Hi. I bought a Mazda RX7 Twin turbo last december. It had a £3.3k street ported Hurley engine, high flow twins from Turbo Technics, HKS intercooler, Apexi PFC, Dragon straight through system and downpipe and HKS twin alloy hard pipe setup.
Initially the car was very quick indeed. The engine had completed 1500 miles and had been mapped at WGT.
After another 3000miles it became very sluggish, hard to start and temperamental.
This thread will be a story explaining what went wrong and what I have learnt. Please do not post on it unless you have some vital thoughts as it could become rather too long and I\'d like it to be a good piece of reference.
I should explain that I am a Design Engineer at the only UK owned and built motorcycle manufacturer and i have some usefull experience in engine building gained on VW piston engine building.
What happened?
The engine was fitted and run in. Hurleys serviced the engine at 1500miles and I have the warranty certificate.
At some point the induction and exhaust parts were fitted and the turbos were sent to turbotechnics for modification. The car was rolling roaded with a new PFC at WGT and about 300BHP was produced.
The owner was not happy and WGT pronounced the engine was not good.
On return to Hurleys the car was compression tested OK and because the warranty had been voided (understandably) there was nothing that could be done.
After a while and many checks on the rest of the engine systems the owner sold the car to me. Neglecting to mention he thought is was not a strong engine!!
After purchase I gave the car the reaming of its life for many a mile and noticed a few problems.
Above 6.5k rpm the boost creeped slowly from 0.9 to 1.2 bar and sometimes the car cut out and banged. I thought this most exciting! :2eek
Then a coolant hose blew and the coolant level sensor was faulty so the car got quite hot. I replace the hose and another blew. Car overheated again. Then the third small bore coolant pile blew and the car overheated again! All in one month.
On close inspection the hoses had either had screwdrivers down them or been ripped off stretching the 15 year old rubber. Its unbelievable that Hurleys don\'t replace these hoses. They do not have to be formed hose. They cost about £3 to replace . I urge everyone to replace these ASAP.
The pipes are: to and from the throttle body and a short hose from the back of the waterpump housing just behind the filler cap.
The car now became near impossible to start hot and difficult when cold. The low coolant levels had lead to the pump being starved and the coolant system failing. Rotor and housing temperatures would of soared and this tempered the apex seal springs reducing sealing. Detonation occured also flattening one seal pair completely flat!
At this point I had learned enough to realise the injector readings and boost creep were also shortening the engines life. The car still had standard 550/850 injectors and I was seeing 80% duty at 6k rpm. This is the limit you ever want to reach as the injectors become non-linear at this point. I should like to state at this point that Pip (WGT) informed the owner that the car needed bigger injectors and better fuelling.
The boost creep was caused I believe by Turbotechnics..more to come.
Jon
Interesting....... would like to know more before any comment though.
Quote from: JON_BIRMINGHAMThe boost creep was caused I believe by Turbotechnics..more to come.
They were given turbos to make flow more? in which case they did good! You cant blame them for making the turbos out flow the stock turbo packs wastegate, can u?
There was initially a serious boost creep problem. The wastegate area of the castings were in poor condition. This was repaired by TTechnics with steel inserts. Unfortunately the ID of these inserts was smaller than the original casting and the wastegates were incapable of bypassing enough exhaust gas to allow boost control. As I understand it Pip informed TT of the problem and these inserts were machined out. However, when I received the car the wastegates were still incapable of achieving boost control. If a baffle plate was placed in the exhaust then boost control became stable. Which supports the argument.
20B boy. TT were providing a turbo package to a customer. The product was uncontrollable. Not an ideal solution and one that was never rectified properly. The point of this post is to educate not blame.
At this point the exhaust manifold started leaking and I took the car off the road and removed the engine. I shall explain my findings tomorrow. Thanks for reading.
As said before my hurley engine was not good either, the hoses that need replacing were not and some were perished and brittle, there was a fuel leak, a couple of oil leaks and the AST tank had been repaired with fibreglass. The hose from the brake servo to the inlet manifold which has a valve fitted had been replaced with a straight pipe.
Also i have a receipt stating a brand new engine was fitted into the car, and this is how the car was sold to me by the previous owner, but it has truned out to be a rebuilt engine. Due to the problems i had with the engine and the fact that hurleys didnt want to put it righti took it elsewhere for its 5,000 mile service therefore my warranty was voided. The bill for this new engine to be fitted was almost £4000 which i\'m glad i didnt pay
I made the mistake of going to Hurley Engineering for around 4/5 months (spend thousands) and it wasn\'t until I put 2+2 together and did some further investigating that I realised they were the source of all my problems.
I found WGT and have not looked back since.
Perhaps it\'s that simple?!
Have heard from a few people about Hurleys not exactly being very professional or competent so these findings so far aren\'t suprising, although a few have had no probs with them ie JohnF who has a hurley engine without fault so far so not all doom and gloom but quite close :3Confused
Problem number 1 = Hurleys!
Problem number 2 = Turbo Technics!!
"ie JohnF who has a hurley engine without fault so far so "
Did blow Sept last year after I\'d owned it for tow years Gurj, but 2 years ain\'t bad. Not great either..
John
Quote from: johnf"ie JohnF who has a hurley engine without fault so far so "
Did blow Sept last year after I\'d owned it for tow years Gurj, but 2 years ain\'t bad. Not great either..
John
Didn\'t know that John,in which case they are rubbish, 2 yrs isn\'t nearly close enough to being acceptable :confused:
Not wishing to upset the apple cart, is there anyone brave enough to sing the praises of Hurley\'s???????
Having owned my rotary for getting on for 6 years and Hurley have been trading for far longer than that surely there must be some positive feed-back, otherwise you would have thought they would have stopped trading by now???
As we all know the best of them [vendors] get it wrong from time to time, so there MUST be some satisfied customers surely?
I had a Hurley engine in my FC, threw a tip in a BIG way! Still, I bought the car with 30k on the engine and the rebuild had been done over 5 yrs previously so didn\'t make any odds as the rebuild was in the plan at some point! Still I have heard one or two negative things about them as well - won\'t be putting them in writing as heresay shouldn\'t be spread on forums IMHO!
What mileage was on the engine out of interest John?
if my engine lasted 2 years i would be over the moon!!!
i\'m slightly curious and dont want to start an argument but...... why is it when Hurleys is mentioned its a free for all slag off but as soon as its one of the (lets say) popular tuners, the thread is closed and dissapears! Not really fair, and the only thing i can think of is Hurleys arnt a supporting vendor. Although the reason for thread closure is fear of court action not because they are a supporting vendor ( i am not sticking up for hurleys as i know their history)
Sorry for the thread hijack John B but i feel that our opinions of service providers should be aired. Thats how you find people who provide a good service.
I agree but think you may have misinterpreted John\'s angle - I took it to be a fair question........if anyone has had a good experience of Hurleys, let us know. There is no unfair opinion there - if they have produced the goods for someone, we should know........but likewise (and from my own experience) if they have provided poor service, people again should know.
Unless I am missing a point somewhere, I think we all want the same thing....don\'t we?!
As Ant has said, we all know about litigation, but, it always seems to end up as \'slag Hurley\'s off\' on these threads, and from my [limited] experience they cant be all bad otherwise they would not be one of the longer established rotary companies in the UK who seem to be quite well regarded abroad.
"What mileage was on the engine out of interest John?"
My car has what might be considered an unusual life - It was imported brand new \'in box\' [1998] by the original owner who also lives in the Midlands. He wanted a bit more power so had Hurley rebuild and port a perfectly good engine. They passed a two year warrenty on to me on the condition that they look over it when I bought it. cost me around £150 if my memory is correct [a bit steep I thought at the time].
I had a my first rotary service with them, around £180 the bill was most unspecific as to what they actuakky did but it drove fine.
Through the club I got to know Carl and moved my servicing / maintenance over to him. It was during a remap test with him that the engine gave out, not a tip but a shaft bearing I think.
Carl did have some comments about the engine components when he striped it down, can\'t remember exactly what but they weren\'t favourable.
I don\'t hold Hurley responsable for what happened and just put it down to bad luck.
I bought it with 32k on the clock, the failure happened at around 48k.
Just one of those things, the big thing for me is that with the help of Brian [who sold me a good second hand lump] and Carl who did the transplant at a very reasonable price I wasn\'t off the road for all that long.
I don\'t have any feelings one way or the other about Hurley but choose to use ppl who support this club. I think any British rotary specialist should be on here where they can stand up and be counted. Hurley obviously feel this community isn\'t worth them getting involved with, their choice but it doesn\'t make sense to me, look at all the potential customers.
John
Quote from: antnicukif my engine lasted 2 years i would be over the moon!!!
i\'m slightly curious and dont want to start an argument but...... why is it when Hurleys is mentioned its a free for all slag off but as soon as its one of the (lets say) popular tuners, the thread is closed and dissapears! Not really fair, and the only thing i can think of is Hurleys arnt a supporting vendor. Although the reason for thread closure is fear of court action not because they are a supporting vendor ( i am not sticking up for hurleys as i know their history)
Sorry for the thread hijack John B but i feel that our opinions of service providers should be aired. Thats how you find people who provide a good service.
I agree here 100% - why are some vendor service threads slammed shut and not others?????
The reason i bad mouth them is is the fact the fact i spent £6500 in October 04 on a car with a supposidly brand new engine with a receipt signed by Mr hurley, The engine gave compression results of 4.5 and would not start most of the time after completing 13,000 miles with regular servicing.
The car has now been off the road since April 2005, i hace bought a rebuild kit but have to buy more parts.
The reason i bad mouth them is the fact that iam out of pocket by about £2000 and still counting and want my car back on the road.
To be honest even if they offerred to put it right which they didnt i wouldnt trust them to do a good job.
Threads generally get jumped on when they get wildly out of control, non-factual/unsubstantiated posts are made OR the parties involved contact us to ask for action.
In the third case the thread is reviewed and posts allowed to stand or are removed as WE see fit. It is OUR judgement call and WE do it on the back of the mandate of the club\'s MEMBERS.
Thread tidied so we can see the important stuff. My answer to Tony\'s question above left for simplicity
I have plenty of evidence to Hurleys poor practice but in this case there were many mistakes made. I\'ll even admit my own!
Here\'s a little story to make all you Hurley \'customers\' smile.
I was a t Hurleys trying to buy some gaskets. They had a car on the ramps with the engine out. It had been there the week before.
John (hurleys engineer) told me he had stripped the engine wednesday,built it thursday and fitted it friday (that morning). He had taken it for a testdrive and the shaft nut on the turbe had unscrewed an gone through the engine. John had continue to drive it back to the workshop...Not good practice. Glad it wasn\'t my car.
I didn\'t hang around long enough to see the inards of the engine but the thick black oil pouring out of the exhausts told me all I need to know.
But made me think.
What sort of a engine rebuild company puts old engine oil into a new engine???
My oil is still not opaque at 350 miles.
Not right in my opinion. Cheap skate corner cutting.
Jon
after i rebuilt my engine i changed the oil @50 miles,it was black,if you didnt watch him put the oil in how can you say it was old oil,
oil mixed with soot from the exhaust could make itlook dirtyer also
Did an oil change at 700 miles and it looks like new !!!!!!!!!! :cheers
Quote from: oldoneDid an oil change at 700 miles and it looks like new !!!!!!!!!! :cheers
700 miles from a fresh rebuilt engine is a bit much dont u think!!!!!!!!!!!!!
All depends what oil your putting in Kriss as he\'s running full synthetic its probably overkill.
Kevin
Just been and replaced the parts from my 13,000 mile hurley engine and its cost me a small fortune.
1 rotor
2 housings - one looked like it had a tip go previous
rear end plate
but to be honest all the parts i can use are close to being out of the allowable tolerance.
Basically the engine i have stripped down has been a joke
Quote from: MartinyI agree here 100% - why are some vendor service threads slammed shut and not others?????
My question aswell seeing as my RX-Motors gripe was slammed shut before I could even list all the problems they\'ve caused me.
A friend of mine had his engine rebuilt by Hurley.
He had a couple of initial issues - pipes not reconnected correctly that sort of thing which proved somewhat inconvenient at the time and smacked of shoddy workmanship.
However, the work was done 8 years ago, he has it looked after by Re-worx and it has never missed a beat. He warms it up properly, looks after it very well but drives it as it\'s meant to be driven. So all in all the actual rebuild seems to have been OK...
Having said that neither of us have our cars looked after by them for two reasons, firstly due to the initial poor workmanship on my mates car and secondly because they seem to have a bit of an attitude.
I looked at a car they had for sale which was in pretty untidy condition. They were asking top price for and they said something along the lines of \'it is what it is, so if you don\'t like it don\'t f******* buy it\'. So I didn\'t buy it...
Cheers
DC
Never mind slammed shut, I just get removed
you can be the best engine builder in the world and still make mistakes, we all do it.
its just a bummer that its your motor!!
on the other hand there are so many attributes that can cause a rotary to fail or loose compression, and many parts can fail that the builder believes to be correct.
If an engine has popped due to overboosting, bad tuning or oil starvation then the error is down to the tuner or the owner of the car in most cases.
you said in one post pip mapped the car on twins with std injectors at 300 brake with std injectors and stated the motor neaded bigger injectors due to the high duty cycle.
not being funny mate but you can have the best motor in the world, but lean it out for a split second and its toast as my mate found out trying 16psi on a brand new rebuilt twin turbo 13b with std ecu and injectors!!!!
You are right Stuart. There were mistakes made along the way. This post is not a pop at Hurleys. More an honest description of events. It was my ignorance at the time that meant that the engine was used at these high injector duty ratings. I will say that if Turbo Technics (TT) had correctly sized the wastegate inserts they fitted then the car could of been run at lower boost pressures. I am still completing the final stages of running my new engine in but it will now hold 0.5bar at 6k rpm. I have blended in the inserts and opened them out further. An hours work that TT should have completed themselves.
I will say that Hurleys seals must have survived many detonations as I drove that car very hard indeed and it was very lean. I have much more to post but no internet at home yet. Please bear with me.
Jon
Jon
keep it up John, its interesting talking technical
During the engine removal process I found the following faults. Remember this was a £3.3k engine with about 4.5 thousand miles on it.
1)All three cast iron plates were worn more than 5thou.
2)The coolant jacket o-ring grooves in the irons showed serious pitting and were unserviceable
3)Both housings are heavily marked, grooved and the chrome is cracking from the edge of one. There is a score from seal failure in one.
4)The rotors have both been involved in seal failures and have deep grooves in their surfaces. They have been heavily linished to remove this damage. They were not rebalanced.
5)The 3mm grooves for the apex seals have been machined too wide in both cases. One rotor has grooves over 100microns too wide.
6)All the corner seals are very slack fits and have heavy scoring from the side seals.
7)I took the apex seals to Hurley’s and they were inspected in the jig they were made to fit originally. The corner pieces had been tipping into the grooves in the side plates causing them to wear against the main seal piece. They now no longer seal in the straight or the \'tipped\' condition.
8)The rotor bearings had touched down unevenly in places and copper was visible at the edges.
9)The oil seal rings were all second hand and near worn out. At least 2mm of chrome was visible on 6 of the 8. The last two and been reground by Hurleys. This removes the hard coating, and leads to problems with wear I should imagine.
10)The oil sealing o-rings used were not Mazda Viton rings but cheap nitrile type. Many were hard and brittle.
11)Many of the apex seal springs had been overheated causing them to loose their temper. This was what was causing the poor starting. (two were squashed flat)
12)The oil pump was near failure. The 2 keys that lock the rotors to the shaft had chattered and were tipping at about 30 degrees in their slots.
13)The sump was damaged and squashed upwards. This had almost blocked the pick up.
14)I found a length of invoice edging strip inside the sump wrapped around the pick-up almost blocking it.
15)The blowing exhaust gasket was caused by incorrect fitment of a stud. The stud had too long a lead (unthreaded length) and the nut had bottomed on this. This meant there was very little tension in the joint and the gasket had been burnt through by leaking exhaust gasses.
16)4 of the 6 engine mount bolts were not tight.
17)The main bearings were heavily and unevenly worn.
18)The oil pump chain was heavily worn with about 20mm of slack.
I shall explain each point and what I believe was the cause.
1)The worn irons:
These were second hand irons and the corrosion in the grooves indicates the engine had not been well maintained. I spoke with Mick Hurley and he explained that they buy scrap engines from japan for £150-£200 and strip and rebuild them. My irons had not been reground ( Mazda use a very large diameter milling cutter which is different to the surface grinding that Hurleys have done(I asked)) so they were pro worn to start with. The engine had been fitted with hurleys own corner seals. These were undersize with their bores in the rotors and appeared to be very soft. From my experience soft metals cause problems with wear and Mazda use a hard material. The slack fit meant they could tip under load (from boost) and this would exacerbate wear. The lean condition of the engine also meant that cylinder pressures were high accelerating wear rate. I believe Hurleys use these corner seals on a cost basis. I would not recommend they unless you are drag racing. Even then their poor fit in the rotor bore’s would cost power.
2)Coolant jacket o-ring bores-use of unserviceable plates by Hurleys. Carl Hayward rejected some other plates I’ve seen with less pitting.
Thanks again...any comments on my \'theories\' welcomed.
Jon
Quote from: mullinsMy question aswell seeing as my RX-Motors gripe was slammed shut before I could even list all the problems they\'ve caused me.
mullins,
i\'d be interested to hear your experiences with rx-motors as i\'m thinking of using them for my car.
can you email me at
DFLROWLAND@AOL.COM
if its not too much trouble.
cheers
Quote from: DFLROWLANDmullins,
i\'d be interested to hear your experiences with rx-motors as i\'m thinking of using them for my car.
can you email me at
DFLROWLAND@AOL.COM
if its not too much trouble.
cheers
As niether RX Motors nor Mullins asked for the thread to be closed or removed (I tihnk theyve both said theyd prefer it to ahve been left open in fact), it might be fairer if it was reopened and both sides of the story are provided?
Jon,
you have to remember that you\'ve opened it up and found all this in your engine. However it sounds like it was running very lean under hard driving conditions for an expented period before you popped it open.
Knowing how much of these problems were evident before you leaned it out is impossible.
Indeed.
Apart from the second hand oil rings, nitrile o-rings,re-ground oil rings,incorrectly machined rotors, pitted seal faces on the irons, badly out of balance rotors, worn out oil pump, damaged sump and heavily worn aluminium housings.
These things I know were problems before.
The lean running I agree is a big factor.
Jon
I know where your coming from here
but are you sure the out of balance rotors were originally out of balance? the housings were originally worn and the seal faces were pitted when the engine was built?
they may well all have been and the fact that so many shortcuts were obviously taken in other places points to the fact that it wouldn\'t be unlikely and maybe you actually know for a fact they were I dunno. I just think it important to assign blame correctly.
Second hand oil rings, cheap o-rings and a knackered pump and sump however is a total pistake.
Quote from: Oedipus RexI know where your coming from here
but are you sure the out of balance rotors were originally out of balance? the housings were originally worn and the seal faces were pitted when the engine was built?
they may well all have been and the fact that so many shortcuts were obviously taken in other places points to the fact that it wouldn\'t be unlikely and maybe you actually know for a fact they were I dunno. I just think it important to assign blame correctly.
Second hand oil rings, cheap o-rings and a knackered pump and sump however is a total pistake.
The pitting came from lack of anti corrosion agents in the coolant. The car was owned by a cOllegue of mine and well maintained.
The out of balance rotors was caused by hurleys taking a linisher to the rotors to remove the gouges caused by a previous tip failure.
The worn irons I am unable to attribute to Hurleys due to lean running. The housings, I am confident are, as they were gouged by a seal, grooved by dirt and dirty oil (Pip had a look) and the chrome was cracked at the edges.
The sump can only of been damaged prior to fitting. And if Hurleys are buying scrap engines from Japan the chances that they have been lugged around on their sumps is high.No sump gasket was used either..although this may be a good choice to avoid leaks (silicone was used, as have I)
Jon
get a machine tool inspector to check all plates tolerances apex seal slot width and record each measurment with calibrated equipment and get the inspector to sign each recording and take the readings to hurley and tell him this is how you inspect components to iso quality control 9001, and obviously you dont use this code of practice.
If hurley are iso quality control aproved tell them you will report them unless they rebuild your motor using parts that are within tolerance!!!!!
iso are very very keen on measuring equipment and traceability on toleranced components and for 3mm milled tips,I would have thought they should be inspected after milling as the tolerances are high.
The Hurley website reads like they are world renounded. Does anyone know of a high mileage engine built by them?
i agree their website is good and makes them seem like they know what they are doing, when i bought my car it said that Hurley had fitted the engine and done the work on the car so i looked at the website and thought that they were a proffessional established company. How wrong could i of been,
if there had been more threads like this then i would never of entertained the idea of buying this car and looked elsewhere
Quote from: deanflowersi agree their website is good and makes them seem like they know what they are doing, when i bought my car it said that Hurley had fitted the engine and done the work on the car so i looked at the website and thought that they were a proffessional established company. How wrong could i of been,
if there had been more threads like this then i would never of entertained the idea of buying this car and looked elsewhere
I\'m in a similar position. i thought Hurleys were good. Bought the car, then a few old posts seemed to suggest the oposite. That is why I\'ve done this thread although I also want to pass onto others my mistakes as well.
I\'ve made a few.
This is my first rotary so i\'m in the same position as many who post questions and are re-building.
Stuart. I\'ve worked in machine tool inspection and I\'m qualified to make engineers reports. I was tempted to put together a document so my colleague could try and get some of his money back. But its such a difficult process through the civil court system. I\'m sure there must be people getting angry enough to get involved in other ways.
Hurleys are very much on their guard. And so they should be. I think the brains of the company left when Eamon retired. Mick Hurley runs it now and he\'s got bad arthritus and has spent time in hospital recently. Its a bad time to buy an engine from them with only the mechanics at the place. They did offer me another engine for £2.2k (ported top spec) but I built my own for the same money. It has new plates and housings and genuine mazda seals and gaskets. Hurleys use the atkins kit (nitrile oil o-rings) and alot of reground plates.
We shall see how my attempt fairs :driving
ive taken an engine builder to court before with a previous car, but it is a very lengthly process. basically you need a couple of independent inspections and all receipts accumulated during the problems.
I involved trading standards when i did and although they are powerless there are helpful with advice and will prepare all court papers on you behalf, they will also tell you whether there are any other cases against the same company which could support your claim.
The problem is even if you win you are not guarranteed to get the money back, i know a few people who have taken companies to court and then ended up taking them back to court several times for not paying. Sometimes they get away with paying you back 50p a week!
I was lucky i paid my bill with credit card, therefore the credit card company responsible so i took the credit card company to court for £1200 worth of rebuild plus any expenses during the time the car was off the road plus damages to the vehicle and they settled 3 days before after saying they would defend the claim. I got a £1900 payout.
In total it took me near on 9 months to get the money.
The court costs are £120 which you pay but get refunded if you win or settle beforehand.
Quote from: deanflowersive taken an engine builder to court before with a previous car, but it is a very lengthly process. basically you need a couple of independent inspections and all receipts accumulated during the problems.
I involved trading standards when i did and although they are powerless there are helpful with advice and will prepare all court papers on you behalf, they will also tell you whether there are any other cases against the same company which could support your claim.
The problem is even if you win you are not guarranteed to get the money back, i know a few people who have taken companies to court and then ended up taking them back to court several times for not paying. Sometimes they get away with paying you back 50p a week!
I was lucky i paid my bill with credit card, therefore the credit card company responsible so i took the credit card company to court for £1200 worth of rebuild plus any expenses during the time the car was off the road plus damages to the vehicle and they settled 3 days before after saying they would defend the claim. I got a £1900 payout.
In total it took me near on 9 months to get the money.
The court costs are £120 which you pay but get refunded if you win or settle beforehand.
That is interesting. I wish I\'d bought my car with a credit card. I may well inform trading standards. I\'ve only kept the rotors from the engine because all the other problems are circumstantial. Of course Hurleys could claim they are not from their engine etc. Its difficult isn\'t it.
Jon
I must say that in all this I find the using of second-hand parts for a rebuild to be worrying. When I contacted them about rebuilds there was nothing in the emails and phone conversations that indicated that second hand/recon parts would be used.
All other builders approached discussed what could and couldn\'t be reused and what tolerences would be applied the the existing engien parts before consigning them to the bin. I didn\'t use Hurley because of telephone attitude but that was a personal thing rather then based on bad reports.
In the end WGT used new housings and end plates due to wear and I have a strong engine - doubt it\'d eb as good with worn parts used...
Quote from: iaintI must say that in all this I find the using of second-hand parts for a rebuild to be worrying. When I contacted them about rebuilds there was nothing in the emails and phone conversations that indicated that second hand/recon parts would be used.
All other builders approached discussed what could and couldn\'t be reused and what tolerences would be applied the the existing engien parts before consigning them to the bin. I didn\'t use Hurley because of telephone attitude but that was a personal thing rather then based on bad reports.
In the end WGT used new housings and end plates due to wear and I have a strong engine - doubt it\'d eb as good with worn parts used...
I actually tried to use Hurleys to get me the new parts I needed (Plates and Housings) and Mick said they never buy new parts so he couldn\'t give me prices. His prices came in good in the end so they must have some buying power with Mazda. They offered no help when I said the rotors were incorrectly machined etc. Looks like they make a massive profit from a £2.7k engine.The chap who paid for my engine was also under the impression they would be rebuilding his own engine. I would say they used bits from a number of different engines. Difficult to prove as always.
Jon
I wonder if Hurley\'s rep abroad is for the parts they sell rather than the engines they build? The reason for this question is, on the boards abroad [Aus / States] their rep is second to none, yet here, they cant do a thing right. I am quite supprised they have not asked for a thread removal like most other \'bad\' threads on vendors, maybe they dont need MRC to make a living??
Jon, your report was very informative, unlike the most of us you have access to equipement that can paint a very discriptive picture, anyone with a grievence against a builder / tuner should be well advised to follow a similar path :wave
This has been an interesting thread so far....a few questions have come to mind,when the engine rebuild estimate\\quote was given...was it in writing or just general discussion ?.Was the rebuild go ahead given after the customer had a detailed desription of what was broken in the original motor ?.Was it ever said that new parts would be used in the rebuild or did the customer ask for the total price to be as cheap as possible (budget rebuild) ?.Tese are general questions to all who have posted.....
To be honest it seems that quest for absolute perfection is maybe getting a bit OTT.So it would be interesting to see the motor that the engineers are going to build,I would dearly love to see it and to feast on the absolute engineering skills presented (so I can be educated)and the performance such a motor will give. :guinness :Talking1 :cheers
Quote from: oldoneThis has been an interesting thread so far....a few questions have come to mind,when the engine rebuild estimate\\quote was given...was it in writing or just general discussion ?.Was the rebuild go ahead given after the customer had a detailed desription of what was broken in the original motor ?.Was it ever said that new parts would be used in the rebuild or did the customer ask for the total price to be as cheap as possible (budget rebuild) ?.Tese are general questions to all who have posted.....
To be honest it seems that quest for absolute perfection is maybe getting a bit OTT.So it would be interesting to see the motor that the engineers are going to build,I would dearly love to see it and to feast on the absolute engineering skills presented (so I can be educated)and the performance such a motor will give. :guinness :Talking1 :cheers
Oldone - Yes. Its often the fault of the customer for not tying down the details in a bill of sale or receipt.
No search for perfection here. Thats a road to nowhere. Just a search for THE TRUTH!
And a passing of information to help others. I have no grievance.
John Yorke - I hope this thread is not removed as I am only relating factually what has happened. The sump is a bit suspect as someone could of jacked it up on the sump..hugely unlikely as previous owner is an engineer and used to own a garage and the car has only been to WGT and they are not likely either.
:cool :Typing :cheers :guinness
Quote from: oldone:cool :Typing :cheers :guinness
:cheers
I\'m loving your retro cars too. Oldschool is the term.
:mmmm :guinness
:D :Thumbs-up :driving
The search for the truth is often masked by the tuners though...sometimes, the tuners simply will not reveal the TRUE specification of the rebuild and will in some cases go completely out of their way to mask what work has or should we say hasnt been done. Until the engine is torn down, no one will know, BUT as Jon has said, a tuner can simply turn around and claim that any worn or out of spec engine component you wave in thier face simply didnt come from their engine.
Getting another tuner to strip your engine down for you as an independent witness would hold no legal weight since another tuner is rarely ever independent in the true sense of the word.
I dont think I could ever fully trust any tuner ever again which is why i feel the need to do work on cars myself. Ive also found to my detriment how politics between tuners can cause a witch hunting effect amongst some tuners, particularly within this community. Some people here might not have a clue to what i mean...and in their case, ignorance truly is bliss and should remain that way - dont even try speculating! Others on here do know the point Im making and possibly more specifically who this broadside is aimed at - Im sure these people would probably agree with me.
To lay claim\\responsibility to any motor I lay my hands on and tear down and assemble...I actually stamp my name on the bits i work on.i.e rotors,crank,housings (on the belly) etc.The reason is...when somebody strips the motor,they can see where it comes from or who worked on it.I am not ashamed of the work that has gone into it.I am not a vendor\\tuner,however proud of what i do,good or bad. :cheers
Quote from: aspafter i rebuilt my engine i changed the oil @50 miles,it was black,if you didnt watch him put the oil in how can you say it was old oil,
oil mixed with soot from the exhaust could make itlook dirtyer also
Its a judgement call bassed on ten years building engines and playing with oily bits.
There is plenty of oil left in the oil coolers to blacken the oil but it takes many a mile to get the oil into the state I saw. The oil was pouring out by the cup full. Not enough soot in the exhaust to effect it.
I bumped into someone from Hurleys at RS3. Mick\'s banned them from talking to me..my cover is blown!! :Talking1
So..back to the engine!
Point 3. The worn housings..use of second hand parts and lean running would of caused this.
Point 4. Use of old rotors from failed engines.
Point 5. Just incorrect machining by Hurleys. They machine their own rotors they tell me.
Point 6. Hurleys make their own corner seals. IMHO and from what other tuners say these cause problems. They are soft and in my case, the diameters were undersize allowing tipping.
Point 7. I’m not sure why the seals were worn like this but one tuner has told me that he has bought in the past Hurley seals that are too wide and never seal properly unless shortened.
Point 8. Low oil pressure caused by blocked pickup would of caused oil film breakdown under heavy load and worn bearings. Lean running means high bore pressures-speeds up wear also.
Point 9. Just use of poor parts by Hurleys.
Point 10. Overheating and cheap components caused the hardening â€" car was using alot of oil because of this.
Point 11. Low oil pressure would of lead to poor rotor cooling. Burst pipes also caused overheating on three occasions. A catalogue of problems. Lean running would not of helped.
Point 12. Blocked pick up would of left pump cavitating badly. This causes shockwaves and large strain which chattered the shaft keys almost to failure. And wore the chain no doubt.
Point 13. Sump damage was due to the engine being dropped ( no scratches from driving and no sump guard to hide them)
Point 14. This is the disturbing one as I suspect someone put this piece of paper into the engine on purpose to cause failure. Somewhere along the line at one of the places the car was taken to.
Point 15. Wrong stud fitted at WGT or by previous owner.
Point 16. Hurleys fitted the engine and obviously didn’t tighten all the bolts properly.
Point 17. Low oil pressure again.
Point 18. Blocked pickup (see point 12)
So quite a few nasty problems.
Whilst reinstalling my new engine I fitted a Sard pressure regulator. I found that the Walbro pump I have bought and fitted was not able to produce any more than 42kg/cm2 and at this pressure it was fluctuating wildly.
This means that I have been running the car incredibly lean for many weeks. My advice to anyone that fits a new pump is to have the pressure checked properly. Don’t assume it is correct. I’ve ordered a new pump but the suggestion is the filter may be blocked ( it was changed 1 year ago so i doubt this). I’ll let you know. The standard pump can hold 60kg/cm2.
So I bought another engine for the sump, oil pump and new irons that it have a a couple of new housings from WGT. Total cost 2k so far. I ported the lot using my ;) engineering judgement ;) and integrated every single mod I could find to improve reliability. These were:
No front gasket to stop ‘o’ ring walking away.
Shimming oil regulators
Grooving housings around combustion area to increase surface area and improve cooling
Porting every single component from HKS hardpipes to exhause pipe.
Removing secondary butterflys.
Removing air pump
I opened the primary injector bores up to prevent the spray pattery being obscured (should of checked it really)
Polished the rotor faces and slightly reduced the compression ratio (should of measured it to find out by how much) (could of done with getting them zinc plated after as well)
Balanced the rotors as a pair
The engine started first time but the news isn’t good. I’ve been a bit of an impatient idiot and run the engine under boost befor Pip’s mapped it. I’ve lost compression on the front rotor (down to 4.2 even across the three)
Schoolboy error but its gotta come apart again. DOH!
Very interesting post J,its always good to read an enthusiastic,enquiring and experimental engine rebuild thread.One word of caution maybe if I may,be careful of \'over engineering\' a project all in one go.I can see where you are going with your engine rebuild and good for you... :cheers
Quote from: oldoneVery interesting post J,its always good to read an enthusiastic,enquiring and experimental engine rebuild thread.One word of caution maybe if I may,be careful of \'over engineering\' a project all in one go.I can see where you are going with your engine rebuild and good for you... :cheers
Cheers pal. I need the encouragement to be honest. I\'m broke, tired and my girlfriend is not happy...
How many other people are like this??!! ;)
Put me down for 2 out of 3 of those :2Confused
Quote from: Jonathan_FCheers pal. I need the encouragement to be honest. I\'m broke, tired and my girlfriend is not happy...
How many other people are like this??!! ;)
Let me help you out....a)Leave everything for a bit and make the girlfriend happy !!!!! b)get some sleep afterwards and c) spend wisely..... :D
\'from the chronicles of the oldone\'.......... :guinness
I fully support threads of this nature.. when my engine blew about 8 months ago, I looked at Hurleys website, and was impressed with their sales patter and their very reasonable rebuild prices. I was going to give them a go, until I started to unearth a multitude of horror stories. I have only ever heard of a couple of satisfied customers but nobody who is exactly prepared to sing their praises (like WGT or Reworx gets), and let us not forget that we are not talking about a few quid either, but thousands of pounds!
Sure, tuners sometimes make mistakes as everyone does from time to time, but the many negative accounts from unhappy Hurley customers ring too many alarm bells.
John I would definitely consider replacing the sard fpr with something of a higher quality (i.e. aeromotive) because our sard fpr diaphragm didn\'t seal correctly and the pressure didn\'t rise with boost, luckily for us we have a wideband so corrected/compensated the fueling using a datalogit. We originally thought the std fuel pump couldn\'t keep up at higher loads, but soon after replacing the pump we realised that we shouldn\'t be running 95% inj duty on 1600cc secondaries and a std twin turbo set up :2Confused ;)
Once we changed to an aeromotive fpr we had to take out nearly 40% of the fuel at the top end, lol. This problem is hard to determine because unless you have a fuel pressure guage in your car, which you can observe whilst driving at full throttle and boost, then you don\'t often know the fpr is the problem. Our sard one had the correct pressure at idle and even jumped up when free revving, but definitely did not rise under boost :(
I hope this post is useful,
Paul
Quote from: WavJohn I would definitely consider replacing the sard fpr with something of a higher quality (i.e. aeromotive) because our sard fpr diaphragm didn\'t seal correctly and the pressure didn\'t rise with boost, luckily for us we have a wideband so corrected/compensated the fueling using a datalogit. We originally thought the std fuel pump couldn\'t keep up at higher loads, but soon after replacing the pump we realised that we shouldn\'t be running 95% inj duty on 1600cc secondaries and a std twin turbo set up :2Confused ;)
Once we changed to an aeromotive fpr we had to take out nearly 40% of the fuel at the top end, lol. This problem is hard to determine because unless you have a fuel pressure guage in your car, which you can observe whilst driving at full throttle and boost, then you don\'t often know the fpr is the problem. Our sard one had the correct pressure at idle and even jumped up when free revving, but definitely did not rise under boost :(
I hope this post is useful,
Paul
WAV, I can\'t thank you enough for taking the time to post this info. I can check that it rises under boost as I have a compressor and can simply pressurise the diaphragm. Might be the reason my current engines poorly. I\'ll let you know how I get on.
Thanks again.
Jon
Quote from: oldoneLet me help you out....a)Leave everything for a bit and make the girlfriend happy !!!!! b)get some sleep afterwards and c) spend wisely..... :D
\'from the chronicles of the oldone\'.......... :guinness
Thanks for the advice. I\'ve put my back out! :Laugh
She\'s stopped whinging though. (she\'\'s a good lass really)
Quote from: Jonathan_FThanks for the advice. I\'ve put my back out! :Laugh
She\'s stopped whinging though. (she\'\'s a good lass really)
Thats what old people are good for...... :cool ..been there,done it and have 5 sons to prove it.... :2eek :Hammer :bandit and by the way I got all the t-shirts as well.... :wiggle
Quote from: Jonathan_FWAV, I can\'t thank you enough for taking the time to post this info. I can check that it rises under boost as I have a compressor and can simply pressurise the diaphragm. Might be the reason my current engines poorly. I\'ll let you know how I get on.
Thanks again.
Jon
No problem, but even if it does show to work, I\'d definitely change it for a better quality item (SX or Aeromotive).
Best of luck,
Paul