my friend bought a car from a guy and it said to have a rebuilt engine.

i used his car to install my ported 12a with mods .
instead of putting back in his 12a after i took mine out he decided he wanted me to port and rebuild it using a soft seal kit.

when i took it apart three of 6 apex seals were cracked 2 front 1 rear.
all of the apex seal springs were toast iall post pics soon.

how did this happen? from not putting the apex seal springs in correctly? or after the apex seals broke (somehow) they bent up from not having a even apex seal?

his motor ran alright from what he said before i pulled it lol...he was there for the tare down. it was a stock 12a 3mm seals

 

Apex seals usually flatten due to age or heat. Even with the seals cracked, they can perform nearly the same as if the seals weren't cracked. A cracked seal doesn't always cause a large drop in compression, sometimes as little as 5 psi. It's possible the seals cracked and the springs flattened due to detonation, but that's fairly rare on an NA engine.