Howard Coleman

iTrader: (6)

the 4 page thread in the Rotary Car Performance section titled NRS ceramic apex seals part 2 , authored by self described porting magician Judge Ito starts out like this:

"I have been aware of NRS Rotorsports ceramic apex seals for many years. I got a good friend of mine to buy a set and install the NRS ceramic apex seals on his 1975 Mazda Rx3 called "El Duke".

the "friend" is Jose Le Duc

just so we are clear on what the thread is about Ito states,

"this thread is about your (NRS)awesome seals."

later we get an ontrack account of Jose's last outing before ceramics...

"He leaned out the mixture a little and the metal seals curled up(something I don't think will happen with NRS). Current status. Jose will be pulling his engine out this week, and will be installing the NRS rotorsports seals and testing sunday at atco raceway. I'll be there present gathering information on the NRS seals."

when Jose did get his ceramics ontrack and blew his motor, a very very uncommon occurance for Jose, we get this....

"jose leduc's rx3 ran 7.8 but had some issues and didn't run anymore.. "

and a week later after being queeried,

"jose had some seal damage. in all fareness, jose did not get a chance to dyno with the ceramic seals."


my purpose w this thread is not to castigate NRS. my purpose is to actually get the info out so others can make proper choices.

Jose is a friend and i have watched his accomplishments over the years. we have talked a couple of times since his unfortunate outing.

Jose generally runs fat and for his outing w the ceramics he added 10% fuel. he purposely ran an 8.3 as a warmup and looked at all the logs prior to running for a serious time. the motor blew as he shifted to 5th.

"some seal damage"? three rear and one front seal.

yet all the metrics on the run were absolutely fine. in addition, no flattened corner seal springs, no broken corner seals, plugs "perfect". no detonation i could give you alot of metrics but this is racing and they belong to jose.

i felt someone should speak up here and tell it like it is.

did NRS ceramic seals reach their limit? we are talking more than 1000 rwhp. i personally doubt it was tuning. Jose is way to smart to melt his motor. his actual problem at the prior outing was a cracked plate... pure hp.

i wouldn't be surprised to see Jose post here but at the moment he is a little busy getting ready for the Pan Ams.

and Ito?... it seems like he has switched gears/apex seals:

"If i tell you some of my personal experiences with ALS you would be sold. but I refuse to put valuable information on this piece of **** site. if you want send me a pm. but ALS by far is worth it's weight in gold."

kind of makes me nervous as i bought a set of ALS today, am pulling my motor and will have the ceramics up for sale. they may actually be super duper but i don't need super duper, i just need something that isn't going to grenade my motor should it decide to fail.

this thread is about looking for answers and i felt that more of the circumstances re Jose's seal failure should be known.

objective commentary welcomed.

howard

(all bolding above is mine)

SPEED_NYC

iTrader: (3)

I gotta say howard, i like seeing you hanging arround in the drag race section.
this topic is more suited to rotary performance, but the ppl we need answers from are all in this section.

i'm looking for answers too, i have a set of mazda 2mm 2 peice seals waiting to go in my motor because i'm tired of the "seal of the moment" hype being proved to be "the seal of disaster" after i put them in my motor. i will say that i'm very intrested in hearing more about als and peoples experiences.

Trots*88TII-AE*

iTrader: (11)

My only contribution as to ALS's 2 piece 2mm seals is that I had over 100psi cranking INSTANTLY after rebuild, on new housings. I am hoping to max out my current turbo (35R variation) to see how they hold up along with AI, and then see where it goes from there. I am happy so far.

djseven

iTrader: (56)

I think this debate will go on forever. However, when I switched to the ALS seals after speaking with Edgar other builders were saying it was just a hyped new steel seal that would prove inferior in the end. Here we are about a year later, tons of racers and street cars running these seals with maybe a handful of blown engines with them. As far as I am aware not a single seal has actually cracked/broke/grenaded whatever term you want to use. All the failed engines have just been from warped seals.

Im still yet to see longterm tear down results from the ALS, that is the only real debate left I see on the table. It is been proven that the OEM seals, the Atkins seals, hell about every seal on the market can handle high hp(650+) if tuned correctly but most due a lot of damage when the limit is reached or detonation occurs. No one wants a blown engine and headache that comes with tearing it down again(especially street cars) but with several guys running near $2k turbos these days it is nice to know the turbo has about a 95% chance of surviving an ALS seal failure and about a 5% miracle shot of surviving the other seals when they fail.

For the money, the ALS are awful hard to beat, long term results will prove their value to street car owners. I have several customers out there with several thousand miles on these seals, but none above the 15k mark that I am aware of where other "unbreakable" seals in teh past were known for chewing housings, time will tell.

Judge Ito

Howard, I will post some time tonight on the pro's and con's of the NRS seals. you talked to Jose about his tune up, talking on the phone will not allow you to totally understand what could have gone wrong. I was lightly touching the issues of jose's failure because I wanted Jose to personally post his experience. but like you said, he has been a bit busy. i will tell you this until I post later. the tune up is not totally responsible for the failure.

enzo250

Before you guys go bashing NRS or Ceramic Seals you need to realize that they are not unbreakable seals... They never claimed to be.. They claim to be stronger then stock seals with better sealing resulting in more power...

I've used stock mazda seals and have made plenty of power and they seem to hold up pretty well unless you run into some issues... Can't blame the seal for that...
I have tuned my brother's car to over 700hp on a completely stock junkyard motor and its still alive. Although who knows for how much longer

Steel "unbreakable" seals will bend before they break and this will give you a second chance to fix your engine... Probably a better choice if you have a combination that hasn't been dialed in yet...

So really the question that's still not answered is are the ceramics stronger then a steel seal...
What i mean is where a steel seal would've bent or warped would a ceramic (being that it could handle heat better then steel) stayed alive?

Not to discredit Jose as i also believe he's got his car running great. But his previous engine broke plates as you just stated with other seals. So it's safe to say he had some problems before and maybe those problems are still lingering..

I'm also running ceramic seals in my engine.. I have yet to fire it but it should be ready to fire this weekend.. "crossing fingers".. So within the next few weeks i'll have my engine dynoed and we'll see what happens with my engine... Hopefully i'll have better luck as i've been working on my car for a very long time and would hate to have it keep my back even longer... But I still feel confident that it should be ok as i've had good luck with much worse seals and they have stayed together...

ultimatejay

iTrader: (1)

I think the majority of any seal failure out there is clearance issues and TUNE with tune being the most prevelent. Each seal has it's good and bad characteristics and one must pick out a seal for their application. I've heard great things with ceramics and these "unbreakable" seals.

It seems like the "unbreakable" seals have alot of hype right now because most of the people out there buying seals are average joe's with little building/tunning experience. It's nice to know that you throw these seals in and if you f-up the tune, the seal will bend and "usually" save the internals. That is a huge selling point. The long term wear effect on these seals it seems to be unanswered.

Ceramics are very strong and the lubricating qualities are at the top of the list. But if you f-up a tune and they break, they usually reak havok on the internals. But IMO I think they will produce more power and compression from the other seals and this comes from tests results. I have seen many test results from people using ceramics that came out ahead from all the other seals. But just like anything else, who do you believe?

If you really want to know the truth, then your going to have to do the R&D yourself because in the rotary world there is alot of hush hush and few will just spill the beans.

What are the mojority of the fastest drag rotaries/tunners using? It's mixed right? What does this tell you? It's all in the setup and most importantly "TUNE"

Judge Ito

Howard, first and foremost, keep your comments about me to yourself. keep your comments to the NRS seals. And don't you dare and try to talk for me, saying I'm switching gears when it comes down to apex seals. you don't have the right to assume. and when you assume, all your doing is making an *** of yourself. Now to the subject at hand. NRS seals


Howard, you think I made a thread about unproven ceramic apex seals? if you did then, your a donkey. People are well aware that the NRS ceramic apex seals hold the current world record on a 2 rotor with a 6.9@197mph by Sporty motorsports 3rd. Gen. Rx7 so whats your point of this thread? If you want information about the seals and the failure of the seals, I could only elaborate on what I have seen thus far. When Jose's rotor housing peripheral port intake was machined, a very sharp EDGE was left behind towards the closing edge of the intake port cycle. I MEAN SUPER SHARP, sharp enough to cut your finger if you run it across the edge. Jose did not pay attention to this and assembled his engine like that. I saw this after the damage, not before he installed the ceramic seals. I clearly told Jose, that is a NO!NO! Howard, what you think will happend to a ceramic seal EXPANDING under 40lbs of boost and the centrifugal force of 11,000 rpms? if you can't guess well, is easy to figure out. the ceramic will collide with that SHARP closing edge of the intake port and granade. This effect on a metal seal will cause the metal seal to loose it's radius and become SQUARE, but a ceramic seals is not forgiving and will not loose it's radius, but shatter.

Jose has had similar issue in the past when he decided to port his own rotor housings and left a SUPER SHARP edge behing towards the closing edge of the exhaust cycle. Back then, many years ago he was running non-turbo peripheral port, Jose called me, and told me that the atkins seals were garbage and that they don't work! I told him your wrong! I went over to his house, and took a look at his engine, and what did I find? edges on his housings were to sharp and clear evidence of the atkins seals crashing against the sharp edges during it's exhaust cycle and loosing its radius. I personally took those housings with me. beveled every sharp edge. Jose put his engine together, and guess what Howard? NO MORE APEX SEAL FAILURE! this was over 8 years ago, I have helped thousands of members when it comes down to sharp edges being left behind over at nopistons.com and the serious damage it will cause to metal seals. Imagine what it will do to ceramics!. Jose knows this and did not pay attention to small details on his build with the ceramics.

Jose's failure was due to clearances and not tuning. every single picture of other engines I have seen online, the failure is due to clearances and not the NRS ceramic seals. The NRS ceramic seal is a seals that the engine builder, needs to build around the seals. not the other way around. Why I say this? very simple, ceramic apex seals are not forgiving, if clearances are off, they will NOT GIVE and curl up. they will break!

The general consensus about ceramic seals, let it be Iannetti or NRS is that. THE RISK IS NOT WORTH THE REWARDS. I will continue to support NRS and any other seal I feel is a contribution to this engine.

Howard Coleman

iTrader: (6)

sound logical to me. i am surprised to learn something as basic as the absence of a ramped close wasn't in the motor. thanks for the info. i am sure lots of people are breathing a bit easier re NRS.

prior to this thread all we had was a major grenade situation. thanks for clearing it up.

hc

Glassman

iTrader: (1)

Jose personally told me he added 7% fuel. So which is it?? Does anybody here call this tuning an engine? Now there's question of razor sharp porting, what else do we NOT know.

Ok, will do,

How about the #s on the run, they do not add up. The car did a 1.15 60ft and a 5.00 1/8th. As JR explained to me the car was on an 8 second run if he stayed on the power to the line. The engine blew when he shifted to 5th at approx the 1000 ft mark and the car coasted 320 ft across the line at 7.80????? The car came out of the hole like a dog then made some massive power to make up the time coasting across the finish. Does this situation sound like the proper tune? Looks like to me we are missing a TON of info here and NO ONE should be making assumptions on anything.

Let me put it this way as I told Jose. It's really quite simple. The seals do NOT fall apart for no reason. Something had to happen for them to break.

The devil really is in the details, yet we have none. How about this JR. We get the full build details, I mean every single clearance on all the seals. Also datalog of the run. Surely Jose has a record of the build.

The point here is that I cannot be there to hold everyones hand and make sure they do things right. If someone does not know how to measure properly or doesn't know what a micrometer is or how to run a feeler guage then they should not be building engines. Like JR said to me, anyone can put an engine together but that does not make them an engine builder. All too often pride and ego's get in the way of the truth.

As for the seals being at their limit......please! I don't believe that anyone has pushed the seals to their strength limits. Jose was not even running 40psi, something these seals did several years ago with record breaking results. Both Anais and LaSarita were over 40psi and so is Sporty (1000+ hp). Why do some have geat sucess and others do not? I think we all know the answer to that question in many aspects of life.

As for the risk not being worth the rewards. Tell that to Gaby Diaz, I doubt you'll convince him. If done correctly the risk is very minimal and Gaby has yet to damage a single internal even when he broke a seal due to CAS problems. Even if he had damaged an engine, so what if the seals put him on top of the game. After all isn't that the goal here. If you have to tear down your engine 50 times to change bent seals and are still second, third, fourth or tenth best what have you gained. Obviously there is still a problem with the set-up or the product if they keep bending. Those who know how to be the best choose ceramics.

enzo250

I agree... IF your breaking seals you have a problem you need to address whether it's the build or the tune. Info is really what needs to be known...

My engine is probed with every possible sensor know to man. I have multiple egt's, afr's, backpressures, temps, pressures in every possible location.. Wiring it sure does suck as i've been at it for the past few weeks but the info is invalueable when your at the racetrack/dyno..

Another way to look at it Sven is if your just following everyone else how can you ever be the best or a world champ or the fastest, etc... Those titles are usually given to people who put themselves out there and are willing to take the risks...

Judge Ito

I'm trying to be imparcial here, bringing some more information. Jose continues to have some issues, let it be, tuning or mechanical. He curled up a new set of SCR apex seals. south coast rotary apex seals from australia. he did run a personal best of 7.45 but hurt the engine. Jose will continue to try and chase what ever gremlin is rattling the gage..

enzo250

I saw that run.. It was a nice run... I also saw that he was having some issues..

I guess a good test would be after he gets it all sorted and gremlin free then a set of ceramics could go in for a true test...