cheers mr bugeye! you make me blush!!!

He he- I'll make paper mache copies for ya paul.

So not loads done recently- I have no excuse- its hot and sunny so I have been riding my bikes.

Turbo is all in place now. I built a little drain away for turbo oil drain into sump. I have repositioned the bottom rad outlet 15 degrees round which was an easy solder job. I mounted the oil cooler onto new brackets I welded to the bottom of the rad- the old ones had broken bolts. The rx7 cooler hoses were almost perfect- I have had one lengthened by 30mm.
I went through my collection of old rad hoses and found some that work perfect. Modified the servo hose inlet so it now sits at 90 degrees.





I might start on the new seat mountings tomorrow (after a bike ride..)

 

Seats are all done now. As I had the front holes in the right place i just made a jig out of wood and located the rear positions. I then built up little turrets in 3mm steel welded to the plates on the floor, which bolt in place.



We both got under the car with it up on stands and gave it a good chisle and brush. The underseal comes of pretty easy as its gone quite brittle. Luckily the floor is really solid! Still has the red primer in most places. I epoxy mastic 'cated?' the underside of the floor let that set over night as well as painting the brackets with it too. Very snazzy. Seats were bolted in place- so nice. No photos as yet of finished job.. I'm waiting for the right light...

The next day I towed Hannah in the viva behind our '84 1.3 racing sunny. We went to local exhaust guy who did a wicked job of piecing together a nice system out of pipe work and spare mufflers I had. I hate climbing in and out from under car on axle stands welding exhausts together with no proper bends. Glad to get someone else to do it. Put exhaust wrap on the down pipe as its close to the servo. Plus a M18 x 1.5 nut on down pipe so I can fit a lambda sensor.

While he built the exhaust from the front Hannah and I made the most of it being up on a ramp and with tools we took along scraped away as much underseal as we could- mainly at the back where it was thin. Some light surface rust on one side near spare wheel well but otherwise fine. I will epoxy mastic it all. leaving the rest of the underseal down the tunnel for now as its solid and intact. I think I might get it sand blasted later on.



Today whilst also sorting out the dud alternator I had bought I took the tank out, tipped 20 odd litres of petrol into sunny, scraped all the underseal off, discovered some mild pitting that I'm glad I found now.



I filled the tank with water to the top and drilled a new hole.



With tank then tuned on its end, hole uppermost and hannah holding it and filled it up till water came out of new hole. welding away...how do I describe it...booossshhhhh. Ther was till some vapours in there , like sod all but it shot through the pipe and weld leaving a 4mm hole. THis blew my arm which was across the tank up and over me. crikey! That put the jitter up both of us- turned me into the most paranoid welder. I just could believe the affect of such a small amount of vapour!!! It would have been no more than half a litre?

Ive now soldered in a new outlet pipe. 3/8. Now my new pump wont be sucking through a straw.

Also today picked up 6 meters of good quality cable for my boot mounted battery. Scrap man bargain- $12USD woohoo!

 

+1

 

Here's the chassis rail just before getting coated in Epoxy mastic. Pretty good- original underseal! I reckon this car has had a pampered life.



I added a breather to the fuel tank so its not just sucking air through the cap!



Brand new Carter fuel pump arrived today- waiting on a regulator to arrive. Hopefully will get through a load of the wiring tomorrow. I so want to start this engine up!!!

 

I started on all the wiring today. I have some great ideas about keeping it safe if the boost gets too high. I want to keep it all as neat as possible and easy to work on.
Today was 29 degrees and such lovely sunshine to drink coffee and play with wires in.



I had a little helper but he soon grew tired of the haynes manual wiring diagram and gave up...



Fortunately Vivas are about as simple as it gets for wiring.



I have stripped the loom right back and started again. I want to have a big fat supply to the coils- the standard mazda supply wire is bigger than the Vivas main loom feed!!! So I shall employ a relay activated by the ignition which will then feed the coils straight off the battery lead- I want big fat juicy sparks!

 

This thread is a joy to read, great job!

 

Cool- glad your enjoying it! cheers.

 

picture = 1000 words... ;D

 

Pretty much done all the wiring now. I have begun the 'list'. I'm sure many of you know what I mean. As I get close to finishing a car I start faffing from one small job to the next and always end up never finishing them for reasons like not having the bits needed etc. So I always end up making a list of remaining jobs to do and parts to get. The list is not too long- in fact the main thing stopping me from starting engine would be lack of air filter/ battery to be fitted in boot and no oils etc in engine/box yet.
I'm struggling to find a pod filter that will fit- I know there will be one out there but I dont/cant pay big K&N sort of money.

I have ordered a fule pressure gauge so I can set up regulator. The Su carb will only need 3psi. I dont want constant flooding.

This morning I spent several hours filing the sharp edges from my widened steels, filling any big dents/marks and sanding them. They now have several coats of filler primer and on thursday I will paint them. Cant wait to fit em!!!
This evening I fitted an HC viva 'organ type' throttle pedal assembly. I then discovered that the cable pull from it wasn't enough to fully open carb so I have chopped and welded up a new shortened cable pull thiingee on the carb...



I now get full throttle. The HC pedal feels nice- much better than the top hinged annoying standard HB one.

I need to mount the new carter pump, filter, malpassi regulator, mount battery box and fill engine with oil. then maybe it'll be start up time ;D
But away for some more hiking in the mountains over next two days
so it will have to wait till thursday...

 

So today was the big day. My fuel pressure gauge arrived yesterday and I spent last night making a nice wee mount for it. This morning I finished off the fuel lines and mounted the fuel regulator. I also bought some more brake line and made pipe work to my nice new flexy clutch line from mazda- cheap at $20. I went and bought some of BPs finest, mixed in some 2 stroke oil. But that in the tank, checked fuel pump. All good. It was now about 2 in the afternoon. Thought Id better fill engine with some coolent...and then this happened....



I'm pretty sure oil isnt meant to come out of the breather hole when filling radiator up with water. :?...



I wasn't as pissed off as most would normally be as I already knew when I bought the Rx7 this engine came in that it had popped the rear frost plug after a cold Welsh winter. But I had been hoping that was all that had happened. I called Hannah over and we drained all the fluids in a mad rush before they mixed too much- by this time the sump was full of coolant!

Then I stood there - pissed off and just not at all sure what to do- I really was fucked off at the prospect of spending even more time on this car when I should be finishing the housetruck. I suggested selling the car- really! But Hannah stepped in and said that would be silly after all thiis work and that she was excited about it being on the road. Should I leave it for a year or tow till we get back from down south?.. Nah- it would only fester. So we both set to work removing the engine...





I'm really hoping its just the water seals between housings and plates. But I fear worse- the water mixed so quickly that I reckon some of the castings may be frost damaged The engine came out quickly and easily at least. And it was cool that the wiring is now so sorted that it was like working on a factory fitted engine Its now on the work bench less the sump and flywheel.



I'll strip it in the morning and see what the damage is. Then I'll work out what I do. This will be the first Rotary I have stripped so its all new to me. I have always been lucky with my engines and never had any problems till now. I just hope its not bad damage.

 

I'm not sure on this but after looking carefully through the Haynes RX7 manual I cant find any reference to these two bits....



I think the centre plate is fucked.

I filled it with water this morning and it pissed out through the bottom on each side of the centre plate. So after a quick tidy of the workshop bench I started the strip down. I made a little table to sit the engine on and then carefully unstacked the sandwich.



Odd that it only has 17 through bolts. Not 18 as per the haynes rx7 manual or 19 as my old mazda workshop manuals for rx2/rx3 show? I've been told it has RX4 housings so I guess the whole engine is Rx4 as ya couldn't mix housings and plates with a different amount of through bolts eh...

Hannah helped strip the engine as it was new to both of us. We found pretty sludgy waterways. The outer water seals were really long- too long to fit back into grooves as if they had been stretched?



The ports have been tickled with a grinder - just a clean up I think. The housings looked good but I later found some deep scores on one housing right near the exhaust port as if something got stuck in there like a nut ?! So that housing is scrap which is a bloody shame as the chrome is really good and chatter marks seem minimal.



Once is was all stripped down we both set to work cleaning the sludge out to look for damage.



First up the front plate then rear plate. Centre plate. Bingo! - when I was rinsing the petrol/scum off the water going into waterways was coming out the bottom oil ways. There was a big hole and two lovely bits of casting sitting on top barely dislodged. You shouldn't be able to see my finger through here...



The centre plate also had a defined depression on one face about the size of a 10 cent piece as if a corner seal has been gouging it?...



So I'm now going to have to find a centre plate and one housing. The rotors are good and side seals, corner seals, springs, bearings, eccentric shaft etc are all ok. Tips are new. oil pump is good.

Its all cleaned, oiled up and packed away now as I cant afford to just go out and buy an engine. Maybe something will turn up - I'll just keep asking anyone I can think of who is into rotaries and see if they can help for parts. I'm a bit worried that I'll struggle to find the right housing and plate to suit 17 through bolts?

 

Heartbreaking!!!!!! Sorry mate that is sad to see after all you have done. Is it possible to buy a used 12A at a reasonable price in NZ? Or was there lower compression rotors in that one? Whatever happens don't give up

 

yeah im hoping to find one here. its just standard n/a rotors. Just not very cheap here in nz these days. They are cheap to buy in england and ive been offered a couple already by old friends there but the shipping adds up.

 

Yep, 12a stuff, especially housings, are getting scarce.

 

I am looking at some housings/ plate tonight- wish me luck....

 

Sorry for your trouble but don't give up. You have done a great job so far and it would be a shame to loose it. At least now you will be able to say "hell yeah i built the motor"!

 

Yep 13B-rx3. I'm about to start building my motor!!!

I have now got a replacement housing and centre plate. The fella I got the plate from had scribed mild ports onto plate for me to follow and I had a go at my first port grinding
Here are the standard ports...



It was much less of a drama than I thought it might be. For starters it was just a extension and smooth out job- not a big bridge or anything. It was quite fun actually! I made sure I didn't get carried away and I didn't take the runners out due to the lack of longer die grinding bits so I smoothed out the top going up to the mark then smoothed the transition from the bottom of runners to port. The standard ports had some quite sharp edges and some quite big steps. At least they are now a closer match to the front and rear ports.

Finished port...



There is a little hole in each port heading up to the top of the plate- I think its an emissions thing? should I bother blocking the hole? I don't want to run the risk of what ever I block it with falling out and getting sucked into engine so I'm hoping its fine to just leave it and blank off the big hole on top with a plate.

There is some corrosion around where the inner water seals presses against the surfaces.



After grinding I gave the plate a really good clean and also ground the casting marks off the outside for a nicer appearance once painted. Then I carefully painted some Dinitrol rust convertor into the corrosion marks.



I'll leave that overnight and then I'm thinking of putting metal bonding epoxy into the pitting so I can sand it down smooth and then there wont be any pitting under water seal. Sound good?
The pitting appears to be on each side of where the seals sit- not directly under except maybe in one small area.
Any advice on products or methods would be great. Please remember this is a budget build so things like getting the plates lapped etc are not an option. Other then the pitting the plate is in excellent condition with regards to the surfaces.

On Monday I will order a full water seal kit from Mazda and begin my first build. Quite enjoying it- I was dreading all the cleaning of the parts but the engine is actually already very clean because it had only done a few miles since its last rebuild. But I'll go over everything, clean it all carefully then piece it all back together.

I have recently bought another oil pump with the 17mm deep rotors as this engine had the very early 12mm deep ones. This will give me more oil flow plus I'll shim the oil pressure regs to bump up pressure too.

 

I managed to get a replacement housing and centre plate. The fella I got the plate from had scribed mild ports onto plate for me to follow and I had a go at my first port grinding
Here are the standard ports...



It was much less of a drama than I thought it might be. For starters it was just a extension and smooth out job- not a big bridge or anything. It was quite fun actually! I made sure I didn't get carried away and I didn't take the runners out due to the lack of longer die grinding bits so I smoothed out the top going up to the mark then smoothed the transition from the bottom of runners to port. The standard ports had some quite sharp edges and some quite big steps. At least they are now a closer match to the front and rear ports.

Finished port...



There is some corrosion around where the inner water seals presses against the surfaces.



After grinding I gave the plate a really good clean and also ground the casting marks off the outside for a nicer appearance once painted. Then I carefully painted some Dinitrol rust convertor into the corrosion marks.



The pitting appears to be on each side of where the seals sit- not directly under except maybe in one small area.

I managed to get some JB weld off trademe and I carefully filled in all the little pits. I dabbed the epoxy into the pits leaving it proud. I gave it a few minutes to settle in then I would scrape the top off carefully with a stanley blade. I filled in any tiny little mark- even ones that probably would have been fine but as it was so easy and satisfying to do I couldn't help it.



I left the first side over night with a box over it so no dust would stick to epoxy and it settled down nicely just a few thou below the level of the plate which is ideal as I don't need to sand it at all. Once clamped tightly between housings with a a seal over it it certainly should seal fine and won't be going anywhere!



It rained on the day I did this lot here. Felt cosy inside as I checked seal clearances etc



The side seal to corner seal clearance is meant to be be between .002" to .006" but one several I have maybe .002"/.003" more. I have played musical side seals and swapped them all about to try and get them best I can but with out going out and spending money on new seals (not an option as my money tree as died long ago) I am going to just have to deal with it.

The way I figure this engine was a runner before it got frost bite and had it not had a broken casting necessitating a strip down I would not have known about any little issues like .003 extra clearance... I bet there are loads of rotas out there plugging away with all sorts of massive amounts of clearances that Mr Mazda man in Japan wouldn't be happy with....

So I gave up worrying and did something far more important. I polished the housings up... 8)



While I did this Hannah sat near the woodstove and built me a new wheel for my crossbike - she had a little helper. We have pinched one of mums kittens to keep us company..



After my polishing efforts I gave it the seal grooves a nice clean out and anywhere else that needed it like all the scum that had sat in the bottom waterways. I have got some new water seals from Mazda (read big o-rings with hefty price tag- rip off artists).

 

Engine is all built now. Hannah helped me with it so we both learned - I bought some Hylomar universal blue jointing compound for the plate to housing faces as it doesn't set hard and allowed us to take time.
Hannah getting sticky fingers....



This is the first rotary build I have done. It went well and was quite fun/satisfying The best bit I think was tightening the through bolts up and seeing the 0.75mm gaps between the plates and housings where the water seal O rings were holding them apart close up for a nice tight seal (hopefully...)
It was tricky getting the middle plate in place- Hannah had to pull the eccentric shaft up 1" while I moved the plate into position. Looking back now I think it would be much easier just to have put a block of wood on table under shaft to lift it the required height but hey- thats learning eh!



The worst bit was the bloody woodruff key for the oil pump- I kept getting pushed out as I tried to slip both pulleys on at same time with chain attached. Speaking of oil pumps- I had bought a later oil pump from a 12a turbo engine- it has 17mm wide rotors in it rather than the 12mm wide ones my engine had. I stripped both down for a quick looksie and my old ones show scoring from sucking up some crap in the sump- I would have thought the oil would go through the filter first..Nup. So I made sure the sump and underside of block was well clean inside before finally mounting sump in place.



I also modified both oil pressure regulators- the front one I added an 1/8th" shim under spring and the rear one I took to a friends garage, used his press and squashed the top down. Both these mods will give 80-90 psi rather than the stock 60ish. So with my high flow pump and upped pressure the engine should be a bit safer for its increased power output.

Front regulator...



Rear Regulator...



For the oil pump to front cover feed I fitted a .5mm thicker O ring then the standard Mazda item because the Mazda supplied one only just sits proud of the gasket. I have read of problems here where the oil pressure can force past the O ring and so dropping overall pressure. Some people fit the cover with out the gasket to squash the O ring more but I don't think there is enough of a step in the casting to hold the o ring in place under high pressure where as with the gasket fitted and surrounding the o ring it cant go anywhere.



I gave the new centre plate a matching coat of colour ad went over the whole thing touching up where the paint had chipped while it was stripped. I'm using Resene water based enamel. Its more flexible to cope with expansion plus its resistant to petrol, oils etc. I'm curious to see how it'll hold up.





An Irish friend I met via Retro rides who has immigrated to NZ is coming across tomorrow to help fit the engine in place- and get his classic car fix. Hopefully we'll start it up!

 

Ok- well it starts... sort of. In fact it started on first turn of the key after I had finished building the oil pressure up and turned ignition cut switch back on. But wouldn't run for more than 1 or 2 secs. With the choke pulled right out it ran for about 5 seconds and sounded good but then died. Then the SU carb would flood. Then it wouldn't let any fuel out through jet. then it would flood. Just to confirm it was fuel related I checked the ignition and all leads produced good enough sparks. I must buy new leads though, I'm using manky old ones, all I could find at the time. Next I checked the compression. My tester isn't a proper one for rotaries though which will give a reading for each face, its just a normal type which will show the best of three faces per rotor. I was getting about 90+ psi which seems fine.

So the carb jet is blocked and or the float valve is acting the goat. Carb is now off and I had a a look at it last night, its really clean inside with out the usual signs of gum deposits from old petrol. I think that having put a plug on the float chamber vent hole didn't help matters :roll: I also checked the float chamber valve with my expensive float chamber valve checking apparatus...



I'm glad the engine started anyway! And its sounded nice and quiet ....from what I could tell. I hope I don't go out in the morning to find a big pool of oil/coolant/blood under car or something silly as right now I'm going to go to bed happy. I must say its strange to be starting a rotary without the usual stamp stamp on pedal and then start then blipping throttle for a bit till it warms up like with webber and nikki carbs I'm more used to. And its nice to have the engine back where it belongs- not in bits under the bench 8)

BIg cheers out to Dave for coming over to help with install. He is missing his Avenger Tiger in Ireland so here was a chance to get oily hands.

 

Its a runner!!! I had given carb a check over, discovered float height was way off and wouldn't have closed needle valve properly! Re set that, after much searching for info on proper oil to run in dashpot damper and decided to go with 3 in 1 which is meant to be about the 20 weight required.

Re-installed carb which luckily is really easy. Checked fluid levels which were spot on. Went to start it and no fuel to the carb from regulator??!! I removed a bung I had put over the rising rate vent tube on top of my Malpassi reg, it hissed and fuel was delivered So that was part of the problem then. Turned key. nothing. choke out. Vrrrrommmmm 8)

Here is the vid...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbyNveYwuUw

Pretty bloody happy. The exhaust sounds good- not too loud. Biggest issue is the temp gauge- I have ford escort sender installed and it reads too high on viva gauge, like 40 when cold and off the scale before fan even comes on (82). Prozac on oldschool.co.nz mentioned fitting some resistors in line to drop the reading. How many/what resistance?
And this being my first turbocharged petrol engine I have question on boost gauges.. my gauge reads vacuum at idle and then when I stab the pedal will go back up to 0? When should it show boost?

So list of things to do are;
Fit a air filter
Fit my rev counter subtly under dash,
Sort temp sender. Maybe install a decent after market gauge and sender?
Fit a lambda gauge.
Fit boost gauge.
Cert car and drive.

Very F-ing happy I am! Now back to housetruck work....

alex

 

Too cool! Congrats! Don't work on that truck for too long

 

Great job! It's good to see you following trough and accomplishing your goals! Vac going to Zero when you stab the throttle is normal. Usually you wont see boost free revving it unless you get pretty aggressive. Once you load the engine on a drive boost should come on nicely. Just make sure the mixture is happy before getting carried away, you don't wan't to have to build that motor again

 

Nice build. Good on you for making do and getting creative to solve you problems. Car sounds good!

 

So friggin' glad she works mate, you and Hannah have done a great job