well first off.. im swapping a jdm s5 TII motor into my fb.. however im concerned that when it runs i would have to rebuild it right away.. the reason is
i looked into the spark plug holes and i compared the 3 apex seals.. 2 of them look the same and they stick out a little from the rotor but the third looks like it is pushed into the rotor a little.. need your guys opinion.. im just worried that later on the seals might fail and destroy my housing.. thank you

 

Look into the exhaust ports, it'll give you a better/wider view of the seals. If one is truly more pushed in than the rest, it might be stuck.. Spray some carb cleaner on it and move it back and forth with your finger to see if it'll untick.. but the springs usually push them out pretty strongly... If it doesn't pop back out and have some force behind it.... the springs might be flattened or not as strong as they need to be.

 

Yep, you should be able to stick your finger in the port and push the seal in and out of the groove.

However, if you're going to do it... Do it right. I would pull the engine apart and rebuild it if I had no way of testing compression.

 

thanks guys.. is there a way the apex seal and all other seals can become unstuck from soaking it with marvel mystery oil and turning it?

 

MMO should not be used in Rotary engines, as it is mostly Mineral Spirits.

 

The PO of my car used MMO since 1994 (the car is a 1991) in every tank of gas... it was still running strong with decent compression at 155k miles... took it apart and the housings were damn near perfect. No chrome flake at all.. It was pushing gas into the oil though.

Just sayin.. it can't be THAT bad.

 

If you look at the MSDS for MMO, (that I have posted countless times) you'll see it's pretty much just Benzen (a solvent banned in most States) Mineral Spirits (which is also a solvent) and wax distillates simular to non synthetic ATF.

So you could use it in small amounts in the gas tank, but you are just throwing away money as in small amounts it is not really going to do anything. If you feel you must have something, a good TCW3 rated 2 stroke oil is a much better choice and actually designed to lubricate instead of strip off oil as MMO does.

But with what pogi1 sounded like he wanted to do is soak the stuck apex seal (and presumably the rotor) with MMO. This in my opinion would be very very bad, unless anyone has proven that the side seals and housing O rings would not be damaged by soaking in mineral spirits or Benzen.

 

Yeah, I didn't mean to imply that it was the reason my engine was in such good condition either... FYI.

Sorry to butt in.

 

so my best bet is to just spray some carb cleaner on it and wiggle it around? what about the side seals.. if my side seals are stuckk what can i do about that.. i heard that ATF is somewhat bad and may eat through the o rings..

 

I generally do not recommend using ATF, but not for the reason that it eats seals, but rather for the reason that people use a bunch of it and blow out seals as it does not compress well.

The water treatment is a much better choice.

 

take the safe route and rebuild it....jspec motors seem to be a 50/50 chance...and for me, those odds aren't good enough....rebuild it right then you won't have to worry.

 

well.. this is what happened.. i sprayed with carb cleaner and started to wiggle it around.. and i noticed a hole in the apex seal the size of a needle hole.. and then i tried moving it left to right..the whole apex seal just came out of the groove.. i guess its time to rebuild??
anyone know any places near cali that do good rebuilds for the right price? i heard neptunespeed was a good shop and nice people.. what do you guys think?

 

wow that sucks.

 

any suggestions? japan2la sold this to me and im gonna contact him.. i know he usually doesnt sell bad engines and hes was a good guy to deal with.. maybe something will work out.. any suggestions would help guys.. i think that the rotor is missing the apex seal and what i am pushing in is just the seal spring.. it looks flat compared to the others.. thanks

 

question.. from the spark plug holes.. is it normal for the apex seal to move left and right?

 

I'd question your description...

I dunno what "damn near perfect" or "no chrome flake" means to you, but stock apex seals will dig a groove on one side of the rotor housings due to the triangle assist piece.
This cannot be avoided or else you've got a miracle on your hands...

Else, if good, quality engine oil was used on regular maintenance, the other parts of the rotor housing would be near perfect.
This is not a surprise.

Using any kind of additives (unless we're talking about premixing) is a waste of time, IMNSO, so I'd agree with Icemark on this.


-Ted