Hi guys,

What do you guys recommend for water seals?

Looks like I have to do a rebuild again... and was wondering If any of the aftermarket seals are better than OEM seals.

Moe Greene

 

OEM unless you've had a lot of practice

 

Yep, OEM is the way to go. What was in your engine that failed?

Dale

 

About to tear everything out and see if I can find the culprit, If I don't find anything I will tear down the engine and see if its a seal problem.

Wish me luck guys!

 

Hey Moe, I saw the other thread about coolant coming out of the turbos and now you're asking for recommendations on seals. I thought I would reply to both threads here. So first off, my thoughts are you pinched a water seal on rebuild or one of your coolant seal walls has failed. You could also have a hole in one of your irons in a coolant passage that you could have missed on inspection. Sometimes the passages can corrode. In any case, I had bad coolant seals when I first got my car and yes, it dripped coolant from the turbos. Actually what was happening was coolant was getting into the combustion chamber and then getting spit out through the exhaust ports. The coolant finds its way out by leaking past the gaskets and it drips coolant from what looks the turbos, but its actually leaking from the exhaust manifold area. I have rebuilt my own and a few other engines since and used Atkins seals. They have a proprietary seal which is a brown color and is very difficult to install incorrectly unless you twist it putting it in. I have had zero problems with Atkins seals on any of the motors I have done. Just my 2 cents worth.

 

I found out the problem, my side seal got jammed between the center iron and front housing. Check out the thread I made about it, I posted photos.

https://www.rx7club.com/3rd-generati.../#post12215652

 

OEM or the Atkins brown seals. The Atkins are a little more resilient to overheating. The biggest thing with them is they are uniform in color, so you have to look very carefully that they don't roll over. This is easier to see with the stock seals.