atkins apex seals
 

what kind of experience have you guys had with atkins apex seals on a 12a.....I bought a brand new set I wanted to know what kind of wear they put on housings?????

They are good seals. If they weren't Atkins wouldn't have been in business as long as they have nor would they be selling their seals for rotary engined airplanes.

Always spec the wear on your housings before reusing them. If they are pretty wore, then yes, they will wear a little faster because they are stonger seals.

i hear that! ya i dont think someone would fly a plane with bad quality parts....thanks for all you replies

I have never had a problem with them(Atkins Seals) and most people on the forum know i have a very close association with the Atkins.

I have used and sold multiple rebuilds with these seals and have never had an issue.

HOWEVER as for the above comment about selling seals for rotary engined airplanes there is another company out there that directly claims this and I will never use their seals I have seen what they do to high prof engines and they do wear excessively

Dave, I knew they had a separate company for airplanes, didn't know the seals were different. Or is the airplane parts company not their's?

No there is another company out there that specifically in their name markets having rotary aviation parts and even though they use their parts in planes I won't use them in a lawn mower.

I have no problem using atkins rotary or atkins aviation or camden supercharger parts. they are about the only ones aside from stock I will use.

Its always funny how people swears that these seals will not break-period and claiming how long term use is OK after give or take 10K miles without disassembly... Hugely scored housings even with large amount of premix, even in N/A engines... What it will give them, when seals will not break during detonation/lean conditions, when other parts of the engine can eventually fail-when not, they will be worn out, is beyond me:scratch:

I have seen Rotary Aviation seals ruin a pair of housings in just a few thousand miles, if you want to turn your housings into a vinyl record than go ahead. I have "heard" atkins seals are softer and survive detonation much better and wear the housings less. I would "imagine" the seals wear a little quicker but they are cheaper than housings.

I run a softer seal, and they are 3 mm. I know they can banana under stress, and a 2mm hard seal will seal better as well. For me the sacrifice of just a few hp is worth the peace of mind that my motor will survive some detonation. I had a friend running these seals. His tuner leaned out the fuel mixture to squeeze more power on a dyno and added timing. One time when I was visiting he was running regular gas and got a bad tank at that, you could hear this thing detonate like marbles in a coffee can from a block away and it didn't pop. When a side seal finally failed his tear down showed only minor wear to t he housings, some chatter marks from over revving unfortunately though, they would've been great for a n/a rebuild though.

Now I had mazda seals, timing was way to far advanced (another story) but you couldn't hear detonation at all. Did a test video run (very abusive! ) with an open header and finally the car wouldn't start. On tear down 5 out of the 6 seals were damaged and both housings destroyed!

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/d...blownapex2.jpg
http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/d...ownhousing.jpg

I'll take the softer seal any day!

CRANK UP THE VOLUME FOR THE FULL EFFECT


http://s222.photobucket.com/albums/d...ortexhaust.flv

Great videos, but what do they have to do with apex seals? I was expecting to see one fly out of your exhaust ;)

the video was taken the day i blew the seals.

So, I am a little confused about this thread. We seem to be discussing which seals cause the most wear on the housings. I am planning to rebuild an rx-7 to be nearly stock, aside from a new exhaust since the existing one is rotted out. I am dropping in a 30k motor that's in decent shape, not perfect, but I hope to get a lot out of it. In short, I do not want to do another motor rebuild on this particular car. I was considering the following:

Buying the Atkins "C" level kit, because I am going to replace all seals and bearings. I also need to buy the bearing tools, so I am looking at spending 1200 dollars right there.

Is it worth it to spend the extra $ to get the mazda seals? I understand that technically, the atkins ones will work, but then again the mazda seals were meant to be put into this motor specifically.

If it is true the atkins seals are softer and will cause less wear, I think I will be ok for my summer driver, which isn't going to be run very hard that often.

This'll be a big debate, but i would go with Atkins...

Okay here it is.
Rotary aviation seals are hard as hell and very strong stand up to some serious abuse, but they have been known to eat the hell out of housings.
Atkins seals are softer than Mazda seals that way they can be used with old housings and they will "form" to the housing shape. They are known to wear way faster than Mazda seals.

Result, BUY MAZDA SEALS!!!

If you're gangster buy ceramic

This was a huge thing on the forums a few years ago and got most of us NWer's banned for a while, but Im going to say it anyway. There was a string of about 4 people whose engines did not last more than 30k on Atkins seals. The conclusion local tuners and owners came to was that it was all due to the softer seals just wearing out. Warranties were not honored, law suits were filed, people got mad, and friendships ended.

I only buy Mazda now. Although the Atkins solid corner seals are so much damn win!

I agree. You can't go wrong with OEM. We know that the Mazda seals will last a long time and they do well in many performance applications. For wear, strength, and cost, the Mazda seals can't be beat IMO.

The Atkins seals will probably work fine for you, but I would go for OEM.

The mazda 3 piece seals are known to last for 175-210k. I have seen stock 12a's last well over 300k with the Mazda 2 piece seals. Mazda discontinued all the 3 piece seals, they are all 2 piece now. There is no reason not to go Mazda unless you're building a 500+whp turbo car (go ceramic), or a Bridgeport or Periport(carbon, aluminum impregnated Racing Beat seals)...

Mazda is great for bone stock (or ported) with new housings, and yeah I would say they would outlast most. Now when you add factors like re-using old housings or adding boost you change the demands on the seals.