March 7, 2012

Ready, Steady, Brap!

Yes "brap", and plenty of it! This past weekend the RE-Zelse team was working on the Blueberry's motor at Wankel Works. Luis and Raul from Wankel Works allowed the team to work with them throughout the build. When the motor was broken down Luis was able to spot weaknesses in my previous porting. Needless to say, Luis custom ported the irons.

The motor had roughly 25,000 miles on it before I pulled it out. After the engine pieces were examined All of the seals, rotors, and irons were in perfect working order, internally speaking.  
Rear Rotor after opening the motor up
With everything disassembled, the cleaning began. This was the roughest part of the entire rebuild process. Every nook and cranny needed to be cleaned of all of the build up before the porting could begin. 
Removing carbon from the center iron
With the cleaning finished, the porting can now commence. Luis port matched the entire motor after expanding my existing ports. I cannot show off his port job, but I can show my old ports verse the OE ports on the front iron. I also have this great picture of me giving porting a try as well!
Porting my own engine!
(left) OE front iron (right) Street ported front iron
Because my apex and corner seals were in near perfect condition, I chose to reuse them again. Here they are ready to drop into the motor.
Completed rotor that is ready for installation
After assembling the rotors we were ready to move on to the housings. We used Hylomar to seal the housings and irons together which should ensure a strong bond. 
Rotor housing with Hylomar
We continued to assemble the motor into the early hours of Sunday night. As I mentioned in my first blog post, I am going to use the RX-7 FD oil pressure regulator for higher oil pressure throughout the system.
RX-7 FD oil pressure regulator installed
Then we slapped the oil pan on, and continued to finish the rebuild. I cannot express enough thanks to Luis and Raul at Wankel Works for everything and for allowing the team to help build this motor.
Assembled 13B-MSP
We have a good amount of video footage to go through for a follow up post with the build overview and the shenanigans that occurred. Before I head back into the garage and get ready to swap these motors, I've got some other updates with the Blueberry.

My track days have been added to the team schedule and the first event will be at New Jersey Motorsports Park from April 21st to April 22nd. This will be my third time at the track. Boy, things have surely changed. Stay tuned for more updates and this season is starting to actively ramp up!

4 comments:

Ellie Melendez said...

Of course you were going to get a GREAT JOB DONE!!! THOSE ARE MY BOYS YOUR TALKING ABOUT...!!! :-)

Marc Monnar said...

Haha, thanks for the comments Ellie! :) It was a great time and we all learned a lot from it.

Luis Rivera said...

It was a great pleasure working with you guys and I plan on working more with the team with anything you need

Marc Monnar said...

Thanks Lui, looking forward to working more with you in the future as well! I think we will be able to accomplish a lot of goals if we work together.