rzograbian

are you having any trouble with yours???

also, maxthe7man, i have some questions:
when did your hot start issue come up?
what were some early problems?


i want to make sure i will be ok!!

drago86

Also Tracy, what are your spring rates like compared to stock?, more or less?

Herblenny

iTrader: (13)

I could be completely wrong about what I'm about to say..

I been talking to few rotary engine builders in the past and reading some literatures and now all kind of make sense..

As most of you probably already know that when mazda started to build rotary engines, they had issues with chattering.. over time, they started to develop apex seals with different material.. to reduce chatter and rotor housing wear.. More and more I read about Hurley, Atkins, and this RA seals.. Strong doesn't always mean the best.. Yes, I think strong seals for racing and if you are prepare to built your engine every 2-4 races or every 10K.. sure.. get the strongest seals.. but when you want your engines to last more than 10K, you need a good balance of both.. Strong seals will probably lead to Rotor housing failure.. weak material might lead to your apex seal failing.. To have both, I don't know.. Let me know what that is..

I'm getting my spare engine rebuilt in next month or so... and going to use OEM 3 piece.

rzograbian

oem doesnt come in 3 peice anymore!!

Tracy Crook

Same as stock. The springs were designed with normal street use in mind. We make no claim for improved performance over the stock springs.

Tracy Crook, RWS

SPOautos

He bought them before they changed over.

STEPHEN

Sponge Bob Square Pants

max, where you been! need an update!

Tracy Crook

Haven't heard from Max in the past few days and still have not seen his seals yet but here's an update on the RA seals.

We recently had a second report of a problem with our seals so we went into emergency mode to investigate any possible problem. Between the info that Max and the other report, and some in-house testing, we found the source of an isolated problem in our production processes that affected some seals during the period around 8-03 to 12-03. Very few of the thousands of seals manufactured were affected.

Manufacturers usually do not publicize this type of problem due to the adverse publicity that inevitably results but we have always been up front about any problems with our aviation products and will do the same with the apex seals. If you want to read the details of our investigation, go to the Apex Seal page on our website. www.rotaryaviation.com

Tracy Crook, RWS

johnisenglish

You. Guys. Rock.

I was planning on buying a full rebuild kit from you with those seals, and this thread made me hesitant, but I'm feeling pretty damn optomistic about them after how you guys are handeling this!

maxcooper

Well, I feel better about my RA seals now. My engine is still apart, so I think with this update I'll give the RA seals a try in my rebuild, assuming the dimensions check out okay (and I expect that they will).

-Max

Sponge Bob Square Pants

I'm with you guys, that's the best customer relation I've seen in a long time.

93BlackFD

could you stay in one measuring standard, you've been throwing out inches and milimeters and it makes reading your posts confusing

rzograbian

i am very happy with those seals. i have them and my car starts on the first crank. even when its hot. also, i just finished breaking in my motor and will start boosting. i will do a comp. check at 5k miles and update this website but overall i am happy with the seals

luiml73

iTrader: (1)

Me too!!

The only question on my mind is should I buy new housings. I was watching the Overhaul video from RR (Great Video) and I noticed when he mentioned about the chrome flaking. My housings look to far gone.








Are all of you guy's using brand new housings?

Is it possible to find used housings in good condition?

Thank's

Luis

IRPerformance

iTrader: (41)

Those are pretty worn. I would get better housings.

93BlackFD

i have a set from the questionable batch, still going strong

rzograbian

change those housings, i got new ones but they cost me $1100......

also, i purchased my seals end of january but mine is still good so far!

ERAUMAZDA

So whats the up date.....Are they fixed now

88IntegraLS

Mine's doing great! ~6k miles NA street port.

Tracy Crook

We have had no more reports of problems but the two reports we got lead us to a complete review of our processes and we incorporated many improvements.

We never did get to see any of the seals that had problems but due to this exercise, the product is better than ever. We will continue to refine our apex seals and welcome any and all reports regarding them.

In aircraft applications we run the engines normally aspirated at full throttle continuously but we don't get much experience with high boost. Several engine builders are running our seals with up to 35 - 40 PSI of boost but to get some first hand experience, we are building up a 3rd gen RX-7 with our seals and plan to flog it on a chassis dyno (after a normal break-in period). We will post the results on the website as they come in.

Tracy Crook
www.rotaryaviation.com

HeatTreated

Thanks for the update Tracy

rxeng

Ok guys.
Here's my experience with the Rotary Aviation seals.
I was sent 2 sets of 2mm types from a friend in the USA to try out.
I fitted the first set in a customers engine with brand new plates,rotor housings & all the right bits.The car started & ran perfectly for the 500 mile run in period.
The car was returned to my shop 2 days before the Sydney Four & Rotary Jamboree to be Dyno tuned.
I did 4 power runs on pump fuel at 9 psi to check my mixtures out & after the 4th run the car lost vacuum at idle.I swithched it off & it refused to start again.I pulled the plugs out,got the oil can out & squirted some oil in the engine & tried again.The engine started up but had an obvious compression problem.
At this stage I started looking for a fuel system problem,timing problem or something out of the ordinary & was left scratching my head.My mixtures were at 11.5,timing at 15 degrees & everything looked fine.
I pulled the engine out of the car & tore it down.There were no obvious signs of anything wrong.All the springs etc were in perfect condition.After about 1 hour of looking we found the apex seals had bowed in the centre.
It was around midnight when we found the problem & the only seals I had in stock were the second set of Aviation ones.
I reassembled the engine,fitted it in the car & after a 3 hour freeway drive strapped it down to the dyno again (race meeting was the next day so a longer run in time was impossible).
To be extra safe I filled the tank with c16,fitted a brand new set of 11.5 plugs & started to dyno the car once again (with my *** cheeks clenched tightly too i might add).
I did 2 passes on 9 psi to make sure the mixtures were SUPER safe (10.8)2 passes on 12 psi then one pass as 14 psi.The car made 385 rwhp & all was looking good.I tried one more pass at 14 psi & when the car returned to idle it had that spine tingling idle sound once again.One glance at the vacuum guage & my suspicions were confirmed.We had killed another engine!!!!!!!
By this time I had one seriously pissed off customer who had pre paid his entry to the event as well as trailer hire & accommodation for him & his family for the 2 days for the event.Not to mention the dissapointment of having to miss Australia's biggest event that him & his buddies had been preparing the car for for last 6 months.
I was out of pocket 2 days labour,2 sets of apex seals,fuel,plugs,oils filters & 2 water seal kits!!!
After the weekends racing we pulled the engine out once again,stripped it & found the exact same problem.You could put the faces of 2 apex seals together & there was around a 1mm gap!!! By this stage we decided it must be a problem with the apex seals
To have a stock mazda seal bend like this the combustion temps would have been through the roof.The corner seal springs are the first to go when the temps get that hot & they were all perfect.The rotor housings & side plates would have had evidence of severe heat & they were all perfect too.
We changed NOTHING in the engine again except the apex seals & springs & water seals.The apex seals this time were stock Mazda 2mm 2 piece units.
We ran the engine in & strapped it to the dyno once again.
I started with the same mixtures & timing & ran the car up.After 32 pulls on the dyno & 19 psi boost the vacuum was fine & you could switch the car off & not need to reach for the oil can to start it again when it was hot.The most pulls we got out of the aviation seals was 6 on less boost & with richer mixtures.
I ended up up leaning the car out sustantially & pushed it much harder than I did with the Aviation seals.The car finished with 490 hp to the wheels & both myself & the customer were finally happy & breathed a big sigh of relief.
After the 32 dyno runs we took the car to the track.These were the times all in order................
10.7 @ 134 mph
10.3 @ 137 mph
10.2 @ 137 mph
10.4 @ 136 mph
10.2 @ 137 mph
10.0 @ 138 mph
10.1 @ 137 mph
10.0 @ 138 mph
10.2 @ 138 mph

As you can see the car performed faultlessly.It is still running strong with at least 1000 km of street driving on it since.
In my opinion you can't go past the stock seals.My success wasn't at all good with the aviation seals.They cost me a LOT of money in parts,lost time,wages & consumables not to mention the greif of having to deal with an extremely upset customer & all the bad publicity from the local rumour mills pointing the finger at me for engines blowing up on my dyno.
I hope the problems are addressed & sorted out with these seals before anyone else has to go through the same headaches that I did.
RE gards
Jon Blanch
RX Engineering

kabooski

Jon do you still have the warped RA seals?
I'm sure Tracy would love to inspect them and see what happened

Tracy Crook

Jon's report (came via the US dealer that sourced the seals) was the most troubling to us and lead to the most significant change to the seals. Here's the story behind the warpage problem.

One of our subcontractor's was tasked with final grinding of one batch of seals to final thickness. They used a surface grinder and a dry process. They were aware that the seal must not exceed a certain temperature but they used too high a feed rate on some of them trying to increase the production rate. This overheated the surface grain of the seal which creates internal stress in the material. The normal room temperature stiffness of the material kept the seal straight but when they were exposed to high heat under boost, the internal stress would cause the seal to warp.

We no longer surface grind the seals (after Nov 2003) and the seals are now CNC lapped using a wet process. This eliminated the possibility of thermal induced stresses and insured better accuracy of the thickness as well.

This was just one of many improvements we made in the aftermath of Jon's experience and a painful lesson to us about the requirement to carefully control every aspect of the manufacturing process.

Tracy Crook, RWS

BDC

Jon, when did all of this happen?

B