As you may know I had my motor "professionally" built <2k mi ago
Car was 2 months late, getting back to me. Missed the whole summer
Poor whp #s from the get go
leaked oil
leaked gas from injectors
fouled plugs
then the idle vacuum began to fall:
then it didnt want to start when warm.
all with-in 1k miles after 1k mi break in


Anyway Im gunna do it myself this time.
The key to success will be to know what went wrong the first time..
What would cause this kind of wear?? (top seal is from the other rotor)
note-
flat springs
worn ends
very worn corner piece to rotor housing edge

Looks to me like the spring pushed up too hard on the end piece, causing wear to the rotor housing edge of the small end piece. As the spring continued to push up to fill in the gap made by wear, the ramp of the 45deg in turn pushed out.
But why?
And how do the flat springs fit into the puzzle?
Maybe the small piece saw so much friction it got cherry and heated the spring?
The other rotor apex seals look good, as you can see the top seal in the picture.
But one spring there was flat too.
??

 

i would contact the engine builder and get your money back or something before letting this grease monkey take your money.

 

What type of seals were used? That is some very strange wear.

 

wow! after 2k all together? What do the housings look like?

 

They are 3mm, ill have to check my receipt to see what kind exactly.
They appear to be designed for double springs, but were installed with single springs.
I took a few measurements, comparing the wear on one end to the other end of the same seal. It is not noticeable in the pictures, but even the "good" apex seals are worn unevenly. The big difference is that the more worn end happens to be the end without the 45deg cut. The differences end to end are from .015 to .021 per apex seal. This seems like a big difference to me, for 2000miles.

 

maybe the housings weren't properly expanded to accept the 3mm. CNC problem?

 

The housings? do you mean the rotors weren't properly milled?

 

so you took apart the whole engine, can you measure the rotor housing width and compair it with the seal width.

that flat spring is very confusing as well

 

Most likely the springs weren't seated correctly causing uneven pressure on the seal.

 

yeah, my bad... rotors. but in all honesty it could be something simple as poor spring seating.

 

They can't be OEM seals as the 3mm's use a single long spring. Who milled the rotors? What was the clearance for the seals? You can normally reuse the apex seal springs by re arching them with your fingers, although yours are surely junk now. I've never seen them the way yours are. I really really want to know who built the motor. It looks like the just put the motor together and go it out of the shop... If you don't want to post it please pm me. Also LMK where you are in New York I'd like to see the housings and irons in person if possible.

 

Wow, I've never seen springs like that before.....not good at all. So they used 2 piece 3mm seals (of unknown origin) with single springs?

 

Spill the beans and say who the engine builder is...

 

The springs are certainly crap, but even more incredible is the wear on the seals. The only thing I can come up with is that the they wre not hardened properly, apex seals do not just wear away like that. Even if they were out of spec, overly long seals (who knows why?), they would not grind themselves down, they would chew up the irons first, if the engine would even rotate.

 

my bet is sloppy apex seal to groove clearance. if it is more than spec you have 2 things happen, neither good.

1. hot gasses get behind the apex seal and make a noodle out of the spring. see picture.

2. apex seal rotates at too great an angle taking the shoulders off the profile. see picture. the vert carbon lines on one of the seals indicates a poor machine job on the groove.

i do like 3 mm seals because they afford you to perfectly set the apex seal/groove clearance if you do them right...

do carefully measure your seal to groove clearance and let us know.

howard coleman

 

What shop did this?

 

when cleaned, some apex grooves allow a .002 nothing more.
some do not, but a .0015 goes.
The builder did the milling, and the tune.
I do think it was thrown together. It was WAY late and he said it was already in, but didnt work, so he had to pull it again do it over, and so it was later.
some side seals to corner allow .02 where the book says .002 (i didnt bother to check them all, I just ordered new)
As far as the "rotor housing width to seal width", the seals were only too wide because they wore the top edge so fast and uneven and ramped out on the 45deg (half up, half out). If I make the bottom line straight across, they are too narrow (now, due to the excessive wear)
I had 2 new housings put in at the time of the build, they look soso/ok to me, but I didnt put any gauge on them yet. I trust my irons were good at the time of the build, as all 3 were used. Now the center iron is clearly shot, for the end plates, Ill have to get that other gauge.

 

Can you please post pictures of the irons, housings, rotors and other hard seals from this engine?

-J

 

Can you please inform us of the builder?

I am doing a build soon and I do not want to go to this shop.