Fast forward to May 29, 2007, with my engine torn down,I continued the quest for good parts and continued with THE cleaning. I cleaned and prepped parts for weeks. I had up to that point obtained access to parts from THREE blown engines and had torn all three down. As is typical all three had one broken apex seal tip in the rear rotor (the Hurley seal engine actually had two). The two using OEM apex seals destroyed the rotor and housing, mine being one of them, the third using Hurley apex seals had housing and rotor that survived unscathed. After several hours cleaning one afternoon I slice open my pinky finger on an oil control ring (they are sharp!)...at which point I quit cleaning stupid engine parts. Stitches? Nah, we don't need no stinkin' stitches! The wife was none too happy with the trail on blood on the kitchen floor. She thinks I'm an idiot. I know I am. At that point I still had to: modify the e-shaft oil jets (my own e-shaft only - unless I figured it was easy and wouldn’t take too long), spec bearing tolerance for rotors to e-shaft, finish cleaning (wire wheel) the rest of the assembly hardware (namely tension bolts for a second motor), and a final rinse of ALL parts with carb cleaner. Then I would be ready for stacking some motors!

The momentum builds and by June 14, 2007, things were moving at a decent pace. But I had to ask why was it taking me more than a year to assemble a stupid engine? Well if you try and do all the following it takes a while:

port intake sides of TWO sets of irons - that's EIGHT ports
port two rotor housings - exhaust ports.
port match intake runners (irons to LIM)
clean up and port oil pump housing.
modify e-shaft oil ports.
clean, prep, and paint the TWO sets of irons (six total).
clean, prep, and paint a pair of housings.
clean and polish one pair of housings.
scrub and clean every component until it looks like new...enough for TWO engine rebuilds.

Cleaned and prepped irons for two builds. The finished sets.

All ready for assembly of engine Number 1. Spotless rotors.

More assembly ready parts. Rebuild parts, gaskets, seals, etc.

It's Friday and I am absolutely amazed at what I can get done when the wife and kids are away for the week! In truth I really needed the weekend to fix a REAL COCK-UP I had made during one of my rebuilds. Embarrassing? Yes, but I’ll share it anyway. I had to tear down a fresh rebuild …a mistake engine...the one for my own FD and rebuilt it. Why? Under the gun from family commitments (nothing like the wife giving you the stink eye when it’s 10 minutes before the time you need to leave for one of your sons soccer games and you are still elbows deep in Vaseline and engine parts to make you lose your concentration) I rushed the final assembly and put the assembled rear rotor in the front and the front in the rear. “So?” You might ask. Well by doing so, the oil control ring springs will not seat, the oil control rings will spin instead of staying locked in position in the rotors, and the oil seals will prematurely fail. How the hell did I know I did this? As you can see I take LOTS of pictures and when reviewing the pictures the evening after I finished the rebuild I saw my own markings on each rotor in a couple of pictures and knew immediately I’d hosed it up. Like I said earlier…I KNOW I’m an idiot, my wife only thinks I am. Just now there is proof! SO…THE RIGHT WAY THIS TIME…IDIOT! It was a real PITA regluing the apex seals (assembly breaks all the preglued OE seals so when disassembling an engine they all, literally, fall apart) but it worked out fine in the end. The water seals had not "swelled" up from exposure to the Vaseline, so they stayed in their grooves for reassembly (good to know if there is a next time). No bolts stripped or gave me any problems. So all was well again in the world. I did all that on a Friday evening. Just for grins I timed myself: Complete Teardown - 2 hours 48 minutes. Gluing apex seals ~1 hour (the learning curve). Complete Rebuild - 4 hours 8 minutes. I was in bed by 12:30pm. :-)

What's wrong with this picture? Hint: it has something to do with the "F" on the rotor and the fact that it's facing the **rear** of the engine!

Saturday, after taking care of other family matters, around 2pm I started prepping for the second engine rebuild, my spare. I hated having so many loose parts floating around my garage so having enough parts for another engine I decided to assemble it and tuck it away for future use. Things like cleaning up the oil pan and all those piddly oil pan bolts did take A LOT of time so it was a delay of sorts. I glued the aftermarket Atkins apex seals to ease in the assembly process just like I did with the OEM seals in my “rebuilt” fresh motor. The OEM seals conveniently come preglued - the aftermarket seals do not. I cut new inserts for the corner seals (this engine got factory corner seals and not the solids). All this general prep killed the whole afternoon. Fast forward to Sunday July 17, 2007, 10am. I started by spec'ing all the parts. All the bearing tolerances were decent... thank goodness! It would really have sucked to have a nice inventory of good clean good parts that didn't fit together! By noon I began assembly. And was done by 8pm (with an hour for lunch/dinner). Funny how when I'm on a roll I forget to eat. With that, I had not one but two fully assembled nice shiney red and silver street ported engines.

TWINS!

By October, I had a fully assembled long block. All the nice shiney pieces were fitted to the engine. I had spent considerable time finish polishing the water pump housing, coolant filler neck, and the water pump itself and pulley to satisfy my OCD. The oil filter tower was polished, as was the sensor manifold on the tower and both were dry mounted. The fuel lines and injectors all dry fitted also (More here). The exhaust manifold and turbo was hung on the engine while it was on the stand to make sure the coolant and oil lines were the right length and would clear the airpump (More here). I ran the vacuum lines to the wastegate (More here). The air control valve (ACV) was fitted to the LIM and the two remaining control solenoids were mounted on a custom made bracket on the underside of the UIM and plumbed to the ACV – the original solenoid rack was long gone. With all the stuff under the UIM fitted I installed the (repolished) UIM and the finished throttle body. The fuel pressure regulator was hung off the front of the UIM and the fuel lines test fitted. I also mounted the OMP and ran the OMP lines (More here)in addition to the timing sensors on the front cover. I installed a new oil pressure sensor. These OE pieces are so failure prone I have no idea how long it will last. Sometimes though there are things that just escape thought. In mounting the UIM and TB I noticed that the fuel vapor reservoir wouldn’t fit with the fat AN-10 fuel feed line coming into the splitter block mounted on top of the block. Time to make another bracket to shift the vapor reservoir slightly off-center. It’s always the small things. By the end of this effort I had an essentially fully assembled long-block ready to drop into an engine bay. The only thing absent was the main electrical wiring harness. It sure did look pretty on the engine stand however!

Install Ready