TheCamel

There are a few members of the board currently using these seals, and still testing. I have a set that I have not put in an engine yet. I have seen some good and bad out of a few different seals in some really abused engines. the RA seals aside, I have seen the Adkins seals blow, yet not do damage to the engine the same way a stock 2mm 3 pc seal will. JSpecRaceer has had a Adkins seal explode during tuning, The center of the seal let go, and was alsmost the perfect shape of the exhaust port. When the motor was opened, no damage to any of the major components, no housing scratches, no Iron damage, and no rotor dings. The seal went through the engine and the turbo with no damage... That was a good thing, all the rebuild cost was a O-ring set and the time to break it down, and put it back in. Am I saying this is the best seal out there? No, but it did impress me. Now JSpecRacer is running the RA seals... He has no complaints other than he has a lot more time to play with tuning, because the motor has not blown yet. If you do a search on the Rotary aviation seals there was a member that put them through the test pretty harshly. I read through the test he did, and was extremely surprised at the results, even more surprised when he had called Tracey @ RA and they shipped a new replacement set to him, even after he abused them to the point of failure for the purpose of testing. Dragon and Igy both told me a long time ago that when it comes to playing with the rotary, it is not a question of what caused the engine to blow, nor is it the quality of the products you put in, it is the time you spend tuning it to do what you want it to do. Dragon claims the rotary is 25% engine, and 75% tuning, I beleive it. I am not a profesional engine builder, I am not a super tuner, But I have seen some 13b engines put to the test in some grueling conditions. I have seen what Dragon can do to a front stationary gear. I have seen a motor crack due to an improper corner seal placement, and I have seen some pretty wicked rotors that Igy pulled out of a motor that looked like a person was beating them with a 5 lbs ball peen hammer. The best seal is the seal that does what it is supposed to, and if your running a Half Bridge, or high boost motor, you have to realize that your longevity is going to be lower than a guy running a N/A stock motor. As the saying goes "You have to pay, to play"

Turbomark7

I have personally seen a RP race rotor that withstood a serious detonation condition - looked like it was thoroughly beaten w/ a ball peen hammer; the 3mm seals held up.



I have Chris's 2mm stockport in the car and his 3mm streetport on the shelf (It's going in after Rotary Revolution). I've driven cars with that engine and they're unbelievably powerful and durable. Many in our group got burned by the low-buck builders that put out garbage. They wind up paying over double what Chris charges and they still have a dubious engine in some cases by the time it's sorted out. Chris's fee for my engines at $2400 and $3400 respectively are not unreasonable for a stout, powerful, and forgiving engine that is hard to break IMO. As 94Touring says, it's in the tuning. RP and Gotham Racing are the best.

4CN AIR

It's true, detonation will break forged pistons with no problem.



But I don't believe most people believe a 3mm seal is invincible. Most are just wondering which one is better. If you were to build an engine and money was not an object, which seal should be used?

Silver Ninety Three

Something interesting I discovered: We had a Rotary aviation 2mm seal at the shop that had a damaged corner piece, so we couldn't use it. I decided to mess around with it to see how strong it was. A stock 2mm seal can easily be snaped in half in your hands. I couln't break the RA seal. I also tried hitting it with a hammer and all it did was dent the concrete on our shop floor. Eventually I hit it hard enough and it broke, but it definately seams much stronger than the stock mazda seals. I will be running the RA 3mm seals in my motor that I am building now. From my experiences, mazda 2mm seals offer no forgiveness to pinging or detonation. There is just no room for error. Almost every stock seal 2mm motor that I've poped went at a single ping. In fact it just let go, didn't even hear anything. The last one I thought I heard some pinging earlier in the day when I was driving but I thought the noise was caused by a zip tie rubbing on my fans. It let go later that afternoon when I forgot about the noise I heard earlier and got on it. The 3mm mazda seal motor I had detonated hard at least 2 or 3 times before it popped. This was several years ago when I didn't have much experience, and I thought it was ignition breaking up. I got on it again and it let go. Point being, from my experiences 3mm seals at least are resilient enough to resist a knock or two so you can see there is a problem and correct it.

Lionheart240

I was at a shop today that does every single porting to rotary motors that you can think of, including what they called a "J-Port" which can and WILL produce 300hp on just the motor itself. He told me all about 3mm seals, and you're leaving out important things besides milling the rotors.



As we know, the point of the seals is that they're thicker, making them more durable, and therefore capable of higher boost. Ceramic-coated doesn't mean the world, but it helps. Steel would still be your best bet. Unless you're going to get carbon seals which will blow in like 40k, but produce the best hp. Also, the carbon seals, when they go, will not damage the housing..they just kind of disentigrate. LoL.



Besides the actual apex seals though, you've got to know whether or not you want to go 3-piece, 2-piece, or 1-piece. The 3mm steel seals that I saw today were actually 1 piece. That's a custom work that they do. 2-piece steel 3mm is your best bet overall. Besides that, use the spring thingies from an FD. I forget what they're called :P



You want the # for this place? They don't joke around.