at startup. The low comp numbers the motor put out I think explained this. The new motor even with the low kms it has fires up 100 times better, and just sounds stronger. Just to be real clear about this the exact same comp tester was used on the previous motor and the new one, warm motor, open throttle plates. The old motor NEVER made 85psi, the new one did it with 20 minutes of run time, not bad if you ask me. I actually tried to talk Chris out of doing a comp test so early, but he was insistant The car pulls hard, spools the turbo quick, and just feels better on and off boost.

I've been giving Chris a hard time about his "break in" period, as well. Maybe I'm just jelous he's got the ***** to run more boost with 500kms than I am with my 3000kms hahaha ah well. All in all things went pretty smooth, and turned out well. I know when Chris pulled apart that last motor and found what we found he was pretty down. And it took some scrambing and dealing to get the parts together but I think he would agree it's been worth it. I look forward to getting some solid numbers to prove just exactly how much stronger this motor is.

 

ebay clutch? got a link to one?

 

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eB...category=33730

I originally purchased mine for $203usd + shipping.. He now has these at 188usd ..heck of a deal..
I recieved the clutch within 5 business days via ups.. he did ship the item underdeclared to save on duty.. I did not ask him to do this, but it was appreciated... I wouldn't hesitate to purchase another kit from this seller again in the future.. and no.. I do not get kickbacks from him for endorsing his product

 

Thats awesome to hear, boost at break in hehe.

NOEEss another wolf guy goes haltech

 

Good you got your car running after the fresh rebuild. Feels great, eh? I hear you on the Primaries. Mine are just as big as the secondaries and the power *all through out* the power band Is phenominal!

Your description as to the before and after, In relation to the symptoms/observations, of the former and new Engine sound exactly as mine does. Good stuff.

 

I just spent 635 shipping included for a SPEC stage 3 and Spec billet aluminum flywheel...

You should've told me earlier!