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in my fd ive used atkins 2mm apex seals and just bought mazda side and corner seals and springs, also bought all mazda o rings. they arnt that expensive, your rotor housings and plates can be expensive if you need them and maybe a rotor if its dragged a tip out.
Ive built a fc drag engine with atkins 3mm tips and milled the rotors out to 3mm, but not run it yet. 1 rotor dragged a tip but cleaned up fully when i miled it out to 3mm
the yanks seem to like using atkins seals and ive had no probs with my fd with them as of yet !
they used to sell full rebuild kits on ebay, dont no whether they still selling on there

Just having some thoughts about rebuilding my FD3 engine. What are the apex seals made out? I presume they are cast/extruded high carbon steel that has been precision ground to size? What is stopping me making some new ones myself that are slightly thick hence stronger? I have read you can get thicker ones anyway but being that they cost quite a bit if I get a man with a surface grinder to do some? surely? What say thee? maybe there is more to the seal than I think? to be honest I have not properly seen one in the flesh.. hence I am asking? If they are just a solid piece of steel I am sure this is something I could get done? Also I have heard some rumours about coatings that are being experimented with that I think could help prolong the life of the apex seals.

making them is not the problem like you say, I could make them from bar but the problem is i dont think any producer would give the secret away regarding carbon content heat treatment process etc etc , they are most definatly heat treated, but im sure this is just stress relieving after the tips are milled down to size leaving 10 thou all round and then finish ground to size after the stress relieving, i used to make rotor milling tips from bar this way but they was  hardened then stress relieved then finish ground to size.
 apex seals arnt hard because u can file them quite easily, if you took a tip to a metal specialist (corus are good) maybe they could work out what it actually is if you really wanted to have a bash yourself, i reckon we could saw and mill down a set in a couple of hours from bar but then you have to find out the heat treatment process, if u can find all that out start producing lol:Laugh

I think nkk make most clutches and cover plates and other firms buy them and put there name to them, ive got a centreforce heavy duty clutch cover plate with very thick fingers on and extra ring in between each finger with blocks on it for added suport. this has a nkk stamp on it.
If u  buy an uprated exedy normal type clutch im sure they have nkk stamped on cover plate and clutch plate.
They must manufacurer in huge numbers I guess.

hows it going eddie?
is the hunting worse when the cars started from cold or is it the same once the engine is warmed up.
have you checked compresion or do you have a boost gauge?
have u tried changing map sensor.
you can try mine on your car if you want.
I had a dodgy conection on mapsensor plug once which caused uneven rich idle.
you can do a sensor check on the power fc.
let us no if u want to try anything on ur car of mine.
cheers
stu

to be honest its just dragin on and on, I do a bit then loose interest then do a bit more and so on.
ive milled rotor tip grooves out to 3mm, cncd sides of rotors to lighten them like racing beat do, ive cncd the bridge ports then finished them by hand, ive machined the inlets on all plates loads bigger with a flange plate machined out to match the inlet shapes exactly, ive made the plenum and shaped 4 50mm runners to be welded onto this inlet flange so the air volume from plenum all the way into bridges will be much bigger than any side port motor that I know of anywhere, everybody seems to use cosmo runners or a pp motor.
I havent balanced my full assembly yet but do have a good idea how to do it now!!
I really want to use a 2 piece e shaft with centre bearing but they arnt cheap, then I could rev it really high without any flex on that  e shaft to make the power band much longer with the full bridge and big laggy turbo.
Ive got access to horizontal and vertical boring machines so the machining on the middle plate wouldnt cost me nowt  which helps.
It takes time especially when your trying to run bussines
keep me informed on your project mate:yes

I have yet to build and run my motor but mines running full bridge with the intermediate bridges almost as big as the end plate bridges with massive inlet ports with a matched inlet manifold,
unchartered teritory so how it performs I don know but hopefully it will perform well and it will rev high safely I hope.

you can remove the sleeves and go as big as you feel is safe leaving enough meat in so you dont break through into water jacket, i used some odd leg calipers on mine so i didnt break through, i think the wall thickness top and bottom where about 4mm thick on mine when I finished them so basicly I went as big as possible up and down but didnt make the port any wider, I just scribed a line up and down each side of the widest part of the std port with some blue painted on and took it out to the line and then kept checking the wall thickness up and down.
I think there are around 45mm in height when they was finished measuring from inside the housing.
I used a big porting tool and a power file to get it flat.

brett what do you control your boost with? and where have you piped it up?
Ive pluged the standard boost feed to actuator with a bolt and took a feed for boost controler from plenum then from boost controler out to actuator.

taking part that counts shaun, you could just race to the 1/8th mile if you dont want to really give it some welly, also practice makes perfect staging, launching and getting your reaction times down in any car.

what sort of revs have you run up to with your balaced assembly in a motor and did you use a centre bearing type e shaft?
cheers
stu

humm running a auto up the strip - is it worth it ??

and its stock aswell

BUT - may have to come up ....esp if shaun is heading over aswell

and yes kev - this car wont rot away - its been used quite often so far - i love the "roof down" driving - its superb

stu come down and have a run in my 100 quid scooby 60 ft eater at the next meeting! you must be 3 stone lighter than me!!
you up for a little 60 ft comp both of using my car on slicks 3 runs a piece??
im gona start an 100 quid racing club!!!!!!!

i can turn bob weights with the corect bore size and od as a rotor and face up 1 end to get the required weight but how do you stop the weights spining of the shaft when balancing?  I thought of 1hole drilled and tapped from od throgh to bore so a grub screw could be used to hold the bob weight on the journal, is that how you do it?
cheers
stu

what ECU is in it - it should still have a rev limit

standard ecu stu, but i did notice the speedo had stopped working, I need to check ecu for error codes.
Im starting to think it may be a good idea to use the cab as the drag car because it must be so much lighter with no roof no backwindow and a tiny boot, imagine how much lighter it would be with no seats dash and motor and frame out for hood and theres so much you could do away with under bonnet ie them big motors for pop up lights ect ect.
I had an idea it would be quick of the line with the big weight advantage.
I would need to weld a good roll cage in it mind you, dont fancy having a roll in it at over 100 with no roll bar!!!!!!!!!!
what do u guys think?? is there any cabs running as drag cars anywhere abroad?? makes sense don you think.
grinder get your cab up to york for the next meeting mate:yes
does anyone know the weight diference from fc and fc cab?

See you back there in a few weeks time Stu. Hopefully you\'ll be sorted by then.
Kevin

im hopeing to be in the other drag fc kev.
the motors ready for going in now, just got to pipe ic and fuel lines up when its in the car, if its not ready the fc cab will make some better launches with some full slicks.

it was so easy to rev to 9 grand with no rev limiter! should there be one??
maybe thats why it kept going into limp every time I hit 3rd gear.