mono4lamar

iTrader: (32)

On another note I contacted one of my customers who I estimate has 6-7k on a motor I built for him with Goopy seals. He's going to come to my shop next weekend and we'll post up compression numbers. I didn't tune the car a well known east coast tuner did the tuning so we'll see if I'm partially to blame with my tuning. Perhaps I'll take off the turbo manifold and look for some unusual wear through the limited exhaust port view.

If the compressions down, I promised a free engine rebuild plain and simple. I'll be happy to open the motor and have some more first hand experience. In the mean time I have another motor here waiting to be picked up that has some Goopy seals in there. I'll give them the option to have me tear it down for free and replace them with another seal. At this point I'm just going to do right by any measure.

thewird

iTrader: (8)

Fair enough.

However, I did mention I had opened an engine with about the same mileage as yours (maybe a little less) and the housings looked the same as when the motor was put together. It was also a premixed motor using that special rotary premix I can't remember the name right now lol. But again this was on used housings and they weren't machined.

thewird

djseven

iTrader: (56)

18k miles on my ALS seals in my personal fd. Premixing 6-8 ounces per fillup and still run the omp. This is with water/meth injection. Still hot starts instantly and looked through the exhaust ports about 500 miles ago and the original housings(79k miles) still look great. If I didn't travel so often for work the mileage would be higher by now.

Doesn't answer your questions but still a better decision than RA Superseals from my experience.

I've got a set of Goopy seals on the way but it will be awhile before I would have any results.

thewird

iTrader: (8)

I agree. If you want to try out another seal, don't try RA super seals, they are junk and I don't say that about much. ALS would be a better choice for a steel seal.

thewird

seandizzie

iTrader: (1)

The wear show in the picture in post 15 is odd. I couldn't see tunning causing it.

Turblown

iTrader: (12)

Let's see the high res photos of the apex seals, and then I will share.

mono4lamar

iTrader: (32)

David, I heard of a couple batches where high egt's caused the ALS seals to do their crowning magic. This is also hearsay so I try to take it with a grain of salt.

Elliot, I'm working on some high resolution shots. I really want to get a shot of all the seals so you can see the extent of my shock. All the seals wore this way in all three trailing areas.

After a night of sleep on everyone's added input I might have to step back my "aggression" although EGT's are safe, and knock never rose above 39 after weeks of logging. I don't think that even if I did a compression check prior to pulling that it would be out of regularity to my previous recordings. Had I run for a couple more thousand miles I can almost guarantee that I would develop problems from the seals missing material that would extend past the apex of the radius. Perhaps "aggressive" tuning and steel seals don't mix but I still feel that if you want a level of protection in case you detonate RA seals are the pick of the litter. Though the wear that they attribute to the housings might be their inability to wear like the Goopy seals did in my case.

I might have to build a motor for myself with ALS seals to put them through their paces. But I think ceramics need to be adopted into any race engine I build from now on. I have a set that I'm checking right now for coefficient of thermal expansion (ceramics do grow with heat), and flexural strength. I can't justify this other material at this point to make fracture resistant ceramic seals as it would cost $900 per seal to make lol. Making thing attainable is key

djseven

iTrader: (56)

There were a couple batches of ALS that had some warping from the manufacturer. I however, have not seen any negative side affect from the seals that were not warped. Ive torn down 3 engines that were built with ALS seals, one with a spun bearing, one sucked the diffusers through the engine, the last had warped housings that I never could explain. The housings on all three didnt have any irregular wear. One was around 3k miles the other a little less than 1500miles if I remember correctly. These were all from ALS production runs from around 3 years ago which was around the same time my engine was built.

Ive heard stories and seen some pics of housing wear from ALS seals that dont exactly make me smile. But, from my personal experience they have been great. I dont expect them to last 50K miles without eating housings, but Ive seen countless engines torn down with RA superseals with 10k miles or less were the housings were absolutely shot.

I dont think any seal is the magic formula and to be honest with heavy premix some have gotten good life with RA seals. I personally dont want my FD smoking at idle as I sit in traffic to protect my housings, maybe Im just getting old.

thewird

iTrader: (8)

I'll be opening a motor within a week or so of a motor with maybe 3,000-4,000 KM on 3mm Goopy seals on used housings from a big T51R turbo running 16-17 PSi. We're just opening the ports. I'll take pictures and post them here.

mono4lamar, when I went aggressive on the timing on the RA Super seals they had that wear edge exactly the same on all the seals in the engine. I had thought that the super seals could take that timing too because I know the ceramics can take it but it wasn't the case. I believe this is just an issue with steal seals in general. And stock seals will just break instead lol.

Engines with ceramics to this day have been the most reliable in longevity that I have seen. I've had days where the water injection fails from starving the pump and was doing laps around Mosport @ 20 PSi with no injection at all until I figured out how to keep the water level. If that was a steal seal something would have happened already.

And some people already know about my experience with detonation on a ceramic seal. A few years ago had audible detonation due to thin fuel pump wiring that got hot causing ~14 AFR @ 16 psi WOT. Idle changed slightly but I wasn't sure since it was in the mountains so I just turned the idle screw up. After that I forgot about it and just kept on tracking with the car all season, it still pulled like a train. During the winter I decided I wanted to switch to a 2 piece design as I was running a 3mm one piece seal. To my surprise I found one seal that was snapped in half in the middle CLEANLY. It basically turned into a 2piece seal on its own lol.

thewird

killahrx7

the way i look at it is that all these parts have different ways of working and it's up to the user to adjust to the part and make the best of it. i've used classic, super ra, atkins, goopy, als, and stock. no two engines are the same so what works for one may not work for the other. just my 2 cents

mono4lamar

iTrader: (32)

That's what I'm still confident in saying. I'm surely aggressive to make power but I don't destroy motors.

I might have more insight on the one housing that had more carbon tracking (lifting of the apex seal). All of the corner pieces and the apex seals had burrs protruding upward from the radius. The rear housing with the most tracking had the most burr. The This is due to the seals wearing into length from the width of the rotor housings (even though they were brand new and dimensionally perfect ) The housings seals you could feel slight upward edging but it wasn't too bad. Perhaps these seals are softer than RA seals and they take longer to break-in. I say longer to break-in as there should not have been much time for these seals to do their magic in promoting excellent sealing with new housings.

I can also jump to conclusion that the thermal expansion of the material used is higher than other seals I've used. I say this as the way the gouges wore into the trailing edge and the way the bur started on the corner pieces and the opposite end of the corner of the apex seal. Since I was using new housings we can assume that the seal grew in length causing the corner piece to start adjusting itself.

Even though RA and Goopy specify not to clearance lenght I would now recommend clearancing the length during normal clearance procedures. Use 0"-.0015" for NA and .002"-.003" for boosted engines.

I again getting that feeling that ceramics are the true bred seal for any type of racing or extremely harsh driving. Go conservative with the plugs running a half range cooler and be smart with aggressive tuning. I'm happy I opened this can of worms as I'm one step closer to the trip towards enlightenment.

High res pictures of the seals should be posted tonight.

j9fd3s

iTrader: (3)

the next question is, since this seal isn't happy, how can i change the environment to make it happy? (more premix? less peak EGT?) or just shitcan the whole thing and go V8

Clubuser

I’m shocked w/the wear. The seals are quite soft from my little to no experience. But maybe softness doesn’t equal less housing wear.
I recently did my 1st rebuild w/ Goopy seals (3mm). Seals ride on re-surfaced housings. Rebuild has ~250 miles on it and running w/the OMP +pre-mix since startup. I’m starting to boost now (3-4 psi max) @ 5.5K RPM max. So far it’s running strong.
When I received the seals, curiosity had me wanting to check how the 2 pieces mated with each other. I noticed they didn’t but-up perfectly.
Attached is my drawing of material I had to remove from all the long pieces (Meant to take pictures for Goopy to see, but didn’t. I did email them about it though). Likely a batch issue. I used a fine file to remove the material and was quite surprised how easily the file did the cutting. This file won’t cut into the OEM seals.
Because of the seal’s “softness” the engine’s re-birth was met w/a supplement of 2 stroke oil and intend to do so for its life. And hoping for a loooong life.

driftxsequence

iTrader: (8)

So for a guy that is focused towards building a fairly low HP(300-350) engine with mostly track use and some street driving in mind, what can he pull out of this? Dont expect an engine to last longer than 50k regardless of the seal? (RA, ALS, Goopy.....) or hope for 100k with a stock mazda seal and pray you have a good tune?

There is so much controversy with apex seals its hard to pick a winner.

seandizzie

iTrader: (1)

I would agree with that if you are sure the rotor is still good. I could see the aggressive tuning warping the rotor slots pinching the apex seal and not allowing it to move freely in the groove. But if the slot is still straight and the seal moves freely I would have a hard time thinking it was tuning.

That being said your A/f under boost(assuming no A/I) are a little lean for me @ 15-16psi. 11.2-11 makes me more comfortable. But lean conditions ie too much heat but no hard detination would warp the seal (banana it) not gouge random spot. Detination dents rotors.

mono4lamar

iTrader: (32)

Now that you bring this up I remember having one seal with something I had to clean up for a customer. I can't remember what it was but it obviously wasn't bad enough to remember.

Might want to increase your premix to 2oz per gallon. My 1oz should be more than enough in my opinion. I don't plan on fighting bees, I just want a adequate amount of lubrication. The factory OMP does little to no good other than leaving a nice 2mm-3mm line down the middle of the rotor housing. The only proper way to lubricate a rotary IMO is to premix or have at lease 5 nozzles in the rotor housing. Ask yourself this, why is it the irons that are nitrated the highest wearing items in the entire engine? The answer is they receive no lubrication at all unless you premix!

If I were to over heat the rotor and clamp the apex seal it would cause instant power loss until the rotor released it. I never had the engine give any symptoms of losing compression. Rotors are going to get hot tanked here and get packaged up till we finish a set of ceramics.

I would say go with OEM but I don't like how the corner piece wears the housings. If money allows I would go with ceramics. If not you're really not pushing the envelope much so stick with OEM 2 piece seals. 3 piece seals if you have no porting and can get a set (they're discontinued and rare).

Clubuser

Or, use the OEM long section combined w/a non-OEM corner piece having a wider contact to the rotor housing (e.g., Goopy's/Atkin's corner piece)?

GoodfellaFD3S

iTrader: (213)

The lengths of the short pieces are different from OEM to most any aftermarket seal.....

bumpstart

\/

thewird

iTrader: (8)

I think you need to stop looking for evidence on the seals when there are so many commonly known "wrong" factors. The seals wore the same way your housings wore, that is to be expected given the fact that they are touching each other. If you had one wear and the other not wear, that wouldn't make any sense. They're both wear items unlike ceramics.

1) your spark plugs are too hot for your application
2) your tuning is too aggressive and hot
3) you admitted your motor was overheating

Now if you think think about it maybe each of these by themselves might be fine. But now you have 3 problems together to create a bigger problem.

And some food for thought... Your lubrication is delivered by the fuel when you premix. If your running lean, that means your also running leaner on the oil. Less lubrication equals more friction which equals higher apex seal temperature. You can read Mazda's SAE paper on this wear they were testing different amounts of lubrication and properly measuring apex seal temperature. More oil keeps reducing the temperature up to a point. I also believe OMP + premix is superior to premix alone but that's another can of worms.

So now you really have 4 "problem" factors that applied to your motor.

I think the only way to properly find out what happened to your motor is to do it again and remove the "problems". Otherwise your just making dumb assumptions without proper testing equipment.

Out of curiosity, were you using OEM springs?

thewird

BLUE TII

iTrader: (9)

I will say this.

In all my motors I had to rebuild because of foreign object damage, internal parts falling off, basically anything non detonation related-

The apex seals had normal wear.

In all my motors I had to rebuild because of cracked housings, cracked/broken apex seals or side seals or corner seals, vaporized spark plug ground straps-

The apex seals had flat spots on the side.

This goes for the stock 2mm, stock 3mm, RA classic 3mm and RA Super 2mm and 3mm seals I have used.

Now, that doesn't necessarily mean you had detonation as I did because one of the side effects of detonation is extremely high EGTs.

It is these high EGTs that cause localized over heating of the rotor housing around the leading plug causing the apex seal to wear the flat spot.

I tuned for extremely low egts. EGT probes in exhaust manifold, ~1,000C cruise and drops to ~700C on boost climbing back up to ~800C.

I upgraded my ignition and tune AFRs for 9s on the street and then best power on the dyno (high 10s by the way).

So basically, the only time I get the really high EGTs is when I have detonation.

Is it possible the main reason you are getting best power tuning so lean is your ignition is struggling to ignite the mixture and leaning it out makes it easier to ignite?

I know each motor will be different, but it seems to much of a disparity that I can make best power in high 10s AFR and you had to lean it out to the low 12s.

mono4lamar

iTrader: (32)

I followed the directions of the master creator of the seals. I remember asking John twice what I should clearance the length to. Both times he jumped at me saying leave them alone. It's sad to say I should have stuck with my gut instincts.

To answer in order back to you.

1) Possibly, though I should just give you my address so you can come here in person to see where I'm coming from. I don't think the full responsibility can be laid upon the plugs.

2) Yes and no. If you look at the pictures you can see that the rotor housings were even worn in the compression area between the intake ports and the spark plugs in the same "hot fashion" as the lifting apex seal over the plug lands. Please explain why a seal would cause high friction in this part of the housing.

3) Yes, we had a coolant seal problem it was so debilitating and damaging that the rotor housings are not warped. Please stop jumping to decisions.

4) Every other seal, bearing, and spring was new OEM from Ray Crowe in this motor.

5) I'm using 4 AEM smart coils with dwell adjusted in the PFC to have them operate at no more than 80% duty cycle. They have no problem igniting and promoting a clean burn.

6) I believe there are many dumb assumptions being made as you're ignoring the written most important evidence I've given you. Rather than patiently waiting for pictures you're in complete "la-la land" dwelling on every other possible problem that exists to rotaries. If lubrication was a key concern there would be and even and consistent wear line on both the rotor housings and the apex seals themselves. We have three unusual wear lines on entirety of the rotor housings and the seals here that are completely logical to you by spark plugs, tuning, and overheating. Rotor housings only grow around the spark plug lands and although we have wear in the center of the apex seal we also have wear on two areas that would not be touching the housing due to this "lifting."

I'm going to close this thread so I don't get more annoyed by out of town assumptions primarily by you at sadly somehow my own expense.

I again didn't want to lay too much information in here but the peak EGT log was at 1050 and its more towards the transition of the large secondaries coming online causeing an afterburn in the turbo manifold that goes away before I hit my redline.

Again, I'm using the AEM coils and they're working excellent with the adjusted dwell through the PFC. As I stated I prefer to clean up the map on the dyno and do all my timing settings on there. Though if I still see an increase I will continue to lean out the map until there's a diminishing return or peak. Again I've done tuning for 6 years now and still haven't lost a motor I know when to call it quits.

I'll reopen the thread when I can get some high-res pictures. I could not get them tonight as I'm still finishing work I need to have done for my trip this weekend to another shop.