When we went to Australia a couple years back, we concaved 2 brand new sets of them in a turbo motor at less than 20lbs. The centers of them bent inward towards the rotors. Installed OEM seals and the car ran 9's all weekend at the Jamboree. I put my money in Mazda seals.

 

yup mazda. i have read sooo much about all the other seals and i have not seen any one agree on one seal. except for the mazda ones. the problem with mazda seals? nothing except bad tunners and freak accidents.

 

I'm a fan of Atkins ones myself. On the RA ones, I am still undecided about them. I am running a set of their older style 3mm ones in my motor. The seals were made in early-mid '04. They've been in there active for two years but I haven't put alot of mileage on the car in that time since I work at the house. Hopefully sometime I can tear my motor down and get some pictures of the rotor housings.



B

 

B, my housings didnt have this type of wear on them when you broke it down, did they? I know I only had a few miles, but I'm glad I got those springs switched out to Mazda's.

 

Nope. They didn't.



B

 

Just wanted to add to this thread.



I just did a teardown with less than 1k miles on an engine. The housings look just like the pics of the thread starter.



Engine was premixed 1 0z to 1 gal. I have seen 2 other engines in person that were tore down with this low of milage with stock mazda seals and both looked like normal housings. This engine was not abused in any way and although slightly rich (some 10's) it ran fine. I checked the clearence today on the rotors and the Apex clearences were fine.



I will NEVER use these in anything I own. The owner is going to stock mazda seals and is bummed he ever decided to be a guinipig.



The seals were puchased 3 years ago. Not sure if it was a bad batch or what but I guess I dont really care. It has always been mazda seals for me and now it will for sure always be mazda seals....

 

If it means anything to you. I will not alow any seal other then OEM in my shop and I refuse to build a motor 86+ with anythin but OEM 2mm seals.

 

Greg could you post pictures?



I was the one who built this engine a couple years ago, and I saw a stready loss in compression on another engine I built 4 months after this one, which I'm almost positive is due to the seals/springs.



I also spoke with someone who lost 50 hp on an engine dyno directly related to these RA seals( motor was making close to 900 however)



Those seals were not the early batch or anything, I purchased them the same month that engine was built. Now whether those were new old stock or not who knows?



Those rotor housings were some of the best I had ever seen for a used set back when I built that engine. I am however curious about something else, but pictures/seeing them in person would help a lot...

 

No pics till next week, my camera is a good one but the GF's camera has a 40x and she is out on business.



I honestly dont think these housings should go back in the engine. When you can feel it with your fingernail its beyond fixing with block sanding. Hopefully Mtello will spring for new housings.



Im gonna find a point for my dial guage that is small enough to go between the grooves to get some readings. When I first saw them I figured it was some sort of ghosting from the breakin but as soon as I ran my finger nail across them I was blown away by how much damage they had caused.



Kevin, Brian and Hollice are all running these seals. Hopefully they have the good ones

 

So is Brandon! Would be interesting if you could get some compression #s on that engine, its gotta have near 20k on those seals.



The housings sound screwed, M mentioned a lot of flaking near the edge of the housing. I'm curious how that happen in 600 miles as those housing had maybe a few mm total per housing.



Reusing rotor housing is a waste of time IMO, its like not honing cylinders when rebuilding a piston engine...



How did that apex seals look? Were they warped or anything? How about the sealing edge?