I have blown my motor. 1600 miles or so, pineapple motor, 3mm ceramic apex seals, large street port. I took the exhaust manifold off and turbo today. Of course the turbine wheel had damage to it. I wanted to look at the exhaust ports to see the apex seals. I took the turbo out and notice that the corner seal and corner seal spring was stuck in the turbine wheel. What causes this to happen?? I really wanted to know what happen to my motor, since I just put it in?? The exhaust ports look good, the back rotor had 1/2 of 1 apex seal gone. And one apex with a small crack in it. The third apex seal there was no damage.
Front rotor had 75psi and rear rotor none, on compression check that I did.

 

If I were you and Pinapple Racing did the job...I`ll call them.

Is the corner seal broken? If not, port job might have been too big.

 

Mostly likely, bad/improper ECU tuning. Who tuned the ECU?

 

Holy ****! That really sucks. Where you horsing it?

 

Red,

I was looking at your old posts and saw that you were in line to get a tuning session by Steve Kan this upcoming April 29th and 30th. Where you boosting on an untuned car?

 

I don't see anyway the corner seal could have made it all the way through without breaking. Also was it the single piece corner seals or two piece with rubber insert? Where any of the seals reused? I'm guessing no since it sounds like you put a lot of money in the engine.

 

Corner seals exiting the engine are definitely a Bad Thing (TM). Pics?

 

porting, good luck with your pineapple warranty

 

It was tuned by me at 12psi. It broke under boost at 12psi. I have already talked to Pineapple about the motor. I flying up there to Pineapple in May to look at the internals of the motor. I'm not blaming any one here, just asking how that could happen. I'm taking full responsibility for what has happen if it's my fault. Rob at pineappple is a great guy and I'm looking forward to taking the motor apart with him. But I did tune it on a dyno at 12 psi, and I was on the list to have Steve Kan tune for the bigger HP to be safe. I do have pics of exhaust ports, and corner seal pieces.

 

here is the dyno

 

Oh ya I have a TEC 3r, with there DFU's(coils), the timing map is set very conservative with 10 degress advance under boost, and looking at the dyno the a/f looks ok, could be alittle richer.

 

Corner seal that was in the turbo....

 

Looking at the dyno pic, the tuning can cause the corner seal to come out of the exhaust port? What kind of poor tuning would cause that?

 

Ya I have some money invested, Rob built the motor. I'm not sure what kind of corner seals he used. All I know is there are 2pc ceramic 3mm apex seals, coated apex seals. All parts were new, housings, apex seals, corner seals.

 

I had put it on a dyno to make sure the a/f was ok and timing is set very conservative. I had no detination at all. I was driving from 2 to 3, WOT, the motor in third gear start to slow down, then I back off. Push the gas while in neutral and the motor was blown.

 

the corner seal physically cannot escape the engine UNLESS the person who did the porting got overzealous and went a bit far

 

I've seen Pineapple ports, and they are VERY large. However, the one I saw which was blown didn't have a problem with the corner seals.

 

Rob has been very helpful with me, and I will be flying up there May 13th to tear down the motor with him. He doesnt know yet about the corner seal(calling him tomorrow), I have only talked to him about blowing it and that I will be going there.

 

The only way I see this being possible is if the engine somehow got itself loose, maybe through detenation (ie. tension bolts) and created enough of a gap to allow the corner seal to escape. I don't have much confidence in the 2 piece corner seals they are crap from my perspective. You can litteraly break them with your fingers, but the one you are showing appears to be the one piece designed sold by atkins, so that is not the case.

Rob, really knows what he does, and I couldn't see him overporting the housings to a point where the corner seal could fall out.

 

I agree with this. The only way I can see it happening (I've never seen it before) is if the port is opened quite early, exposing half or more of the cornerseal to open port. Then when the apex seal damage occured it broke the cornerseal in half (not very common, but certainly possible) and the smaller pieces were able to come out and lay in the intake port...then on a subsequent cycle it was thrown into the combustion chamber and pushed out the exhaust. It's still a 1 in a million shot to have this happen. Kiss that rotor and rotorhousing, and quite possibly an adjacent iron (cornerseal could wedge between edge of intake port and rotor), goodbye.

 

are you serious? no.....just stop

 

WOW! I've never seen anything like that. Sounds like you have a lot of money tied up in the engine hopefully it all works out for you.

 

 

I talked to Rob, toldl him about the corner seal. I will let you guys know what happen once Rob tears down the motor(only way to find out). Should know by May 13th, that's when I'll be there......

 

I can see where this is going if Rob's tearing it down by himself, atleast from past horror stories. Your warranty is worthless and he'll, my bet, say it was tuning.

Tim