So these are the housing that came out of my engine. I used Ra super seals and 1/2 to 1 oz of pre mix. Made it 25,000 miles with around 20 psi of boost with no AI. Driven very hard. The deep gouges near the exhaut ports were present when I built the engine and caused by stock seals.

Now you may notice one housing looks a little smoother than the other, I had already began to clean/smooth it up prior to the pic but the housings were in better condition than I expected, after hearing many saying these seals destroy housings. So Basiclly 1 housing has not been touched and the other reworked a little. You should be able to see the difference.

Any thoughts??

 

O and the engine failed due to side seals. They ate my irons and one was 2/3s missing....

And these were used housings when the Ra's were used. One unknown mileage the other is over 50,000 miles.

 

Pic 1. Getting close to finshed on re-surfacing the housings.

Pic 2. Here is the broken side seal sitting on the rotor, only a 1/3 of it left. You can see the blow by into the oil seal area. Not easy to see but you can also see the gooves in the side plate from the side seals. It seems my side seal are wearing wrong. They are being flatened and sharpened and killing the side plates. Wish I could figure out what I am doing wrong, the wear is bad. I think the tolerance I am leaving is a bit too tight?? Any thoughts.

Pic 3. The difference between Re and Rew intake runners.

Pic 4. Here is a resurfaced Side plate. My buddy at a machine shop ran it on a stone wheel grinder. I have been sanding it smooth as the sat for 4 or 5 years on the self and developed a lil surface rust. I think this pic is 600 or 1000 grit. I think they will go in the next motor...

Again any thoughts on any of this??

 

And here is the 1 apex seal with a lil damage. I suspect it kissed the side seal on its way out. Though it is damaged, it didn't break. It sure did take a hit though

I took like 10 pics couldn't get the focus right

 

Could you please label the pictures of the 13BRE and 13BREW rotor housings left to right.

Just to confirm for those end plate pictures

That is a 13BRE twin turbo from a JC cosmo
13BREW from an FD RX-7?

Which one is which?

 

Left to right- Re, Rew, Re, Rew.

Yes two different engines. 13B-re, and 13B-rew.

 

Thanks for this info. I just received my Super Seals in the mail today and decided to share the news and people are already starting in saying they are housing damaging seals. My point of view is this...if you maintain your motor, they will last. Knowing that the seals are more durable helps bring me peace of mind since I just blew my last seals after 2,000 km's.

 

Thanks for sharing. Speed1 did my engine with the superseals, and I've been nerveous about it ever since...

 

yeap they will scratch the housing like freddy krueger in nightmare on elm st both of my housing were trash after i opened my engine last month. picture here on post #4 https://www.rx7club.com/build-thread...bo-sa-1002024/

 

Aviation seals are designed to not fail, at the expense of the housing. In aviation, you have a set TBO (Time Before Overhaul) and theses seals are designed to last that long no matter what. However, an engine built to aviation standards will consider the housings a normal wear item. The reason for this is because the effect of failure for an airplane is much different from a car. If you lose power in a car, you pull over or push it out of the road, whereas an airplane can't just pull over.

RA = Rotary Aviation (IIRC) and that should be the number one clue as to their intended behavior. This is precisely why I have not and would not use them in a street driven vehicle.

 

Didn't the superseals used to NOT eat up housings?

If I recall there was a period where they didn't do that..

 

Id rather not have to do research to find out what series did or didn't eat up housings. I'd rather just buy a brand of seals and know they are all uniform.

 

every seal out there CAN eat a housing regardless if the seal breaks up or not. i have seen it on virtually every seal out there.

what causes it? i still do not know. i would blame it mostly on surface prep, roughed up housings appear to be more prone to not lap in the seals properly. a nice smooth surface is less prone to clawing/gouging but will take more time to conform the seals to the housings. when i resurface the housings i usually put a cross hatch on the surface for harder more brittle seals like Atkins/OEM and for softer seals like Goopy and RA i would leave the grain as it was.

foreign debris is also a leading contributor like dust, sand and compressor wheels. most aftermarket filters have poor filtering for dirty ambient conditions. if you pull off your filter and wipe the inside of the intake pipe and come up with grainy sludge, your filter isn't doing its job. other reasons like sand blasting intake manifolds is a bad idea, the beads will hide in every place you can't get to, even the surface. parts must be hot tanked, washed thoroughly and blown out thoroughly with compressed air. soda blasting is the recommended method for cleaning internal parts, as it will dissolve during the cleaning process.

new OEM housings have a very light peening of the surface as well as cross hatch.

 

The reason why I asked is because I have a brand new engine and I'll be putting super seals in them... At least, they appear visually similar to super seals, and stand up to abuse like super seals, but from what I've heard they don't eat up housings like the current super seals.

 

are you saying that w/the softer seals you would not add a cross hatch to your resurfacing or no resurfacing at all?

 

with the softer seals like RA/ALS/Goopy i doubt it matters much so i skip the additional step.

i'm more interested in the wear characteristics of each different type of seal. if you could measure the new versus on seal height that would be good info for comparison.

 

Yes the seal's crown was worn down a lil. Not bad i re-ground 5 of them and reused them. When they fail or the engine comes back apart i will repost. Already have 2k miles on the engine, drove 900 miles to Orlando this past weekend.

I think the FD housings hold up better than the older models to the "unbreakable seals" as the surface is improved??

I have seen so many posts where people say these seals destroyed their housings, in my case, it just isn't that way. Makes me wonder what caused the CLAW MARKS OF DEATH BWAHAHAHAH!! issues in the other engines? The seal is easy to blame.

 

no, i just pulled apart an REW that had Atkins seals, chewed to hell. the housings were repairable but looked as mangled as the seals. grooves everywhere, front and rear rotors, rear had 2 bent seals and broken short apex seal springs that doubled under one another which caused the 2 seals to compress on one end which caused them to bend.

the housings were resurfaced, but i had never seen that issue previously. nor had i ever seen Atkins seals actually bend/warp.

Atkins are a brittle material, much like the cast iron OEM seals. they take longer to break in and actually should have been less susceptible to the rougher housing surfaces. problem is the cut surface like a resurfaced brake rotor the seals only contact about 1/2 of the surface to cool the seals until they lap in, which can cause them to overheat and gall the surface which i believe is what happened. softer seals conform more readily, allowing them to cool more quickly during break in.

 

^ What do you suspect causing the "claw marks". You mention foreign object injestion and improper housing surface, any other thoughts like springs out of spec/jamed, apex grooves out of spec, carbon build up flaking off or lack of lub? It seems all seals are capable of causing the marks.

Hear you on the problem also occuring on REW housings.

 

I'm going with the RA seals myself, they are sitting in my garage ready to ship to my engine builder.

 

Your thread says RA, where they the regular RA or the SuperSeals? I had the regular RA, and they did the same thing to my housings (hence why speed1 had to do a rebuild).

 

additional lubrication would be a good idea for the first 500 miles on resurfaced housings. i recommend 1.5oz premix. keep in mind the OMP system takes about that amount of time to fill on a rebuilt engine with drained OMP system. the premix will help cool the seals until they lap into the housings.

 

Superseal

 

Boriquaguerrero- A few questions.

1. How many miles on the engine when you opened it and took those pics?

2.Do you have the RA seals that were in the engine when that happened? I wonder what they look like, warped, chewed up??

3. Did you pre mix?

4.Why are some successfully with these seals and some are not?

 

4. I'm making a complete guess, but I think it is because he built it properly (or had it built) and maintained lubrication for the entire 25,000 miles.