Mr. Port & Polish,
I believe you when you say that you experienced the seal wear.
I also find it hard to believe (but I am just a novice so to speak) that such a
major engineering design flaw would get over looked without being tested completely. I lean towards a quality control / manufacturing control issue.
(I have some extensive experience in casting and mfg area)

What do you think are the odds that the rest of us will be trashing out engines before 40,000 miles? I for one want to know the bad news, if any, now.

 

The information that Mr P & P has is his own and if he does not wish to share it thats fine but what i find annoying is his continuous mental teasing.

The more you guys ask him the less likely he is to release the information if any , so leave him to his own game .

cheers
michael

 

I hope we don't start another flame war.

 

mr ppees
this is his only thread. and he is shy. good points though.

beers

 

Mazdatrix found brand new never been used side seal clearances to be anywhere between .009 and .018 when they were assembling a new engine. While that is much more than the older engines it is basically in line with what Mr. P&P has found his clearances to be.

While I haven't insulted Mr. P&P I will say that if you don't want to get flamed by others or criticised here, PROVE your findings. All 3 of the people that even look at the nopistons forum don't require it and so be it. Many of us saw marks and took pictures of them. We actually saw them and took the pictures to show others. Until that was done, no one proved anything. Even what we saw is no proof that there is a serious issue that is widespread.

Many of us directly saw the marks but still aren't absolutely convinced that it is reason for everyone to panic. We STILL don't have proof of that.

 

rotarygod,i know you posted in the thread that by porting the exhaust exits there would be some power increase , do you have pictures of the stock ones to see how small they are? could this be done with the engine on the car?

 

I also have a porting template already made for the intake and exhaust ports.

 

Of course porting the exhaust will increase power, as you're getting more flow out of the engine, theoretically. Where this power increases, or how, I don't know. It's possible to port the exhaust, like changing exhaust cam profiles on DOHC motors, I think.

 

port and polish do you think its worth increasing just the exhaust exits??

 

You are missing the point... It does not matter if anyone has found new seal with a .018 wear. No engine should be assembled with a sideseal gap larger then .002 to .006

 

Mr. P&P, you say you have more info. on this. I, for one am very interested, and need feeding with more info.

Thanks.

 

But the new published-by-Mazda tolerances on the side seal gap are bigger now, right? I know that was posted in this thread somewhere...so isn't it likely that the "rule of thumb" you mention below (between .002 to .006) no longer applies to the Renesis?

I could be wrong about the published tolerances, but I'll go hunt it down.

jds

 

The sideseal to corner seal(gap) specs for the renesis is. .002 to .0059 same for all engines created by Mazda.

 

i mentioned yesterday that i would email racing beat for clarification on whether they had seen side seal issue on stock NA engines as well as their supercharged testers here is the reply:

so between mr p&p, jim mederer and what i saw myself it's enough proof for me

 

as far as porting the exhaust- there is a lot of room for porting there. there will be pics coming i think once RG gets his film developed.

 

Did you ever get a hold of your guy at Mazda?

 

You're right, .002-.0059, just looked it up...but they listed a max of .016 I think. Is that the point at which you should tear it down and replace it? I suppose you may expect something like that after 100K but not 20K.

I'm still curious then why Mazdatrix would be finding new engines (if in fact they were new) with clearances of .009 or greater.

Also, have you or anyone else seen a recently manufactured motor apart? As I mentioned earlier in the thread, it would be interesting to see if the "areas of concern" have been quietly modified by Mazda at some point during the manufacturing process. Given what people have said regarding a solution, it seems it would be relatively painless for Mazda to make those modifications as a running change in the factory...the sooner the better too.

jds

 

I understand that no engine SHOULD be assembled with these specs but the fact is they ARE being assembled like this. What "should" be done is irrelevant if they aren't doing it.

 

If they "should" in fact be doing it, why would the fact that they aren't doing it be "irrelevant"?

I think it is very relevant, and the question becomes why aren't they doing it?

Perhaps you are saying that the fact that they are assembling these engines with these specs (with rather large gaps) from the factory goes to show that measuring these gaps don't necessarily show wear, since that's how they came from Mazda?

 

That's exactly what I am saying.

If you look up part numbers for the side seals, you will find 4 different ones. They are all different lengths. That is just plain weird.

 

Mazda may have to take some action on this. Thank you Mr P&P (and others). The first step in solving a problem is admitting that there IS a problem. I think as responsible forum members we need to keep an ear and eye open for indesputable confirmation. I think a lot more members will be asking for compression tests during their servicing etc.
olddragger

 

I'm glad I got the 2 year 24,000 mile lease...the bad thing is I put a JIC exhaust and K&N intake because I was considering buying my 8 after the lease, but I guess I'll have it dynoed around the 23rd month to see if it lost any power.
It's still a nice car...and loud as hell with the K&N filter.

CypressRX8.

 

why wouldnt they do work that you asked for and wanted to pay for? would they refuse to do an alignment you wanted to pay for because your tires looked fine? you should tell the manager of that place that his service writers are turning away paying customers.

 

^ exactly.

But I don't think it was clear whether he was offering to pay for the compression check or not. I can't imagine they would refuse to do it if he was going to pay for it!

 

You guys are looking at this all wrong. I look at this from the same perspective as I looked at this stuff with my FD...its just a really good excuse to get yourself a ported motor in a few years.

jds