Banzai-Racing

iTrader: (11)

People steam clean their engines all the time, water would not cause that wear. For that matter people drive with bad/failing coolant seals all the time and there is not any aggressive wear on the housings. Additionally your 2 cycle is injected with the fuel, so it is not being washed off with water. Ever try to wash oil off your driveway with a garden hose?

That rotor was not making contact with the housing. If it were there would be an area ground smooth on the rotor. For contact to occur your e-shaft would need to be bent or your bearings worn out. In a worn bearing situation the contact typical occurs on the side housings., since the clearance is much tighter for the side seals as there is no in/out travel.

The grooves in the rotor are from the factory machining process. The dents are from dentonation.

tom94RX-7

iTrader: (5)

Good point about the oil. I am sure though the engine was affected somehow someway from all the puddles of water going into the engine, it lost power dyno proven and lost compression.

That picture shows the area that the grooves are ground smooth, that light colored area is ground smooth, and It's like that on 3 sides in the same spot.

Thanks for The info.

Banzai-Racing

iTrader: (11)

If you are talking about that 1.25" spot on the rotor face, it is not possible for that contact to eat the entire 3" width of the housing. It also can't make contact on full rotation only at the bumps in the middle of the housings. If you look at your pics you can see the area near the leading plug. I was not looking specifically for that on my previous post, that type of contact is from very high boost and e-shaft/engine flex.

Dyno proven? The only thing that that you know for sure is that the power was down after you went to the track, you do not know that the water caused it. If that were the case anyone running huge AI injectors would be causing internal damage. You can believe that if you want, but I have torn down enough engines to know what causes particular types of damage.

tom94RX-7

iTrader: (5)

It was making 528-532 HP during two different dyno sessions, then I I started having a problem with all kinds of water going through the engine, I didn't yet know that the check valve was bad and I put it back on the dyno after I thought I got all the water out of the ic, first it made 478 and then 501 with water still in the ic cause the check valve was still bad and everytime the engine Was in vacum like switching gears water was getting sucked out and forming a puddle in the fmic. after driving home then I found the bad check valve inside the aem water injector and fixed it and added another inline check valve, and emptied all the water out of the intercooler again. put it back on the dyno and only made 498 on the 2nd pull as you can see on the dyno sheet on page 1, then while on the dyno switched it to the pre turbo location and it made a little more power but still not as much power as it made before check valve problem. compression check confirmed a less compression then it had last time I checked a while ago.

thanks

tom94RX-7

iTrader: (5)

and the first dyno pull with The bad check valve when it made only 478, it was sputtering I think because a puddle of water was getting forced through the engine and the dyno graph showed a sharp drop in power in the higher rpms, and it blew out smoke. maybe this is when the engine suffered the most amount of damage that resulted in the engine not making as much power as it used to and loss of compression. a couple months after all this is when I took it to the track and the engine blew

Banzai-Racing

iTrader: (11)

I do not feel that the puddle of water in your IC could be picked up, since air takes the path of least resistance the air would just blow over the top of the water as there is no way for it to get under the water to lift it. If there was a significant amount (gallons) in the IC it might push some out, but I think with that much water in the IC the car would not be getting any air so it would not run. As Barry already mentioned the engine can digest an enormous amount of water.

The sputtering and clouds of smoke (most likely steam) were probably from large amounts of water being digested, the spark is only going to ignite the fuel, when injecting large amounts of water it can/will extinguish the spark. You said your AEM injector check valve was bad, potentially it was flowing more than rated. I think you previously posted that after you fixed the issue the system was injecting less.

Just so you know AEM had a recall on their injector because of the check valve leaking. Contact them and they will provide you with the new design that does not require an in line valve.

You did have multiple problems, but water does not destroy rotor housings. I have seen the exact same wear on multiple engines using these seals, with and without AI. The seals didn't break but that did not stop them from destoying the housings. They seals claim to fame is that they do not cause housings wear, it is just not the case.

You will also want to check your turbine wheel. You must remove the housings to examine it properly. With extremely high EGT temps and overly lean conditions there is the chance of melting the turbine blades. Apex seals do not need to pass through them for damage to occur.

tom94RX-7

iTrader: (5)

Do you see the grooves/scratches/damage from the als seals around the whole housing?

tom94RX-7

iTrader: (5)

I do think a small puddle of water or some amount of that water was getting forced into the engine. When I was driving it on the street with The bad oring in the new aem injector body many times as soon as I got into a little bit of boost it would bog down and blow out a huge white cloud out the exhaust. It was not injecting more than rated. The week before the engine blew I changed the nozzles, I put in smaller rated nozzles. When I had the old aem injector in the post ic location It also ran like **** cause there was no built in check valve in the old one and water got sucked out of it under vacuum. I know they replaced that older injector with The new one with The built in check valve that I had the problem with, I was not aware of a recall for it.

Most of the damage to the housing is around and mostly above the combustion area, other areas of the housings are smooth or not nearly as bad, does this not show that the seals themselves did not cause all the damage and all that extra water had to play a part? The water could have washed away the oil after entering the housings before combustion..?

I didn't remove the turbine housing but I Can see the blades fairly good and they look good, but I will remove it And look better.

Thanks

tom94RX-7

iTrader: (5)

Also I don't get why the rotor housings are so scratched up (but not all the way around) and the apex seals feel so smooth, they feel nothing like the scratched up areas of the housings. so I don't see how exactly the scratches were caused. Only thing missing was pieces of the rubber corner seal plugs and small pieces of my turbo impeller blades from before when small puddles of water were going through the turbo from my intake from a different problem I had before with The water injection progressive controller, it was spraying water into my intake every time I turned the key on or off.

G's 3rd Gen

iTrader: (11)

Sounds about right. I am spraying 550cc of 70/30 wat./meth. with no problems to 20 psi on a 35r. I made 455 @ 18. Car pulls great with zero ignition issues on the stock coils with a twin power and 9's all around. G

Banzai-Racing

iTrader: (11)

Earlier you said the seals on the rear rotor had nicks in them

The corner seal plugs have nothing to do with the wear. The stock corner plugs melt in overly lean conditions. Some people have had success with solid corner seals, others have had bad experiences. Even Mazda changed to a metal corner seal plug on the Renesis engine ,which cannot be used in the FD engine unfortunately. When the corner seals crack the parts typically stay in the rotors, if the parts exit the rotor they cause damage to the irons.



The water did not wash off the oil. Only if you using Palmolive dish soap in your water.

If an engine get excessively flooded with non-premixed fuel it will wash the oil off.

Are you saying you also have a chipped compressor wheel? Is so that will hurt HP and cause internal damage to the engine if the pieces make it through your IC.

I am not there to inspect all your parts, nor am I building your engine, so that responsibility falls on you. So far the postmortem of your engine shows excessive wear to your housings and the rotors are damaged beyond use. I have no idea what your side housings or bearings look like.

Here are the housings from an engine we recently tore down, same seals and showing similar wear http://www.banzai-racing.com/2011_cu.../housings1.JPG

It sounds like you really want to believe that everything else failed but the seals, you need to step back and look at the obvious root cause. Theorizing that a Tsunami of distilled water caused your housings wear does not make sense. Compressor wheel particles could account for the heavier gouges if that is what you meant by impeller.

I have no idea what condition the housings were in during the engine build, we need to assume they were in spec. I can tell that they are FC housings which have a less robust internal coating than the FD housings.

djseven

iTrader: (56)

So which is it? When people talk about housing wear with RA Superseals you clearly state above that water/meth injection plays a role in housing wear and lubrication of the housings/seals. But, gallons of water steam cleaning Tom's engine could in no way effect lubrication of the housings when it is ALS seals we are talking about now could it?

You are the one and only person I have seen speak negatively of the ALS seals, its a funny coincidence that you are the recommended builder on Rotary Aviation's site
NOW BEFORE I GO FURTHER LET ME STATE I believe Banzai/Chris is one of the few great rotary shops left in the country. His customer service is probably unmatched and professional level of work is among the top without question. He is one of only about 4-5 shops I recommend to people in the US since I no longer build engines.

Hopefully everyone understands this is not coming from a bad place now, but I have to call it like I see it. There is absolutely no doubt RA superseals eat housings, that is just what they do. I have built and tore down enough engines with RA superseals to know that at 10-15k miles your housings are going to look like **** unless you pre-mix like crazy almost to the point of your car smoking all the time. The RA superseals are still a good seal, you just have to know what you are getting with them. They rarely break, wont kill your turbo, can be pushed far and stay together BUT WILL DEFINITELY EAT YOUR HOUSINGS.

Chris also fails to mention in the pic above about his "recently tore down customer engine with ALS seals" that the customer was told to only run 4oz of premix per tank WITHOUT an omp which is just crazy as even Mazda seals would start to wear housings like that.

Speaking of pics, I will post pics tonight of housings from an engine I tore down 3 weeks ago that was running RA Superseals with roughly 10k miles on them per previous owner(I do not know pre-mix history) and you will clearly see what they do to housings.

Ive got a bunch of engines out there now that have been running for over 3 years on ALS seals some over 20k miles(my personal car has 16k miles on ALS seals)without special premix instructions with no issues.

djseven

iTrader: (56)

Now to go further do ALS seals cause excessive wear to housings? Honestly I dont know for a fact? Why, because the engines dont come apart so I dont know for certain

Now lets get serious for a second. I have torn down 2 engines that ran ALS seals.
1. Sucked injector diffuser throught around 2-2500 miles.
2. was Tom's first engine I built him where the center of the housings below the leading spark plug hole actually concaved in slightly causing low compression which was around 1500-2000 miles(Still to this day have no clue what caused the housings to do this)

Neither housing has excessive wear what so ever, none, zip, zero. Housings looked great.

All I can tell people about ALS seals is that they have been a god send to me personally. They offer the resiliance of the RA seals without the extreme housing wear. Just search this forum and let me know any bad press about the ALS seals. We are going on nearly 4 years now so you would think if they were eating housings in 4k miles we would have heard about it, right?

Then search RA superseals, there are hundreds of testimonials of forum members talking about their housings being destroyed.

I have 16k miles on ALS seals on my engine mixing 6-8oz of premix per fill up along with spraying water/meth. Compression is great, hot starts are as quick as ever even in the 90+degree heat after hard driving.

Sk8twrld car has 20k miles on it now runnign high 9s(I think)in the 1/4 on ALS seals. A true legitimate 600rwhp FD he built himself.

So lets put the bias stuff to rest. Would I still build an engine with RA superseals? Sure, if I couldnt get my hands on the ALS seals. Ive built several engines for customers wtih RA superseals over the years. Customers were satisfied but knew what to expect with their housings and compression.

Hopefully this will clear up some info for those reading the thread. Once again, I truly think highly of Chris and Banzai. He is a great asset to the community and the forum and no one should hesitate to take their car or engine to Chris. Rarely do I ever disagree with something that he posts, however, I just cant agree with him that RA superseals dont eat housings and ALS seals do.

I have no dog in this fight, but just wanted to set the record straight.

unwritten-dinasty

DJ, you think the same about the RA Classics?

djseven

iTrader: (56)

Personally I think I have only built two engines with them, never heard what came of those engines. You dont see as many claims about them eating housings like the Black Super Seals but I dont have enough experience with the RA Classics to say one way or the other.

silverfdturbo6port

iTrader: (26)

I have to agree with Djseven and Banzai.
I have ran Ra classics in all my builds and customer cars as well as a few people have used them locally here on their builds as well. I have tested and inspected my own motor at 6 k with a mix of 1oz idemitsu to 1 gal of fuel with no omp and id have to say the housings look really really good. I have yet to have a report of a blown motor or broken Ra classic seal in my experiences.
There are people out there who do believe that water injection leads to steam cleaning the combustion chamber and "washing" causing a piston or rotor to wear the wall out.
With that said the water injection idea is decades old and was used in ww2 planes to help create more power. They never had a issue and av gas has less lubricating properties than pump fuel if I recalll but i could be wrong.
Ive ran the ra classic seals with water injection for many years with no problems. I even recall Tom94 telling me im running "too" much water but ive yet have a issue.
Sounds to me that Banzai and Djseven are on the right page about what "possibly" caused your engine failure.

tom94RX-7

iTrader: (5)

Ya they are like very very small nicks, too small to see in a picture, I tried taking a bunch of pics. they don't really feel as bad as the housings.

The broken corner seals did stay in the rotor. I'm not sure if I want to put stock corner seals back in or use the solid corner seals which I am told wear away the irons quicker.

When you see damage/scratches to the rotor housings, do you see the same amount of scratches around the entire housing? Because mine have alot more scratches from just after where the intake enters the housings, at the top of the housings, until the exhaust ports, then above the exhaust ports the scratches are not nearly as bad. Now I don't know if this is normal or not, but it seems to me like too much water could cause this, the housings are damaged more where the water is in the housings which may or may not wash away some of the oil lubrication, and if most of the water then goes out the exhaust ports that might explain why the scratches are not as bad right after the exhaust ports? I did have a ton of white smoke going out the exhaust when all the water was going through my engine.

The damaged compressor wheel happened last year and did not get worse, I fixed the problem last year so it wouldn't happen again, it has nothing to do with the power loss.

The facts are it lost about 30 hp after the water injector problem that caused alot of water to go through the engine, and I did a compression check and the compression was getting low. It was making 528 hp on 10/13/2011 and 2 more pulls on 1/31/2012 it made 528 and 532, then I had the water injector problem and on 2/4/2012 and 2/9/2012 it was making no more than 501 hp with the same post ic water injection setup, between 2/4/2012 and 2/9/2012 is when I found the bad check valve oring and fixed the problem and added an additional inline check valve and took off the fmic and emptied out the water in it.

Thanks for the info and help.

tom94RX-7

iTrader: (5)

I found a spot on the rear rotor housing where it looks like the rear rotor did hit the housing, its a mark just like the worn away marks on the rotor, and its really rough, see pics here http://czfitnessproducts.com/tom94RX...tting-housing/

Its just above the half way up point of the rotor housing above the exhaust port. It feels like the rough surface of the rotors, and the mark is like the same width as the marks on the rotor where I said something earlier about how it looks like the rotor must have hit the housing.

Banzai-Racing

iTrader: (11)

Let's see, where to begin..

I have not mentioned RA seals in this thread once, it looks like you are attempting to cloud the issues with ALS seals by throwing a RA seal red herring out there.

I clearly state that "lubrication of seals and housings is key". I never say that more premix is required with water injection. Read the quote again. The mention of WI is specifically about cars making 400-500hp where WI is virtually mandatory to make the level of power. Read any of my post I never say it is safe to run less that 1oz/ga.

I will say it again, I do not believe water caused the wear to Tom's housings. I know it is in your best interest to try to take the attention off the seals since you push ALS like you have a vested interest in the company.


I am not here to push any seal on anybody, as I said I have not mentioned RA seals once in this thread. I guess "I am just telling it how I see it".

I can tell you exactly why there is not more negative press, the individual users to not want to deal with the backlash from supporters like yourself that would attempt to discredit them. You and I both know for a fact that is an epidemic on this forum.

I am sorry but that is really not impressive, 3 years is not a measure of an engines life, there are people with engines that are 10 y/o with less that 1K miles. Engines certainly should last more that 20K miles.

If you want to get in to a tit-for-tat we have a customer that just posted up on our facebook page that stating that he has put 55K miles on in 3 years with one of our engines, I know for a fact that he is using the stock OMP without any premix. http://www.facebook.com/banzai.racing.7

Put on 55k miles since the Banzai Racing rebuild 3+ years ago. Rotary is running great thanks to Chris and Elaine


Exactly my point. You have no idea of the amount of wear caused by these seals, since they have only been on the market for a few years and you have not actually torn town an engine that has used them for any period of time. At the mileage you posted the engines would have just come out of easy driving break-in. So based off your own admission you do not have the experience to determine if these seal wear housings or not.

Are you not reading this thread correctly? The engines do come apart, Tom's is currently apart, you can see his pictures posted in previous pages of this thread. I have pulled multiple engines apart.

I didn't realize it was a fight, but since we are "setting the record straight". You built this engine and you are constantly touting ALS seals as "amazing", "incredible", "god send", etc when you really have no long term testing data. I can only speculate that since you are constantly pushing these seals on people you feel that you do have a "dog in this fight", since you are taking it personally.

Are you at least willing to cede that Tom's housings have excessive wear? Now that you have seen the inside of another ALS engine with excessive wear you would think that you would use it as a learning experience.

Here is the fact: All metallic apex seals wear housings. It is the nature of metal on metal, there is nothing amazing about ALS seals that prevents this from happening. I recommend high levels of premix for all unbreakable seals.

Banzai-Racing

iTrader: (11)

The top half of the rotor housings typically wears more since this portion sees more abuse due to it being the compression area of the housings.

djseven

iTrader: (56)

From the guy who posts pics of his customer's engine running ALS seals and showing housing wear without telling all the facts, gotcha You have to admit it is kinda funny that the only guy saying anything negative about these seals in 4 years on this forum is the recommended builder by Rotary Aviation, that doesnt seem peculiar to you? I always state the RA seals are a good seal and have their place, I honestly believe there is a better option available now.


No vested interest what so ever, I think I have sold maybe 3-4 sets this year and made less than $150.00 off them, for those reading this wanting ALS seals contact Allrotor93 here on the forum. I just want to see rotary guys actually drive their car and not be afraid of the repercussions every time they do. Once again I have built several engines with both sets of seals and known the circumstances they were used in. When you watch compression drop with Superseals everytime due to housing wear, common sense starts to step in for most of us.



Well, guess we differ there. As an engine builder I think it is your duty to your customer to "push" the best option for your customer on them, and then let them make the decision. I am simply happy with the ALS product, I get not a single reward/compensation from Edgar at East Coast Rotary for pushing these seals for him on the forum. Simply a great product so I "push" them here on the forum so other people wont have the headaches myself and others have gone through over the years.

Gotta call BS here, anyone who is not closed minded would appreciate the feedback from forum users on issues like this. I know I have built a lot of engines with ALS seals over the last 3 1/2 years and sure would have appreciated if someone stepped in and showed me I was wasting my time and only going to have upset customers down the road due to housing wear and low compression. It simply has not been the case.



Couldnt agree more. That is why I was looking for another option besided RA Superseals. I have seen them eat enough housings to know exactly what they are going to do. To pretend they dont wear housings more than Mazda or Atkins seals is also just laughable.


So you are saying it is a bad thing they dont eat housings fast enough to merit an engine tear down? I clearly stated there hasnt been a reason to tear one down with "higher" mileage.


Yea, Tom's car is pretty normal right? Running 10.30s on pump gas leaving off a 2 step Keep reaching, maybe you are right and the ALS seals do cause excessive wear to housings, the evidence isnt there yet. If it ever turns out to be the case, I will be the first person to step up and warn forum members about it.



Yes, Tom's engine has excessive wear. Too many variables for me to point at JUST the seals for certain at this time. Im sure time will tell.


Of course all metallic seals wear housings to some degree. But anyone saying Atkins and Mazda seals wear housings as much as RA Superseals is laughable and loses all credibility instantly. The jury is still out on the ALS I guess.

djseven

iTrader: (56)

Sorry for the Iphone pics, camera battery was dead.

This was a recent tear down with RA Superseals, roughly 10k miles and I honestly have no clue on the pre-mix history. Note the housings have no edge wear or spark plug cracking which leads one to believe these housings were probably new or close to new when the rebuild was done. This wear is more excessive than some of the RA superseal tear downs with similar mileage but nothing too far out of the ordinary.

Barry Bordes

Tom ,
I see the intake pipe snaking into the 2nd oil cooler area.
What air filter are you running?
Barry

tom94RX-7

iTrader: (5)

It is a k&n that sits down there where the 2nd oil cooler would be.

Banzai-Racing

iTrader: (11)

I am not even going to waste my time addressing your entire post as this sums it up.

And this point was proven immediately with your entire response, but I love this part...

That is funny since it is that exact feedback that is being given, yet instead of looking at the information, you instantly go into attack mode trying to defend the seals and discredit the person supplying the information.

So according to your own post you must be closed minded.

We build engines professionally every day, not as a "hobby" for spare cash when it doesn't interfere with our day jobs. We see a lot more engines then you, so one would think you would be a little more open to hearing about what we are seeing...I really do not care if you use ALS seals, I know we will not.

Luckly your attacks do not phase me, since it only makes you look foolish and you lose credibility with each attempt. Please stop taking it so personally as it is making you look bad.

Mazda seals:

There you go trying to discredit again implying statements were made that clearly were not. Nobody said Mazda seals wear as much as aftermarket. They also do not handle the power demands of todays RX-7 owners. I will not even go into the shortcoming of Atkins 2mm & 3mm seals, that has been covered way too many times and has no value to this thread. For that matter, neither does your RA seal discussion.

I do not know why you are trying to muddy the waters with stuff that has no place in this thread. It really makes me wonder what it is you are trying to hide. Maybe it is that fact that you did not use FD housings in Tom's engine I guess you are worried about fallout

Obviously you do not want anyone to think that Tom's engine failure could have anything to do with your rebuild, so you are pointing fingers in any direction you can find. Even though you are still scratching your head about why it failed at 2500 miles Hmmmm...

Tom,
Sorry that your thread came so far off track. I really was just trying to help you sort out your engine failure so you could avoid multiple rebuilds. We turn out 500+ hp 13b cars on a regular basis. Often times an experienced set of eyes that does not have any bias can be extremely helpful. I have no vested interest in showing you that the WI was not responsible for your housings wear.