To anyone still wondering about the rotary aviation / real world solution apex seals, I have 440 miles on my set and the engine is acting quite broken-in. Starting, idling, midrange torque, all that would be expected of a broken in engine is to be observed on the engine I recently started running, which I assembled with these new seals.

I used some used rotor housings which I'm guessing had 60-80k miles on them and were not worn too much, about a 5 on a scale of 10, and there wasn't much dry compression at first. However, I get a quick start-up after a few cranks and no flooding after a week and a half of driving the car.

In conclusion, to anyone seeking real world experience with these seals, they appear to bed in and give good compression in a few hundred miles.

 

These are two piece or three peice seals?

 

I have over 2k miles on my motor with aviation seals. So far, no problems....

 

The RWS seals are 2mm, two piece.

 

It's what happens when you run softer apex seals. The Hurley apex seals pretty much do the same thing.

On a side note, we just got one of the turbo motors rebuilt and running. The bitch caught on the first crank, but it doesn't idle under 1,000RPM. Any sort of load will cause it to drop, including the power steering - no power steering idle compensation solenoid. I've got the idle bumped to 1,500RPM for now, just to keep the engine from stalling. The car has about 40 miles on it now, and it sounds better. The stalling is still there, but the compression is coming up quick than I thought, and it will always start on the first crank - very impressive. The motor was brand new stock Mazda 2-piece apex seals.


-Ted

 

So is there a fear that these are going to be too soft and wear out quickly? I thought they were supposed to be harder?

I am looking hard at this kit for my rebuild.

 

yes but do the RA seals blow up like the Hurley ones?

i guess we'll see. 88IntegraLS's car is an N/A, anybody have these puppies in a Turbo car?

 

Only time will tell - there's a big "Hurley seals are CRAP" thread in the Rotary Performance(?) section...


-Ted

 

i could always call bryan and get him to order a set of those instead of the new 2pc OEM seals for my engine...

but the new 2pc seals seem to be doing very well.

ted, what porting does your turbo motor have? you like the new 2pc seals? (obviously so)

on a side note:
i'm getting heebie jeebies about everything for my car (now that it's about to be in one piece, hah), scared shitless about everything- idle the ability to get up hills without boosting, boost creep, you name it i'm going 'aw **** hope this works'

 

Mine's turbo...

 

your tii is bone stock with a rebuilt engine with these seals?

 

Well, i have my N1 duals on there now, but other then that its bone stock. I just bought the car bout a month and a half ago from Bruce Turrentine. He rebuilt the motor with the rotary aviation kit. Still paying off the car so that why its still pretty much stock. Like i said in another post, if Bruce uses 'em, thats reason enough for me to use 'em.

 

Here is what one of the reused rotor housings looked like (the one in the backround). Don't think that these are soft seals until you see what shape they had to bed-in against.



The original (128K mile) housing is in foreground.

Atkins seals are "softer" than stock 3 piece 2mm Mazda seals because they lack a flame-hardened (heat treated) sealing edge . . which has zero effect on anything other than break-in time.

 

Get a compression test done man. I really want to see what kind of numbers these are putting out. My car is getting these now and should be up and running in a week or so.

 

Im at 2500 km's with the R-aviation seals. Compression is at 115 psi with used housings. Idling fine at 800

 

I will do a compression test tomorrow and let ya'll know what kind of results i get....

 

Most of the "big" turbo projects are running my Stage II porting. I gotta go now, but I'll link the pics here later tonight.


-Ted

 

Well thats good to hear. Hopefull they maintain that compression for a while.

 

Just checked the compression.... 95 on the front and 110 on the rear. Must say i'm a little disapointed, but thats still not horrible for a turbo. You be the judge...

 

110 is good, 95 is not. Thats what I had prior to my rebuild.

 

Yeah, thanks for pointing that out dude

 

What all did you replace?

 

Like i said, I just bought the car about a month and a half ago with a fresh rebuild. Bruce said the housing were in good shape, reason for rebuild was because it had a bad coolant seal, but in reality it also had a bad front housing. He gave me a year waranty on the motor, so i'm gonna give him a call and see what he has to say. I got a hell of a deal on it though, $2600 and the body is actually pretty clean. He just wanted to get back what he had put into the car. It had been a customers car, and they didn't want to rebuild it because they said they had already put to much into it.... So now i got the car

 

From what I understand, Real World Solutions warrantees their apex seals, but only if you replace the housings with new ones. This is understandable because old housings, if they aren't in pristine condition, will shorten the life of the apex seals.
RWS has a very good rep for standing behind their work, not over-stating or misrepresenting their product line, and in general treating their clientel with respect and honesty.

 

If you are modded in /any way/ their warranty is invalid.