I think everyone seems to agree the I-Racing seals appear to be of high quality, and very consistent. The disconnects I'm seeing are:

1. Its marketed as housing friendly, but needs 2.5oz/gallon of premix, which ought to smoke like a wet TV, and not be streetable. I haven't seen WRITTEN how much that might could be reduced with an OMP, but my guess is max 1oz. It also would indicate that they are hard and inherrently not housing friendly.

2. Most of the anecdotes I see are for drag cars. The issue I've seen is, with road racing all non-stock "soft" or non-breakable seals are less tollerant of the prolonged heat exposure and at so,e point warp and loose compression. Is there anyone with OMP-running road racing experience with them, or any published exhaust temp threshold before they warp?

 

Sorry, no; it only suggests you commenting about a new, advanced product that you have no direct experience with or knowledge about.

How does your credibility in that situation compare to Francesco Iannetti? Did anyone consider actually making a phone call etc. to discuss their concerns before potentially posting misinformation against them? How does that serve the best interests of you, them or anyone else here?

Think about it; does it even make sense for them to potentially sully an impeccable 25+ year reputation not being truthful just to sell you a product on the lowest cost end of their product range? On the website it details how long they’ve been looking at metallic seals before finally releasing this product. Which in all fairness is being marketed for racing purposes. So questioning the street-ability is well justified, but maybe at least try making even a little effort to get the facts straight first before going full social media talking out the tailpipe mode.

Honestly, most of the other apex seal companies might be considered more mom & pop budget operations compared to this one. How did anyone find out what the real deal was with some unknown company and their product before actually using them? This is not even remotely the same situation as that. I’ll just leave it here because my only point is to suggest using some common sense.

 

I'm not sure who you are, or who you think you're talking to, why you're being so aggressive about it, why my "credibility" has anything to do with anything, since I'm not making any claims. I'm asking questions based on a vacuum of information. I and others have legitimate questions, based on the disconnects I outlined. Nobody's criticizing or impuning anyone or anything. Despite having bought a set, I know I don't have the experience in terms of first hand mileage with these seals to answer these questions, THAT'S WHY I'M ******* ASKING.

I have great respect for Dr. Iannetti. However, I'd like questions answered with information or specific experience, not "who are you not to trust this?" type responses. My particular use case is a street car that needs to not attract undue law enforcement attention with excessive smoke, but one that also runs a 2 minute, or potentially sub 2-minute lap at VIR and Watkins Glen and can survive prolonged heat without losing compression or destroying housings, and I need it to do so for more than a couple months/events. If you have actual information to share in this regard, by all means share it.

Otherwise, maybe look me up and gain your own understanding that I have lots of experience in this, as well as with both OEM and other aftermarket seals.

 

You can experiment with different pre- mix oils if you are worried about excessive smoke with the recommended pre- mix ratio on the new Ianetti seals.

When I was trying to get my motors to survive the Rotary Aviation apex seal experience I ran 40:1 premix with my OMP turned up. That was a Quart of premix with each 10 gallon fuel up or 3.2oz premix per 1 gallon of gas.

I found Mercury Quicksilver pre- mix did not smoke once warmed up. Yes, the engine did noticeably smoke on 1st cold start of day though.

No, it didnt help my poor rotor housings, but the rest of the engine looked great! Wipe down and rebuild, barely any cleaning or sideseal wear. No carbon deposits even in the exhaust port or sleeve

 

^^
Forgot to say, running no cat.

 

yes, did not help.


this is why there is a multi page thread, historically we have had to use the new product, and the results are always bad, lots of trashed engines. quite frankly if these weren't ianetti seals, they wouldn't be worth even being skeptical about

i lol'd at #3

 

I thought I posted in the thread earlier today...

I used to run 50:1, with Mazda 2mm seals, in a naturally aspirated application, because it kept making more power the more oil I added. It didn't smoke visibly.

Smoke was visible if I went much richer than that so I stopped there.

Racing Beat used to run 5-6 ounces per gallon of fuel on turbo engines in the 600hp range. You can bet they were not using "soft" apex seals!

 

So, I submitted a question to the I-Rotary website yesterday, and tonight, Dr. Ianetti himself called me while I was at the gym!

He indicated that they do not have a lot of data on my use case, either more than 5000 street miles, or much turbo road racing data, but that anecdotally, he felt they would work well. The major source of heat in the seals that ultimately warps them is sustained high RPM (like you'd see on track), and that obviously compounds the higher you go. The drag applications he's gotten information from indicate that they do not seem to generate as much friction and heat at high RPM as others, so he's optimistic. My car will hopefully be supplying some data once rebuilt.

The 2.5oz/gallon number was derived from a no-OMP running alcohol, he recommended 1.5oz (or 1oz minimum) for street application with a good OMP. 2oz+ for track. I'll just run 2.5oz, I don't care if it smokes on track. He was really honest about what they know, and what they don't yet, but he felt they should be at least as heat/warpage resistant as stock, less brittle—but maybe not quite the long term durability (i.e.: its not going to go 200k miles). He was also very anxious to see how well they sealed and made power.

Really nice guy, I hope I've characterized everything accurately.

 

Peter, mind summarizing why you're giving these a shot vs going with RX Parts seals? Ihor swears by them(RX Parts).

 

The RXparts seals in my old motor warped after a few track days. To be fair, the car had some oil nozzle issues, but they were solved by the last event, and I always ran 1.5oz/gallon premix on track. I need to say, it may not have been the fault of the seals, but they too only have limited road racing data and are mostly used for drag and street. I was toying with whether to try them again (with better engine management and monitoring) or go back to OEM, when the I-Racing became available.

 

You didnt have any issues fouling the spark plugs when running +3 oz of premix?

EDIT - See how others (like RB) have done much higher than 3 oz premix.

 

IDK about that issue as the car had a ridiculously overpowered ignition system.
An LX92 coil and crane hi6 per leading spark plug. It once stumble/started/died cranking up oil pressure on a new rebuilt with fuel injectors and pump disabled, just ran a bit on atomised engine assembly lube LOL.

Best power afrs were richer than the wideband on the dyno could read (below 9:1afrs). "Rotaries" *insert pic of ancient aliens dude here*

 

my skin has grown thicker with age, no problem. Looking forward to seeing some results.

 

I think i may have similar situation with RXparts seals, but have to tear into it. Other than the warping, how did your housings look?

 

Same here. Not saying these are bad seals just simply reporting my findings after tering down my motor after major loss of compression on all faces. No evidence of detonation at all. Just warped seals. Housing were in great shape. I'm sure something else could have been going on to cause this but I did lose compression due to warping these seals.

 

I'm no rotary engine scientist but would not expect any seal to survive from prolonged exposure to the heat generated by 666 whp!! lol

 

I've been told effectively the same as some others RE testing and longevity. I'm pretty disappointed at the marketeering that goes on with seals like these involving 'race proven' results only to find that its solely drag racing.

 

Anything that is "race proven" by drag racing is suspect. It only has to last for a few seconds. Let's see it thrown on a dyno and run at full power for a half hour, four hours, 168 hours.

 

168 hours @ WOT is sort of pushing it, no?

 

Misread, mah bad,.

 

Not really. That sort of testing is SOP for OEMs.

Or cooling it down to below freezing, starting it and ramping it up to WOT as soon as oil pressure stabilizes, then keeping it at WOT for an hour or so, then shut off and rapid-cooled back down to subzero for another cycle. Over and over again. For a month.

And then there are some people who idle their engine to operating temp before driving off, or leave it idling while making deliveries or sleeping overnight because delicate flower will wear out if you shut it off and restart it. Any engine that can't handle running WOT from dead cold, or WOT for even mere minutes at a time, doesn't really deserve to live.

(disclaimer: I hit about 10 pounds of boost every morning backing out of my driveway...)

 

@peejay so OE 2mm seals are your drug of choice?

 

I ran Goopy seals on my last motor, but it was designed for 500+ HP with minimal driving time so I didn't really care about housing longevity. FWIW, it sustained a major detonation due to fuel starvation in a corner at ~20 PSI with no ill effects. Unfortunately I lost that car to a very, very bad fire so I wasn't able to tear the engine down to look at wear.

Are there any recent thoughts around RX-parts seals in a less extreme environment? On my current car, I doubt I'll pass 400 hp and will have more around-town driving and doubt it will see more than an occasional track day. I like what I've read about housing wear with the RX Parts vs Goopy, but most of the threads I see are either older or like this with race engines that show the opposite. I realize that this is the performance section, but this is also the latest thread around apex seals I see and was hoping there was some more info to be had here.

 

Personally I'm using iRotary in my 20b build. They're made by Dr Iannetti that also made the ceramic seals used in the 4 rotor care cars. He's probably done more physical testing than anyone else in the market. Look them up, and ask Mazmart if you have any questions.

 

I know their ceramics are well proven, but this is a new product that doesn't have much to go on other than "it should be fine" with regards to longevity. It sounds like they are great for drag racing / high horsepower setups, but I would like my motor to last at least 20k miles, preferably a lot more, and we just don't know.

To add a wrinkle, I just looked at my old rotors and they look they are still usable with a tiny bit of work on the apex seal groove in one place. They are 3mm (previous owner's choice, but it is what it is). That will save me a very large amount of money, and it could be well over a year before I have the money to source 2mm rotors and get good apex seals, balance, etc, so I'm really leaning towards keeping those rotors. I'm worried about what Goopy 3mm seals will do over time, so I'm looking back at OEM 3mm.