mono4lamar

iTrader: (32)

Hello everyone. My main intention here is to provide you with as much information as I can unless its something that has nothing related to the seals or the wear (please respect my privacy).

I've done much research with other users of these seals. Very few other shops would divulge information as they had yet to open the engines or "we prefer to keep this information to ourselves." Given time to pm DIY users of the seals I did get more information as to their experience and it allowed me to make some sense as to connecting some of my own dots. I will not reveal other peoples opinions here as I respect their privacy.

My background comes from CNC machining, tuning, engine building, moderate electronics, certified welding, and a former GM electronic/engine technician. I've built many engines, tuned many cars, this is not my first rodeo. I wanted to make sure before I posted anything that my hands and my head were not the culprit of my concerns.

Here's some important facts about the engine built and the seals we will be discussing.

*Engine Specific Information*

1) Brand New (not resurfaced) Rotor Housings.
2) Exhaust closing not adjusted in anyway.
3) Exhaust port width not adjusted in anyway.
4) Exhaust opening ported 1mm and corners radius decreased
5) Race clearanced rotors
6) Matching C weight rotors and balanced rotating assembly.
7) OMP deleted; Premix of 1oz per gallon.

*Tuning/ECU Specific Information*

1) PowerFC/Dataloggit
2) NTK wideband (calibrated once a week)
3) New oem knock sensor.
4) Highest recorded knock reading 39
5) Conservative leading timing and most importantly conservative trailing split in boost (We do not tune timing with out a dyno).
6) Inj Map set in two days with 2-hour street tuning sessions.
7) Crusing afr's 14.5, 10psi 12.5 afr's, 15-16psi 11.9-12.2 afr's (Some call this aggressive)

Now, startup was no problem we check for leaks for the first half hour and monitor temperatures. Shut off after no leaks are confirmed, fans operated, ext. Following idle set at 800, idle and free-rev afr's are within desires and hit the road for local 30 minute shake down and fuel up.

Come back and put the car up on lift for another visual inspection and setup for compression check. Compression comes back as 119 front 117 rear. Drive and tune vacuum less 3000rpm for 100 miles. Change mineral 20w50 to full synthetic 15w50.

Next 150 miles drive and tune vacuum less 4500rpm. 250 mile mark; drain 1 quart oil sample and test oil. Oil inspection passes and oil is topped off again. Again, Drive and tune vacuum less than 8000rpm for 250 miles. Inspect for leaks check all fluid levels at 500 mile marker and check compression. Compression comes back as 117 front 113 rear (strange). Did some idle carbon treatment cleaning as it's most likely some carbon build up from tuning a rich map out and the added premix added in with the fuel. After that it's given the green light for boost.

Roughly 100 miles of 10psi pulls up to 8500rpm. Car pulls excellent, slight spin in 3rd gear. After getting consistent afr's throughout the map I setup the rest of the pressure map with roughtly 5% more fuel than would be needed and start tuning for 15psi. Car pulls unbelievable; freight train fast. Took my one friend for a car cruise who has build several 400-600whp Evos and he's very very scared. The car's gutted so 450-480whp is very very responsive. Pulling to 150-160 on straightaways on back country roads goes quite quick. Due to low amount of aero work I rarely shift into fifth other than to cruise.

Now we started to get symptoms of a defective coolant seal so trips are short and the fans are continuously on. After coming back home from doing some work and delivering parts at IRP it was time to tear the engine down. Regretfully

What I found was very strange, there was considerable wear marks in the compression area on the rear rotor housing and after looking at the seals I started to see wearing on the trailing side of the apex seal. This was identified on each of the three rear apex seals.

The front rotor housing was the same deal except more staining from the apex seal lifting on the leading and trailing plug areas. There was also the same trend of trailing apex seal wear. Again, there was no porting done to the closing of the exhaust ports. Ironically one of the cooler parts of the rotor housing matches right up with the wear on the apex seals. I have never seen wear in this area before ever. Other than aftermarket seals like Atkins that wear the entire rotor housing especially when relying on the factory OMP to lubricate.

FYI I'm not just a person that ordered seals and is casting my judgement. I've known John at Goopy and met with him more times than I can recall. There's no hiding for me when I say any of this so hopefully someone else will chime in here with their experience. I'm sure I'll get a phone call from John in a couple days but I'll deal with that then. I firmly believe we all should grow from each others experience. So at my expense make your own decisions.

All said and done, I'm going to put these in the machine with whoever the next customer is that needs housings resurfaced. Following I'll be getting some new seals; What seals might you ask? Good old tried and true RA super seals (until we finish our own set). I can get them cheaper and I know I can beat the living snot out of them. I'll post pictures tonight of the rotor housings as I have to stop back at the shop anyway.

I didn't really get to proof read this so I'm sure there's some grammatical errors.

Turblown

iTrader: (12)

Where are the pictures? I have broken down 1 engine running these seals, and intend to take apart our shop car soon that also runs these seals...

JWteknix

iTrader: (2)

what did the seals look like? why was it broken down? was it the same thing?

mono4lamar

iTrader: (32)

As promised. Here are the pictures of the BRAND NEW HOUSINGS with less than 750 miles.

mono4lamar

iTrader: (32)

More...

mono4lamar

iTrader: (32)

7Club's boning me as I'm continuously getting errors trying to upload more. I'll try again later tonight.

seandizzie

iTrader: (1)

Curious??Where the rotors used?? Are the apex slots straight and what is the clearance.

mono4lamar

iTrader: (32)

Rotors were very low mileage new engine. Yes they were straight as they're factory cut and the clearance perfectly came out perfect. This was built as a race engine, we did extensive modifications to the block that only could benefit testing. We used the .0015" as recommended.

thewird

iTrader: (8)

What spark plugs are you using? This picture is quite indicative of a plug being too hot...

https://www.rx7club.com/attachments/...s-img_0741-jpg

You mentioned your motor was overheating, this may have led to your housings warping causing the mentioned wear. That in combination with your aggressive tuning could also be a cause. I don't think your example is conclusive enough to say it had anything to do with the seals.

I've taken apart one motor that I built with the Goopy seals after low mileage and it looked identical to the day I put them in (used housings).

RA Super Seals are garbage when it comes to wear (from personal experience with low mileage teardowns). They don't break ever but they eat your housings for dinner. I have yet to see a Goopy Seal break even after a few lean-out scenarios as well.

thewird

bumpstart

IMO you are just seeing the apex seals crowning themselves on new housings ?
still excellent compression till tear down??
the variations seen on the tester is minimal .. is it altitude/ air pressure and rpm corrected??

mazda seals are pre-crowned..
S/H rotor housings are also pre heat cycled and reversed crowned to some degree everytime they where run cold

mixing old with new here doesnt bring any issue.. and few people check progress 1000 km in , especially new housings on aftermarket seals

you are mixing new housings.. with uncrowned apex seals..
i would be expecting similar results, and would not be too disturbed seeing that compression is still up there
.. and that i see no styrations or cat scratches on the housing,, just wear from the three points i would expect high spots
- the middle.. and where the springs load the seal

if i had any suggestion to make it may have been to end clearance the apex seal lengths just a little more
.. maybe observe the endplates or apex seal ends for a witness mark??

can we have apex seal pictures to observe galling ??
what springs are you using?

BTW .. i have a goopy O/S seal 12a BP out there
,, i pulled it down around 1500 km due to a side seal issue .. the 12a housings where not great to start with ....

apex seal a, rotor slot and housing in that one are not having any problems
.. compression is still very good and it starts right up

seandizzie

iTrader: (1)

Are they still straight and in spec post tear down??

Howard Coleman

iTrader: (6)

"Roughly 100 miles of 10psi pulls up to 8500rpm. Car pulls excellent, slight spin in 3rd gear. After getting consistent afr's throughout the map I setup the rest of the pressure map with roughtly 5% more fuel than would be needed and start tuning for 15psi. Car pulls unbelievable; freight train fast. Took my one friend for a car cruise who has build several 400-600whp Evos and he's very very scared. The car's gutted so 450-480whp is very very responsive. Pulling to 150-160 on straightaways on back country roads goes quite quick. Due to low amount of aero work I rarely shift into fifth other than to cruise.

Now we started to get symptoms ..."

checking back over your setup... you must have missed posting that you are running AI?

God help any steel seals that were dealing w the CCP/CCH if water or water meth wasn't on board. the housings look clearly like they lack lubrication. for the most part they are shiny. that shouldn't happen in a short miles situation unless too little lube or too much heat.

howard

mono4lamar

iTrader: (32)

I understand plug heat range. The one housing had minimal lifting compared to the other. I'm pretty sure it's related towards the non ported Xcessive LIM. It was left non ported for a out of the box tuning comparison to our LIM (I'll get into this probably over the summer). I might start switching to cooler plugs earlier now. It seems the cut off range is 420-450 whp for factory 9's. I really like running them at this level all around for their "inability" to foul and clean burning.

IMO I still have yet to really squeeze the mustard out of this motor due to not hitting a dyno to fine tune cells and adjust timing.

These seals are uncrowned out of the package. So the "crowning" is unfortunately out of the question.

IMO by being the person that can handle the parts in person is that the seals seem to be "flexing". I checked the housings for high area's and didn't see anything unusual. I might check again tomorrow but I can't even feel by finger the visual wear areas you see in the pictures.

I really wish I could get the pictures of the trailing wear on the seals to come out but I need a better camera to focus. I'm really really not pleased with the wear especially with proper premixing. I'm almost debating putting these back in to abuse them to failure but I feel RA seals are a better candidate for racing. I'm not sure I want to be a test mule to see what they can and can't handle. The 3 wear areas on the radius extend 1/4 of the surface. I really really didn't get to start punishing the motor as I usually like to and it was under 750 miles. I made a poor decision to pull the motor without getting a final compression check. I've built a couple other motors with these seals and one has near new housings also. I might call this customer to see if I can get a compression check done.

Everyone's suggestions and input so far has been helpful. Makes me really want to just put the ceramics in as I'm competent with tuning and monitoring. I'll get some pictures of the apex seals tomorrow if I can get my friend to lend me his expensive camera. I want to hear some input for the wear on the seals.

thewird

iTrader: (8)

Ceramics are godsend. New housings still look like new housings after over 50,000 km. You can also go more aggressive on the timing as they take heat better and won't warp. Ceramics are the perfect seal until you detonate and break one imo.

thewird

mono4lamar

iTrader: (32)

That's exactly what I mean, the only thing that makes me cringe is getting a bad batch of fuel. But I guess I need to just strap on my big boy pants and hang tough.

I did get one picture to partially come out on my Iphone. This is the trailing wear that I'm upset about. I see no excuse for this with new housings, premix and conservative to minimal porting...

thewird

iTrader: (8)

I've seen that exact same wear mark on a motor I put together with RA super seals and went too advanced on the timing. I've also seen that exact same wear mark on 3mm OEM seals after 1,000 km on the bank where the OMP nozzle failed.

What I'm trying to say is I don't believe what you experienced had anything to do with the seals.

thewird

mono4lamar

iTrader: (32)

^You've seen it in multiple areas of the trailing edge? All of these seals have them in the center and just to the outside of the machined short spring provision. I've seen leading get chewed from improper bevel and degradation of the seal but never the trailing sealing radius...

I might just use the ceramics we've been working on in this motor. I wanted to test them in NA form first but it might be time to jump the gun with this material.

cewrx7r1

iTrader: (2)

"(7) Crusing afr's 14.5, 10psi 12.5 afr's, 15-16psi 11.9-12.2 afr's (Some call this aggressive)"

From my point of view: all of that is bad.

Cruise could be leaner for better mileage.
15-16 psi at 11.9-12.2 AFR is too lean and hot! I would use arround 11.2-11.3 for 15-16psi.

thewird

iTrader: (8)

Any metal seal would have performed the same in your circumstances and I'd venture to say if you were running a stock seal, your motor would have blown instead of what your seeing. The Goopy seal saved your engine.

The separation in the wear pattern is from the raised spark plug boses. You can clearly see it in your pictures LOL.

thewird

smg944

iTrader: (34)

did i miss the timing numbers? i read through a bit quick. i would also agree that the 12.0 range in lean for afr's. also lubrication is key with steel seals what were you using as a premix. most are fine just wondering.

thewird

iTrader: (8)

I would have mentioned oil lubrication but he seems to be premixing the right amount from his description.

thewird

mono4lamar

iTrader: (32)

I didn't want to get into tuning politics as its a can of worms. When I say crusing afr's I mean near atmospheric pressure not in vacuum crusing. Those cells tip 15.5-16 (my wideband only reads to 16). Never had a problem with oem or other aftermarket seals as far as my aggressive numbers go. For my car I log egt's, knock, afr's and overlay them to see what's going on. I'm happy that you have your numbers that work well for you Chuck. I respect your knowledge as you've got many many decades of experience.

I don't want to talk timing that's a bigger can of worms. What I do works very well for me, including negative split (don't worry not in boost). Again, I log everything and overlay it to see how everything mingles together. God's honest truth I have yet to blow up an engine tuning so far. You can bend tradition when you have data.


I've been more than happy to agree with you up till here lol. Goopy seals did not save my engine. If anything they're not coping with what environment I'm putting them in.

Again, I'll have to revise my logic in plugs. I might start using 10's and 9's for 420-500 whp. After that it's really up to the fuel being used.


Throw me under the bus again but I'm using walmart Supertech grade premix. It mixes very well with pump fuel (doesn't separate) and burns very well IMO. I only believe in expensive high zinc synthetic crankcase oil.

If you want to make good power "Lean is Mean" you just have to be very careful and watch your numbers. Since I can actively tune my car on the go I'll continue with my methods as they're still working well for me.

Give me a couple weeks to get some seals done. I'll post pictures of how the housings clean up after using our tooling. It's a shame to taint brand new housings with metal seals. The worlds changing and so are my rotary philosophies.

peejay

1oz/gallon seems awfully low to me for non-Mazda seals. That's about the rate that bog slow 100hp 13Bs used, with more housing friendly apex seal material. One other thing to bear in mind is premixing doesn't get all of the oil on the housings like drooling the oil out of the injector holes does.

I premix close to 2oz/gallon (N/A engines) with Atkins seals and my rotor housings look the same 50-60k miles later as they do when first assembled. Engine power picks up measurably compared to 1oz/gal as well.

Racing Beat also recommends significantly higher oiling with high output turbo engines with any seal.

thewird

iTrader: (8)

To be frank when I saw the pictures and read the description, I already knew what the cause was, I just didn't want to be a dick. Your tuning too hot. Just because your data says its fine, doesn't mean it is fine. Your plugs need to be colder and your AFR needs to be richer with more timing (assuming your using the retarded timing approach to run lean without blowing up).

This is one of those times where I'm gonna sound a bit like Mr. Howard Coleman. The combustion chamber temperatures are too hot. You either need to add more fuel to cool it down which you can then make up for power loss by adding timing or you can add some form of auxiliary injection to achieve the same result (but better). Tuning is more of an artform, then a science. Most of the time experience is more important then any datalogs. Well it is a science but we don't have the equipment required to treat it as such. Just because its been working for you, doesn't mean its good.

Yah, lean is mean for sure...



thewird

mono4lamar

iTrader: (32)

I think I'm done in here for a while. I saw that picture in my head when I posted lean is mean. I'm not going to post anything negative towards what your posting cause I can respectfully disagree. In the case when someone over does it you will have detonation which is the likely cause in that picture. I know that and I know you know that. Had my tuning been so erratic I would be bankrupt from blowing engines being my own and other customers. Your quote in your signature is hypocritical to what you're posting "The perfect race car is the fastest thing on the track and then explodes after crossing the finish line." Push the envelope to just before the limit. If you're doing wrong the engine will let you know.

Anyway, again, I'm done posting here. I should have stuck to my disclosure when I first opened this being I would not discuss any details. I would like everyone to migrate back to the seals in case right here. I know there are others out there doubting to post as I've already talked to them. Being confident in what I've done I'm stretching out here being brave. Please open your engine with these seals or politely let me talk to someone who has experience with these seals. You'll find yourself hard pressed to string me out in person over these details don't try it here. We'll save discussions like this for DGRR.

Someone contribute good or bad to the case in point. I personally don't see anyone but me hanging their ***** out there.