Every time I see an engine torn down that used these seals I get really
angry. Not only do they chatter they gouge grooves in the chrome plated $600
rotor housings. Furthermore they do not have "crown". Crown is  slight
curvature of the top of the seal that fits the rotor housing.

In addition to all that the apex seal springs supplied lose thier height and
temper.

If you have these seals and they are not installed or they are installed and
you have noty run the engine yet take them out and throw them away.

Use only stock Mazda seals and Ianetti silicon nitride seals.

If they are already in your engine kiss..... your rotor housings goodbye.
The engine won't stop but it will be down on power and burn more fuel than
normal. That is a testimonial on the tolerance the Mazda  rotary has for
inferior parts.

Read this for more info.


http://www.rotaryeng.net/seals.html

http://www.rotaryeng.net/history.html


Paul Lamar


I've personally torn down hundreds of rotary engines, with stock Mazda
seals, and this is exactly how the rotor housings usually look. It would
take a lot more proof to me that Tracy's seals were the problem. I've got
them in my 20B and will leave them there. I'll bet Tracy has them in his
engines too, and I'll bet he has more hours in Mazda aircraft than anyone
else. So before you go dishing anyone's product, you should get more facts
than a picture and your opinion.

Bob Mears

I suggest you tear your engine down right now and inspect it with just
a few hours of ground running on it. You will then owe me an apology :)

This is the second engine with Tracy's seals that this has happened to I
have personally seen. It only takes a few hours of running. Mark Suspinski's
engine had the same thing happen to it. Dave Lemon at Mazdatrix warned me about
Tracy's seals but Mark already payed for them so I had Dave Lemon put them in the
first time. We noticed right off the bat the compression was 10% down from
new stock seals. We then ran it on the dyno.

We had a p-port leak with the epoxy bond method so we had to tear it down
with only hours on it. I was SHOCKED to see the condition of the brand new rotor
housing. The second time we assembled it we  put in stock seals despite the damaged
rotor housings at Mark's insistence.

John now at Mazdatrix worked for Racing Beat for many years starting in the early 1970's
that has been rebuilding rotary engines 8 hours a day since then. I have obtained
several junk yard engines with almost perfect rotor housings. I was rather quiet
about it but now I am certain.

I have also owned six Mazda rotary cars starting in 1973
with a brand new RX2. Some with over 300,000 miles. RX2, RX4 station Wagon, 13B Cosmo,
2 first gen 12A RX7's and an RX8 which I now have. The only one that ever gave me
any real trouble was the RX2 when the nitrile water O-rings went out after it
was over heated. The Cosmo oil scraper O-rings went out but it merely smoked
a lot when starting it up in the morning. It still ran great with 300K on it.

Perhaps some of those engines with bad rotor housing you noticed injested some of
that west Texas dust :) I lived in Midland for awhile working at Chaparral.

Paul Lamar