I just recently bought a third gen with a bad motor. I’ve rebuilt a few before and the car was other wise in good shape. It had all the sighs of a blow seal. So I take her apart. The rotor housing, front, int, and end housing are in great shape. It appears that this was a street ported 3mm apex seal upgrade from Pettit with upgraded Pettit ECU. So I’m taking it apart I pop off the oil pan and it looked I stuck gold. Little bits of brass were all over the place. Then I start with the rest of the engine slice by slice. When I get to the rear rotor and pull it off the E shaft and the rotor bearing falls out and hit the ground. I take a look at the inner diameter of the rotor where the bearing fell out from. It had some scratches and some pitting but the combustion surface looked great. Closer inspect of the bearing it self and the e-shaft showed deep scratches and pitting. The rotor bearing was so worn that the beveling from the factory to seal the joint in the bearing was worn away. Inspection of the front rotor showed some scratching of the E-shaft and rotor bear but nothing like the rear rotor. So my question is what’s my next step?

1. new e-shaft of course

2. maybe new rear rotor or a new rotor bearing and new rotor bearing for the front rotor.



But my next and biggest concern is let’s say I replace E-shaft and rear/front rotor with the 3mm seals will it happen again?

Should a just replace everything like above and just go back to the 2mm seals?

What I’m really asking is why did this happen?

I’m just guessing here but not enough oil at high rpms maybe



Can any one help?

 

Sounds as if it went do to exactly that...not enough oil at the upper limits. I would just get new rotor bearings and E-shaft. Sounds like you got "lucky"

 

It happend again. Front stationary gear damage or should i say melt down. The brass is all over the bottom of the oil pan. I'm thinking that its the front oil pressure regulator. When i first took it apart it was stuck and had to pretty much pry it out. And this time once again it was stuck. Should i replace the the steel oil plunger or the whole front cover, or Both. There are some scraches on the pluger but nothing to bad.

any help i don't want to go through another rotor and e-shaft again.

 

sorry to hear it happened again

 

at this point you should take the housings that ar still good, and throw the rest away



mike

 

i don't like pettit all that much, you can get a new oil pellet from mazdatrix for like $3. a new front housing will cost $200.78 :bigok: so i would say just get a new oil pellet and get a curved file and smooth out the pellet passage way, that should fix it. if not, u can always take it to mazda and have them work on it

 

Sounds like bad luck.I almost have to agree with mike on this one.Too bad tho.3mm apexs are aweome.I'd say get it running again and sell it before its too late.

 

Did you check to see if it spun a bearing? Quite possibly the cause of the bearing meltdown and lack of oil pressure to the bearings.

art

 

I say, get a new front cover. You could be able to fix the front pressure regulator, but with two rebuild on it now, why **** around. Just do it right.

 

I have seen pettit engines being ported in the area of the oil pump. this is done to improve oil flow, but reduces oil pressure drastically. check your front side housing and check for that modification. Look in the oil pump installation area.