SPOautos

As some of you know I killed my motor a couple weeks ago. The motor I killed was almost new, we build it in December and it only had about 4000 miles on it. It had 2mm hurley seals with new housings. Anyway, the front rotor still had great compression it was the rear rotor as usual that took a beating. Last night we pulled the end plate off to check out the damage on the rear rotor......

All 3 seals were busted. I'm not talking about cracks, I'm talking one side having 1/2 the seal being gone, one 3/4 of the seal was gone along with its spring, and the other one just had a gap in the middle like it lost it 2 front teeth. I think one broke real bad and took the other 2 out with it along with my turbos.

Just when you thought all was lost get this, the damage was bad enough that it ruined the rotor by creating indentions in it......BUT MY HOUSING WITH 4K MILES STILL LOOKS BRAND NEW!!!!!!

We couldnt believe it!!! It was so bad it destroyed the rotor and left the housing flawless!!!!!!!!!

How the hell could this happen!!!!!! I'm not asking questions I'm just thanking God!!!! I'm now glad I spend a little extra and got the Hurley's....they just saved me from buying a $600 housing

Just thought I'd share!!!!

STEPHEN

RETed

It has nothing to do with seals - you just got lucky.


-Ted

SPOautos

Yea, I do feel pretty damn lucky....about the housing anyway haha Basically everything else sucks!!!

Who know you might be right about the seals having nothing to do with it but I thought that was thier main selling point. Everyone always says they are good on housings. I can't imagine I'm so lucky I could blow 3 seals bad enough to ruin my rotor and both turbos and my housing come out perfect.

If I'm that lucky I'm starting to look forward to life haha

Later,
STEPHEN

kwikrx7

Stephen, how did you blow your motor? I've heard of the 2mm Hurleys not causing damage to the housings - that's what they're known for. They withstand abuse and if the motor does go it's not as expensive.

SPOautos

Well to be quite honest I'm not sure how my motor blew. I was running extreamly rich (really too rich), my plugs only had about 3K on them but were in VERY bad shape. I'm talking built up crap on them and everything. I think that the richness I was running was borderline for the ignition system anyway and when the plugs got too bad they werent getting enough spark thru and I was BADLY breaking up. It only happened twice and the second time did it. It was very bad.

I need to pull gobs of fuel out and put in some new plugs

STEPHEN

relvinnian

I don't see how the seal itself could affect damage to the rotor housings from blowing a seal. From what I understand hurleys are a softer seal and reduce long-term housing wear. From what I've seen of dis-assembled rotaries (including my own), it is the rotor apex (without a seal) making contact with the housings and gouging both the housings and the rotor. Did you shut the car off immediatly or continue to drive it?

Someone shed some light on this subject, because I'd like to get a picture of how it is possible NOT to gouge the rotor/housing when loosing a seal.

Thanks!

peejay

How is that possible without extreme bearing failure? The rotor's tips get nowhere near the rotor housing. The bearings would have to have failed (as in big time failed) to allow the rotor to contact the rotor housing.

In my engine, when a seal let go the seal chunks destroyed the rotor housing and dented and punched holes in the rotor. The rotor still comes nowhere near close to the rotor housing.

Now, I won't doubt that if you overrev and the E-shaft starts whipping, then the rotor can be forced cockeyed and the corners of the rotor can contact the SIDE housings. (This happened on my engine too, but because the apex seal chunks happered one part of the rotor extra-wide. The rotor has a worn spot on it from the side housing but the side housing is fine. Lucky me!)

Felix Wankel

Plus drive it around for days with that faux-bridgeport idle

relvinnian

Hmm, that makes perfect sense. I guess if the bearing is intact it would support the rotor even with the new seal gap. Wondering how this happened on my motor! Maybe i'll take a few pictures of it .

GoodfellaFD3S

iTrader: (213)

Negative, ghostrider. The Hurley apex seals are designed to do that; they're made of some special material (not sure what it is--I'll get back to you ) that disintegrates when the seals are compromised.

I should know--I experienced massive detonation, blowing 5 of 6 apex seals, and guess what? My rotors, housings, and turbos were like brand new!

Hurley's get the big

13BAce

Out here we call it the Volkswagen idle.

fdracer

what do mean, the material just crumbles when the seal bends or cracks? i've never heard of a material doing this and i can't think of how this is even possible. could you find out what material they use?

RETed

Unless you count normal "cast steel" as being "special material", I don't think so.&nbsp Our Rockwell harness tests shows those Hurley apex seals as being about the same hardness of cast steel - 30C - 40C Rockwell hardness.

No, I blame your inexperience to not see all the micro-grooving of the apex seal particles bouncing all over the combustion chamber.



-Ted

Felix Wankel

I used to have a VW with a huge cam in it. Sounded like a V8 the way it loped

GoodfellaFD3S

iTrader: (213)

Hi Ted,

I know from many of your previous posts that you're extremely knowledgable when it comes to our beloved rotaries. So...I'm not going to argue with you

Dave at KD Rotary was the one who tore my engine down--I wasn't at the shop when he took everything apart. I'm going to call Dave and get more details on the Hurley seals--I know I'm not the only one who has had a similar experience regarding blown motors and Hurleys.

I'll post when I have more info for you guys...

ErnieT

iTrader: (2)

Actually Ted, thats not true at all. I speak from experience not from information from the list or forum. Stock seals will seal better but when they break they shatter and usually will damage the rotors, housings and turbo's as well. When I switched to the Hurley's and popped 3 more motors, all of which had hurley's, nothing was damaged. They are softer and when they break they tend to stay in place which is what happened to me all three times. And no, popping the motor had nothing to do with the kind of apex seals used, it was tuning which has been since taken care of.

Ernie