Esmeril Racing Apex Seals on an FI'd renesis - post your experience good or bad
 

There are a few of us now that have fitted these seals , but there is some doubt as to whether they are worthwhile or not . The Esmeril website states that these seals tend to "bend rather than break" - under severe conditions (EG detonation).
Please post your experiences good or bad with these so we can over time see if they are a worth fitting for FI use .

Please fill in the following :

Number of miles travelled : 6500 miles
Maximum daily boost : 11psi
Ever detonated ? : yes minor detonation x 2 times
Any other abuse ? : no
Seals still ok - yes or no ? : yes
Any other factors that may influence seal life ? : premix at 200:1

Esmeril Blurb on the seals :
At Last! After extensive testing and re-testing over a period of almost 2 years and with countless miles, Esmeril Racing is proud to release their Apex Seals to the public market.

A first in the aftermarket industry for the Renesis engine, our seals are designed to handle the high stress operation normally associated with high boost applications in rotary engines. They are made from a proprietary material that allows them to handle a certain degree of detonation without suffering from brittleness which in OEM apex seals cause cracks to develop and propagate. At the same time they surpass the strength of the OEM apex seals and withstand elevated boost levels without issues.

Our Apex Seals were designed to not cause premature rotor housing wear; the OEM ones will actually wear out the housings faster than these. In the event that the engine is operated at elevated temps, for instance when running very “lean” conditions such as extreme pre-ignition/detonation due to over advancing ignition timing: they will deform before they break. This deformation serves as a warning instead of instantly encountering a severly broken engine which occurs with OEM seals. This deformation will cause a loss in compression associated with loss of optimal seating against the internal surfaces of the engine but it will be as simple as replacing the seals themselves instead of the rotor, housing, etc. as is normally the case with the OEM seals when breakage occurs.

These seals have been proven to withstand boost pressure levels of more than 30psi with proper fueling and tuning. They have seen WHP levels well above 500whp while being safe for engine internals.

This is the ultimate internal upgrade for the Mazda Renesis engine

How do you know this? You tore the engine down?

of course not .

still have good vacuum at idle , still starts well , still goes well .
surely if there was an issue one of the above would be affected ......

Nope.
A Renesis will run - often for a long time - with no noticeable drop in performance or vacuum with a completely halved apex seal.

OK - kinda knew you would say that .
Then again -these particular seals are supposed to bend rather than break so if they had bent there would be a drop in compression/vacuum . ;)

BTW : the detonation event was mild and it happened 5000 miles ago ....

hopefully if someone with these seals do blow their engine, they would be kind enough to show us some pictures of the results, and try to be unbiased about them

/\ I'm sure there are 4-5 FI'd engines on this forum with these now . Would be great to at least find out who they are and follow thier progress .

Yah, I'm prolly one of those now. Had hard hot starts for a while now. But still idles and drives perfectly. :D

I got these seals in my engine. So far for incidents that would ruin the engine, during tuning we forgot to check where the rev limiter was set at (8500 rpm instead of at 9200) and we went pass 8500 rpm and heard 3 loud bang bang bang from the engine. We reset the rev limiter and the car drove fine. Note that I am running snowperformance methanal on my car. Car is tuned to around 10.5 AFR. However, I am running microtech on mine and car tends to flood easily. This has nothing to do with the seal. It is just the cranking map needs to be fine tuned. Car pulls good vacuum.

# of miles so far: ~ 7000 miles
Max daily boost: 10 psi.
Ever detonated?: Beside during what happen during tuning, no.
Any other abuse: No.
I premixed mine. 5 oz of premix per full tank.

/\ thanks man . Any reason you run so rich ?

I wonder if Esmiril is just having RA seals cut down to Rx-8 size and doubling the price. Be an easy way to make a few bucks...

/\ wouldn't surprise me -but you do get a fancy insciption on the side of them - yay !

Reason? Just for safety of the engine. What is your AFR ?

Maybe because there isn't a whole lot more power on a rotary motor at 11:1 and its safer?

I am wondering if by "bend", Chris from Esmeril actually means to say "flex"?

If someone is going to be machining apex seals they better have some damned good machines to do it; the seal-to-tip clearance is often less than .001". When I measured NRS's ceramic apex seals while doing Kane's build they were within .0001" of each other on all dimensions.

:evil_laug

And it is nice!

Now that I have had the Ray treatment, I really wonder how many issues with stock motors (HP output, hot start etc) are seal clearance ones...

Probably due to OMP volumes, first, and inconsistent side seal clearance, second.

At some point my engine will have to come out. I still cant decide whether to try to rebuild it myself(would love the experience), get Ray to build me one or just bite the bullet and do an LSx swap. hmmmmm

fair enough - not sure but I think 3-4% is what I've seen gained by running mid 11s vs mid 10s and mid 11s has been touted around here as "safe" as well ....

But remember - you can run more ignition timing with that extra 1/2 point of AFR.

Esmeril blurb added to first post - hopefully over time we will get a feeling for whether these claims are real ......

no problems here. I have ran the car to its fullest and no problems! I can actually feel the car can handle more than of course the original seals. I have had them since they first came out and I have ran them about 5,000 miles, hard!!!!! No problems up to now.... Sorry I took so long to post and nice picks brettus, haha

definitely putting this on my next rebuild along with mazdamaniac upgrade, next year or so.

I am currently having these seals put in my motor. It was just completed yesterday and is still sitting at Steve Kan's shop in Texas. I wont get the motor back till memorial day weekend though. Hopefully things go well.

Any more feedback?