I was running all all NGK BUR9EQ. Nothing out of the ordinary.

 

This question is born from complete ignorance - Does anyone know whether a chosen fuel filter could potentially restrict the passage of premix?

 

No, a particulate filter wouldn't do that to something properly suspended in gasoline - which is part of the point of premix.

 

This seems odd, all the other feedback I have seen have been good, I know green bros had a customer drift car, semi pp on ethanol making solid power and they said even of second hand housings everything looked great on tear down after a couple of seasons. You didn't have a really retarded reference angle that cooked them?

 

Oh boy... Elephant in the room. I've been sitting on this post over a year.

Same experience, it's time to talk about this some more. I built my engine in fall of 2020 with i-Rotary seals,no omp. 2oz premix and it died the same death on the dyno. Low compression on all faces. It's a super soft seal that doesn't take prolonged heat from long deceleration periods after a dyno run. Interestingly enough I was watching a Kyle Mohan video and he called this out as a well known problem in race engines that use soft seals. Seemingly no real fix for it beyond getting the engine slowed down immediately after the dyno pull, and according to the phone call I recieved from Dr. Ianetti, turn off fuel cut on decel so the sealing surfaces stay somewhat awash with premix.

Of course the trade off will be failure mode. If i-Rotary seals fail, you crack the engine throw in new seals and keep rolling. You could do this on a race day and still catch the next round if you're a good rotary mechanic. If an OEM seal or harder seal fails you're replacing housings and rotors.

I'm really convinced at this point, OEM seals are the best choice under 400 hp. If you're not pushing big power you shouldn't have to worry about knock events as much and oem seals should provide a really good experience, provide a long life span for mixed street/track use over 30-40k miles, not have to premix out the wazoo or run an OMP if you choose not to.

If you're going to run i-Rotary seals on the street, you should be using a Sohn adapter with an OMP. I will never run an aftermarket seal again on a non-drag application without an OMP based on the conversation I had with Dr. Iannetti.

Point blank, i-Rotary seals run without an OMP need to have limited (read: zero) deceleration events where the fuel injectors are not actively spraying premixed fuel. No fuel cut on deceleration. Dr. Iannetti told me he was going to push this information out to his builders and tuners along with updating his marketing material to make this point clear. I haven't seen that in practice yet.

YMMV with other aftermarket seals but based on the story with RXPart seals this is a trade off of having an "unbreakable" steel seal.

I skipped to the really important message in his video:

 

Thanks for this post. I feel a little sick.... I've had 2 "soft seal" builds the past 5 years that have not made if off the dyno without completely warped apex seals. No detonation what so ever and no explanation as to what was going on. This has to be the issue.....

 

My tuner, Nelson Siverio, tunes for Kyle Mohan. He’s also the tuner for Lucky 7 and DNA Garage. He knows what he’s doing and has tuned many cars with these seals and with the ceramics that Ianietti is known for.

I had fuel cut on decel turned off per his instructions and the logs confirmed it.

I have a call next week with Ianetti and Nelson to talk about this in more detail but at this point, Ianetti 100% refuses to accept it could be his seals or that perhaps (in my opinion) that they may have just gotten a bad batch of metal. I know there are lots of people who seem to be happy with their seals but a handful of people all having the same issue but with different engine builders and tuner. I don’t accept this is a random event but I also don’t think they make crap either.

 

My opinion - Fuel cut on decel off still isn't sufficient lubrication or it's a bug in the haltech firmware that doesn't actually turn off fuel cut on decel for rotary fuel injection (Could be specific to nexus or elite style staging?) - Just hypothesizing. My pockets aren't deep enough to go verify through testing.

 

Disabling Fuel cut on decel def works as we can see how the AFR on the wideband O2 looks upon decel. If it was cutting fuel, my AFR would be near 20 almost immediately. In my logs it drops to 10 before going to target AFR with closed throttle.

 

Until iannetti admits there may have been a bad batch of seals all I have to go on is the pattern failure. Please do follow up with whatever you hear.

My immediate plan is to put an omp back on my engine. My FD will only get oem seals and an omp from here out as it's a street car under 400hp.

My next build over 400 will get E and J as I haven't heard of this problem with their seals.

 

Wait until your RA Super Seals wear 1.5mm in one afternoon on the dyno, or your E&J's are so concave out of the packet they're still sitting in a drawer 8 years later. Or only 4 out of 6 SCR's actually fit into the apex seal grooves. These are unusual situations but I've seen them first hand. Since going I-Rotary when they were first released I've never looked back. Based on the wear rate (or lack of) they are as hard, if not harder than stock Mazda seals. There will never be a bad batch of seals from Francesco Iannetti, he is too particular and pedantic, hence the reputation. In my opinion there is more likely a bad batch of ecus/firmware, and quite possibly some lazy tuners who should be checking for firmware related issues, and paying attention to basic parameters such as IAT's, fuel temps, EMAP, and basic ignition setup, which in my experience have a considerable effect on apex seal end temperature, particularly when it comes to turbo bridgeports and semi PP's. All metallic seals bend for the same reason - excessive heat. Metallic apex seals are all cast iron. They all bend at the same temperature. The apex seal has no control over the forces it's subjected to but it's always easy to blame.

 

Sure. So Nelson_S, and a handful of other tuners are to blame that's the easiest way out, but also it's not. Andrew was the 10th known failure that Dr. Iannetti mentioned. Let's be more constructive than just straight pointing the finger. I waited over a year, sent my seals back to Iannetti to analyze, was extremely patient with the process as I genuinely was seeking to find a root cause before posting about my experience here. I'd consider my approach extremely diplomatic given the context. Not everyone can just pull an engine, tear it down and rebuild it in a home garage. Some folks are spending 10's of thousands of dollars with a shop/tuner/engine builder on a failure like that, show a little empathy and a little less arrogance.

 

If you mean me, its Anthony, not Andrew ;-)

So my call today with Ianettit and Nelson went about as expected. The data shows it wasn't the tune but there is no definitive proof as to what caused the seals to bend. Two causes of seals bending are pressure and heat, either together or individually. The data shows neither of those were an issue and nobody can explain why all the seals warped. Usually an event like denotation, not enough lubrication, etc would show itself on 1 rotor but 2 just seems odd. In the end we all pretty much agreed there isn't much to be learned. The one observation Ianetti made from looking at the photos of the seals was they they look very worn for what was only ~700 miles or so. I saw my housings though and the looked new and there were no signs of lubrication issues so it's really a giant damn mystery. .

Now the one thing we didn't do was a compression test before the dyno. For all we know, my compression could have been low going into the dyno and the dyno just pushed them to the limit. Even if that were the case, no one can explain why all of the seals failed and as Ianetti put it, in the engine, the Apex seals are the weakest link so if something is going to go first (and take the blame) it's the seals. Ianetti lives in the same city so the next step is to get with them to hand the the seals in person to see if there is anything to glean.

 

I thought it was interesting that he mentions the Iannetti ceramic seals being one of his favorite for a turbo engine under certain circumstances (race/E85 fuel, good engine management, etc.), but with the caveat of total ruination if they let loose due to detonation. Then he’s also not a fan of 3mm due to the increased weight, rotor groove slotting, and such.

I was just curious though if a 3mm Iannetti ceramic seal would be more resistant to shattering and then also not have the weight penalty of a 3mm steel seal. 🤔

let me google that …
.

 

Its not. My shattered 3mm ceramics from ianetti destroyed everything including the turbo.

 

Sorry Anthony! Yes I was referring to your engine.

 

Just to throw it out there, quite a few years ago (2014?) I was using RA Black/Super seals for all higher powered (call it over 400ish) builds. A customer requested ALS seals and I'd heard some good things so decided to give it a shot. Received a set of seals, and upon clearancing them in the apex slots discovered that I couldn't. They were warped out of the tube, brand new. Received another set...... same problem. Couldn't believe what I was seeing, not the first time and sure as hell not the second time. Since then I've been a bit hesitant to give them another shot, and haven't. Built many engines with Rxparts, run them in my engine in my '95 BB FD. Been very happy.

 

I have read this hole thread and amazed at all the problems you are all having with your Apex seals . I have been building road and race engines for 40+ years and have tried just about all the different Apex seals they all break all but 1 . Until i started using PTS Apex seals 18 years later and not 1 broken seal since . . So if you want a very durable and strong seal you cant beet them . Performance Tested Seals 2mm or 3mm and the make solid 2mm corner seals as well out of the same material as the apex seals

 

I’m pretty sure I heard that RA makes the RXparts seals and that the only difference is a small design change on the tips.

 

Hi Anthony, this is incorrect

They originate out of the wonderful land of Oz. Rotary Aviation and Rxparts apex sals are two completely different seals. And I view RA as a viable option for certain applications, they're just tough on rotor housings. Also for those not connecting the dots, E&J are the old ALS--- there is an ownership commonality at any rate. I'm sure the seals themselves have evolved and are different. Point being: just like there are no infallible people, there is no infallible apex seal.

 

I must have confused brands. I know RA makes them for someone else. I heard from someone who knows the guy at RA that they do make them for another seal company and that the only difference is the tip design. Anyways, yes, they are not infallible.

 

None broken but how about warped?

 

No none warped and some in race car have done 3 seasons and a freshen up after 18 months and re used with virtually no wear or warpage

 

There are plenty of apex seals that dont break, not just PTS. i have used several ones over the years (i have not tried the PTS) and RXparts gets my vote. Over a decade of hard track abuse and i have never had an issue .

​​​​​I am not saying that others wont work well but it really comes down to the build quality and tuning.

At the end of the day ; the job of these " unbreakable "seals is to warp if something goes wrong to save the rest of the engine. They are not there to resist detonation beyond a certain point

 

*adds PTS website to favorites