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dennyAfter a lot of ringing around, reading forums, and exchanging of email and forum PMs with people, it seems that not only is Hayward Rotary by far the most recommended place to get my engine rebuilt, but they're also going to get it done sooner than anyone else can. Also, almost everyone who was advertising significantly lower prices than them for a rebuild has turned out to be, in fact, lying. When phoned and asked, they quoted prices in the same general region as Hayward's.
So, my options are as follows:
(1) Basic rebuild only.
Returns the engine to good original condition.
Price: £3250
(all prices are inclusive of VAT etc) (which also endeared him to me - I hate mechanics who quote excluding VAT)
(2) Rebuild with mild porting.
This returns the engine to good condition, with some preparation work done for future perfomance boosts - stuff which it is sensible to get done during a rebuild if you're the kind of person who is likely to want to get it done at all.
Price: £3550
(3) Rebuild with mild porting and de-cat downpipe.
As (2), plus a downpipe with no catalytic convertor in it. The front cat was only fitted to the UK model, and is something of an afterthought/nasty bodge. It releases considerable heat while doing its job, and this occurs directly under the engine bay - not a good place for extra heat. This option was strongly recommended by a few people on the owner's club forums, both as a mild performance booster, and as a way to save the engine from unnecessary heat-related stress. Hayward didn't actually have a price to hand for the downpipe, but a bit of googling suggests it'll be itro £150, so let's say...
Price: £3700
(4) Rebuild with mild porting, full de-cat exhaust, and programmable ECU with appropriate mapping.
Whee. This involves replacing the whole exhaust with one whose designers had far more interest in performance than emissions regulations (although actually I'm told they still pass the MoT emissions tests very easily with these exhausts on them, so *shrug*). To go with this and the porting, a programmable ECU* will be fitted, to enable Hayward to tune the engine to match all the new components/configuration properly. The predicted outcome of this option is to take the engine power from Mazda's quoted 237bhp to somewhere in the region of 300bhp. Which is quite a difference. The price includes both initial tuning when the engine is rebuilt, and a second fine-tuning session once the engine has been run in.
Price: £4760
* Electronic Control Unit - the magic box that tells the fuel injection and other gubbins what to do and when to do it
Breakdown:
Soooooo... what am I going to do? Silly question really ;)
No, actually I did think about it for quite a while. After all, the car is not exactly slow in original form, and when considered in isolation, 1500 quid is a lot of money that I could do various fun things with.
However, if I go with the standard rebuild, I will basically have paid out 'more than three thousand pounds', only to get back to where I was last week... a complete loss, emotionally speaking. If I go with the everything-and-chips option (no pun intended), I will be poorer, but emotionally happier, having spent 'less than five thousand pounds' on gaining a very serious performance boost for my car.
On the whole I'd rather have spent 5 grand (or 3 grand) on shiny things of a less engine-related nature... but as I've got to spend a lot of money in that area anyway, I think I'd feel better about spending the extra and actually getting something more out of it at the end than I had before this all happened. It will also give the car a better resale value if I can show that it was rebuilt and tuned by this particular guy - he's a very respected name in the rotary engine world. Spending this much money on something I'm not that interested in still sucks though.
Rough time estimate for getting the work done was 'two to three weeks', and he can't take it in until the end of this week at the earliest, so I'm not going to have my car back until the start of next month if all goes well, or the middle of next month if all goes not quite so well. So that still sucks too.
On the whole, it looks like my best alternative though. Vroom?
So, my options are as follows:
(1) Basic rebuild only.
Returns the engine to good original condition.
Price: £3250
(all prices are inclusive of VAT etc) (which also endeared him to me - I hate mechanics who quote excluding VAT)
(2) Rebuild with mild porting.
This returns the engine to good condition, with some preparation work done for future perfomance boosts - stuff which it is sensible to get done during a rebuild if you're the kind of person who is likely to want to get it done at all.
Price: £3550
(3) Rebuild with mild porting and de-cat downpipe.
As (2), plus a downpipe with no catalytic convertor in it. The front cat was only fitted to the UK model, and is something of an afterthought/nasty bodge. It releases considerable heat while doing its job, and this occurs directly under the engine bay - not a good place for extra heat. This option was strongly recommended by a few people on the owner's club forums, both as a mild performance booster, and as a way to save the engine from unnecessary heat-related stress. Hayward didn't actually have a price to hand for the downpipe, but a bit of googling suggests it'll be itro £150, so let's say...
Price: £3700
(4) Rebuild with mild porting, full de-cat exhaust, and programmable ECU with appropriate mapping.
Whee. This involves replacing the whole exhaust with one whose designers had far more interest in performance than emissions regulations (although actually I'm told they still pass the MoT emissions tests very easily with these exhausts on them, so *shrug*). To go with this and the porting, a programmable ECU
Price: £4760
* Electronic Control Unit - the magic box that tells the fuel injection and other gubbins what to do and when to do it
Breakdown:
3250 - basic rebuild 300 - porting ~150 - de-cat downpipe 110 - de-cat centre pipe 250 - backbox 500 - ECU 350 - mapping/tuning ==== 4760 TOTAL (inc)
Soooooo... what am I going to do? Silly question really ;)
No, actually I did think about it for quite a while. After all, the car is not exactly slow in original form, and when considered in isolation, 1500 quid is a lot of money that I could do various fun things with.
However, if I go with the standard rebuild, I will basically have paid out 'more than three thousand pounds', only to get back to where I was last week... a complete loss, emotionally speaking. If I go with the everything-and-chips option (no pun intended), I will be poorer, but emotionally happier, having spent 'less than five thousand pounds' on gaining a very serious performance boost for my car.
On the whole I'd rather have spent 5 grand (or 3 grand) on shiny things of a less engine-related nature... but as I've got to spend a lot of money in that area anyway, I think I'd feel better about spending the extra and actually getting something more out of it at the end than I had before this all happened. It will also give the car a better resale value if I can show that it was rebuilt and tuned by this particular guy - he's a very respected name in the rotary engine world. Spending this much money on something I'm not that interested in still sucks though.
Rough time estimate for getting the work done was 'two to three weeks', and he can't take it in until the end of this week at the earliest, so I'm not going to have my car back until the start of next month if all goes well, or the middle of next month if all goes not quite so well. So that still sucks too.
On the whole, it looks like my best alternative though. Vroom?
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(no subject)
Date: 2005-06-13 09:28 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-06-13 10:08 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-06-13 09:37 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-06-13 09:49 pm (UTC)As I said, the fact that I got it rebuilt and tuned by a respected name in the field should actually count in its favour somewhat when it comes to time to sell... the average RX-7 purchaser is likely to be interested in its mods, not scared off by them.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-06-13 10:41 pm (UTC)Just a random comment from somebody passing through...
(no subject)
Date: 2005-06-14 08:06 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-06-14 10:51 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-06-13 11:21 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-06-13 11:22 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-06-13 10:07 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-06-13 11:20 pm (UTC)