Poll: Success/Failure of RA seals?
 

There is a lot of interesting data (both good and bad) regarding the RA seals. I'm just trying to sum it up all in one place. So, if you engine is running strong with these seals, how many miles are on it? If you engine died due to these seals, when did it let go? Please feel free to offer more info such as what set-up your running (single turbo, stock set-up, NA etc..), or why the motor went (chatter marks, scoring, seals warping, etc...). If you have had multiple failures/success, please vote more than once in the poll. Please be concise and to the point.

Thanks :).

Matt

My friends car lasted a couple days, tuned and running 15psi. What a watse of time and money.

IMO success isn't just measuered by weather it failed or held for a certain mileage, this should also relate to housing and seal wear! A seal is crap if if wrecks housings after 5000k even if the seal didn't "fail".

I agree, that's why I said "If your engine died due to these seals". If the seals ate the housings, then please vote under "Seals unncecessarily failed" section.

What actually happened? You barely provided any info on your friends set-up. Which batch seals were used? What was the condition of the rotors and housings before rebuild? Is your friend willing to post on this thread with more info? There are too many people using these seals at that psi with engines lasting much longer than a weekend. I mean hell it's easy for us to create a bad rep for this product if all the failers posted on this thread are based on the seals first batch from a couple years ago.

Mine are running great on a large streetported S4 NA but the housings are scored up badly. It's only a matter of time before it loses too much compression to run well. Still, it does run well and has run well since the beginning.

*edit* about 8-10k miles on it

Pm Boosted! for more info.
HIs housings were 100% new and it was built by rx7 store, profesionally done.
When they tore the motor down, the seals had taken a shit. It only lasted a few days.

Just use stock mazda seals, you cant go wrong.

Here is my take on the RA seals. We have used them in a few motors that we have built. So far we have had problems with 2 of them. The seals warped after only a thousand miles with very low boost. We warrantied the motors and put Mazda seals in them. Due to this issue of not knowing why they warped, we wont use them. RA says that it is due to extreme heat or detonation. I dont buy that since both cars were tuned and running on the rich side. The advantage of RA seals is they dont crack and wont damage the motor like stock seals but the trade off is you will never know why they warp. We dont have the time to guess and warrenty motors all the time so we will stick with stock seals for now.

Jason

so far so good.. about 12k miles. around 110psi s5 n/a raceport no aux. rebuild with s4 turbo housings(35K) Heavy premix. I prolly won't reuse them atleast on any boosted motor.. but N/A I might depending on the verdict of my engine and others engines I have built. I will not reuse them unless I can get 80K out of them in my DD.. And the jury is still out...
I think people should just stick with factory 2mm or anti-up and buy the ceramics!!! for the real experience

both of my engine i have built using them worked fine.. the last engine i had coolant seal failures from something i did i could drive the shit out the engine and beat most everything on the road with blown coolant seals...30 miles to the gallon of water...... DOH no complaints i feel secure with them.. so as of right now the polls are in favor of R/A... blowing up an engine after BOoSTING IT TO 15LBS days into the rebuild....... where is the problem??

+18 or so for failed.

18 engines :confused: :confused: :confused:

See this doesn't make since! There are reports that these seals are apparently destroying the housings at less than 10k but yet, you still have great compression at 12k. :confused: Could the differance just be your heavy premixing? What's your premix ratio?

I did some personal testing on the seals a while back when they first came out. I was very happy with their resistance to detonation.

I built a whole slew of engines with the seals. One by one, they all started having starting and power problems due to low compression. When I took apart the first engine, I returned to using OEM seals.

Recently, I took apart 3 within a 3 week period, all of them looking the same. At this point, I said enough was enough and started showing/describing what these seals do to engines despite how well they resist detonation.

Only one of the engines currently running these seals still runs, and boroscope inspection shows the extreme wear to the internals.

By estimate, its around a dozen and a half engines. 36 rotor housings, 36 rotors.

All of the engines rebuilt with stockers still run great.

And jason deserves much credit here. He honored his warranty on my friends motor and did an R&R and rebuild over labor day weekend to keep a customer happy. Thats good service.

Yeah, I've got to give it up to Jason for taking care of Chris. :bigthumb:

"See this doesn't make since! There are reports that these seals are apparently destroying the housings at less than 10k but yet, you still have great compression at 12k. Could the differance just be your heavy premixing? What's your premix ratio?"

t-von> I've been worrying about this.. my pre mix runs around 1.5-2 fl oz per gallon.. The premix that I run, is made by amsoil. sabre smokeless synth.2stroke.. I've always run heavy premix... hell I even throw marvel on top for added rippen protection....
I don't baby this motor either.. It see's 9K many times a day.. 1st 2nd 3rd 4th... I rip It hard... I'm hard on it for an NA, believe me...
88Integrals and I built this motor on my kitchen counter...well sorta...I was missing a few parts. So a couple days later I took it up to "Grant Springer Racing" personal engine shop at my disposal. I respec'ed and all was perfect... the motor was then sealed by me with a "joint" for ggod luck..
I currently have numerous engines to replace it with, so I'm not sure... If I want to take it to its death. Or crack it now to try and save it.....

The other funny thing... these seals were the one's that were hand ingraved. I bought them back before they raised the price.. So which batch do I have?? good bad??

So is this what is happening to the motor you put in my car?

I'm still waiting on an email reply from you about what you are doing for the motor you built and tuned on my car.

Thanks.

We put a motor in your car?

You have the first batch seals that have warped in the past. You may want to pull the engine apart to make sure that your housings are fine. It would also be interesting to see how your internals look with higher than normal premixing ratios. Did you see this engine here? If your housings are fine then heavy premixing may be all thats needed for the heavier RA seals.

https://www.rx7club.com/showthread.p...12#post4767312

This engine had some serious problems. At least the RA seals didn't break and take out the turbo.

I've built 3 with RA seals and all are still on the road.

All have over 10k on them. I haven't looked at the housings but while doing a to4e on one the compression was very strong and the engine was not withing specs when i built it(oil seal tracks) and was not properly broken in.... Maybe sometime once owner gets some money I'll break it down and take a look at it. That car also pinged audibly a few times on a gremlin with the stock computer.

I have not opened my motor
to see how the housings are

But I've run HARD and I mean HARD
plenty of times more then i can count on
for almost 2 years now

cars starts up perfect
no problems here

remember ping or detonation= warped
I have never Ping'd
of course I got a perfect tune :D

OEM can take some pings
but they can not take detonation
and will cause havoc
on the internals if they crack and dislodge from its groove

Do you premix and at what ratio?

built the motor, broke it in and tuned it actually.

check your emai.

Yes I pre-mix

http://synthetic-motor-oil-air-filte...re-mix-oil.htm

1/2 oz Per 1 Gallon of Gasoline

also use VP racing
2 cycle oil $
when I use VP race gas

when I don't feel like buying the expensice 2 stroke stuff
which is most of the time..hehe

I buy a gallon of the walmart
2 stroke

add 8-12 oz per tank on the norm