Re-conditioning side plates ( resurfacing and re hardening)
 

Here is some info, pics on lapping-re surfacing and re hardening-nitrate.

Some shops that offer the lapping and grinding of the surface will miss lead you in saying that after lapping 1.5 thow off the surface of the face there is still hardness to the plate. Not true at all.

If you take a used plate gage check if for hardness prior to resurfacing and gage check it after the plate had been resurfaced 1.5 to 2 thou down you will get different readings. Meaning after lapping or grinding the plate it is very soft. I can actually tell when grinding right at 1 -1.5 thow deep the grinding wheel cuts very easily into the plate. Meaning very soft metal after removal of the material. What that means you will wear the plate very fast.

If you decide to have your plates lapped or resurfaced do the re-nitrating

Before pics, exactly how i received the plates.... http://img170.imageshack.us/img170/2...ortiny2.th.jpg http://img174.imageshack.us/img174/7...ortijd8.th.jpg

The final result :)

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All stock brass oil galley plugs have been replaced with new npt earls plugs 4 total, new freeze plugs and re zinc plated the dip stick tube with the rear coolant pipe..

You can also see on the front plate i do not cut down the front stationary gear pin. My machine is set up to lapp with out having to cut the pin down..

IF you guys are intrested in this service let me know...

Who do you get it to nitrate? I'm getting my 20B built this summer... Its been lapped and i would like to get it nitrated.. I think my builder knows someone but just in case..

My regular heat treat guy here at the shop does the nitrating for us.

Re-nitrating the plates after lapping or grinding is a must for long term use.

Here are some plates i did for a 3 rotor custo...

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I have plates for eight or nine motors that I was going to have redone .I do not have a price from the heat treat shop as of now .I do have a price for the grinder .Both are local so no shipping .What do you charge per surface or per motor .

Hello
For a 2 rotor engine. your looking at 480$$ lapped re-nitrated, new freeze plugs and new oil galley plugs.

For more than one engine it will be cheaper for sure.

Call me if you interested 248-250-0967

and that 480 would be for all three irons, correct?

Yes all 3 irons 4 sides.

Hello.
I'm located in Michigan. FedEx is the most reasonable price from your location about 30$ one way .

Let me know.

Thanks

ill be contacting you over the winter once i port the irons.

Sounds good

This is an excellent price.

Price and sales aside, what were your rockwell recordings for hardness before and after nitrating out of curiosity?

The next set of plates i do i will get that info.

I will be running a special on lapping and nitrating for the the next month do to the slowing economy, the reason my machinist are dropping there pricing on labor charges and it makes it more affordable for us the rotary community.

2 rotor side plates total of 4 sides lapped and nitrated with new freeze plugs and new oil galley plugs you're looking at.
420.00$

On a side note if you wish to have port work done prior to nitrating it can be done for an extra charge of 250.00 for street, large or race port.. Don't let the cheap price fool you in quality, i just don't see the reason to overly charging for some port work that it does not take long to do or difficulty wise ...
The job will come with a rockwell readings before and after the nitrating for hardness reference... and a reminder of the benefits of nitrating after lapping...
Do contact me for more info regarding the process, time frame is 1 week turn around...

Also i can have your stationary gears re hardened free of charge with any lapping/nitrating job.

248-250-0967
Chip

Chip,

I was told you should lap after nitrating not lap and nitrate... Can you clearify that for me??

Also, I've heard that the process of nitrile is not completely flat... Hence Rick Engman laps every new irons when he builds race engines. Just wanted to know your thoughts.. I do understand that it does make the surface to wear less.

On used plates you need to lap first to get the step wear down flat, on new plates they do a good job from the factory making them flat and true( never checked but will from now on). Re-nitrate to a low heat to have it harden down about 3-4 thou deep after lapping. That low heat 99% will not warp the plate and no need for a touch up on re lapping after nitrating. All the plate are dial cheeked for warpage and if necessary the will be re lapped very lightly.5 thou at most... But never had a warped plate yet coming out of the nitrating process...

But at the same time i will start checking the new plate from Mazda for warpage.. you never know...

At the same time everybody has there own take on lapping or lapping with nitrating. But i can guaranty you that lapping a used plate 2-3 thou deep and checking the hardness with a dial indicator. it a much softer material with out the nitrating. Thus making sense that wear will occur more rapidly in a plate with out nitrating than with...

Hope that helps...

Hot damn this sounds like a good deal

Here are the Rockwell readings..

New Mazda plate from the factory no miles on it. RC 38-39

Used plate after lapping /Grinding 2-3 thow deep. RC 21-23

Used plate after lapping/grinding with re-nitride. RC 40

Hope that this helps...

Wow! That is a significant change.

I may have a set for you to resurface in a few months when I tear the engine in my car down to install the new 9.5:1 rotors. I didn't know about this and lapped the irons myself (although I didn't remove any 0.002-0.003", more like 0.0005"). I am sure they will need it again by then if the hardness is that much different(with 10,000 miles on the clock). I should have known that there was some reason that everyone didn't just do the lapping themselves....

I will let you know if they show appreciable wear (I don't want this engine to fail anytime soon).

Still Running that 420.00$$ per 13b special for RCC members.....

Thats a good deal!

Hi could you tell me what the RMS (Surface finish)is after the final lapping?
Thanks.

Just finished up a set of plates for a customer 3 rotor...

Enjoy
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The cost for me to have these done went up, so i'm pasing the savings on.

480.00 for a 13b
640.00 for a 20b

..

61 rms

It has nothing to do with them failing bolts/fittings.. They get blasted and re zinc plated..

Reconditioned plates... REMAN :)

That's some nice, thorough work there. Whats the turn-around time for the service?

Probably gets them done in batches.

I know we did a huge number of fasteners/pipes/studs etc. up here last year and by the time we gathered crap between my builder myself and few other guys the price to plate the items was almost halved due to the volume.

But yeah I imagine the dipstick tube/rear iron coolant tube are a biatch to remove :)

Sure about that number? We had some plates ground a while back and took some measurements of re-ground used and brand new OE plates. We found a new set of OE plate to be about 12 Ra (micro-inches) on average. Our guy got the used plates to an average of 8 Ra.

The rough correlation between the RMS and Ra is around 11%. So our measurements for the stock plate would roughly be 13 RMS.

They look to good to be as bad as your measurement would suggest.

Just got in to work, re-cheeked the plates, got a RMS of 12. I asked the night shift guy to do it for me, he checked the back side of the rear plate ... :o11:

O well....

:rofl: That's funny.

I was wondering about that. At first I thought it was a typo and you thought 16...
Thanks for clearing that up for us.

Rebuilding a motor for customer, Ported, surface ground, nitrated, new freeze plugs, re zinc plated coolant nipple and new oil galley plugs.

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Thanks

New site is up alsso....

your exhaust port needs to be beveled. buddy you need to make sure all sharp edges are beveled.. u need a 2mm bevel. gets me upset to still see ports like this.

Thanks for the advice, ran this port in many engines, with out any issues..

be open to advice. just because you run this port like this, doesn't make it right. Brian (BDC Motorsports) also learned the hard way. He ran similar ports to you. why do you think Mazda runs a 2mm bevel on the factory exhaust port on rotor housings? plain and simple to protect the apex seal when the apex seal is closing the exhaust port. I wrote a thread at nopistons with pictures about this. So relax open your ears and learn.. we never stop learning..

and yes it brings issues. the apex seal starts to loose it's radius from smashing on that sharp edge you leave behind.

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:)