Well we found a few things but no catastrophic damage to the hard parts and the failure had nothing to do with the bridge port or porting. Improperly cut (wrong angle, uneven, etc.) side seals were found and were the likely culprit. We also found a weird wear spot on the housing and on one of the NRS Apex seals and some wear marks (scratches) on the cut off seals (I think that's what they are called) that were fresh. That was probably not reason for the lack of compression (from my understanding) at this time but would have definitely been an issue had the engine run for more than 20 seconds or so.

There was also some very strange strange metal grooves on the outer edge of the face of the irons that are no bueno and we could not determine the cause of. There were also some wear marks on the face of one of the bearings that Brian said was normal but I am not convinced wear on the bearing surface would happen that quickly considering the bearing surface should have been coated with an engine assembly lube and we primed the engine and used a 40 weight oil at start up. The assembly was balanced according to BDC.

 

Here is a shot of the iron....this was the front I believe.

I don't know why I didn't take pics of the side seals, no offense to the builder but I bet that was extremely embarrassing,....most if the seals had 3+ different angles and not one of them matched Mazda's angles

also when we opened the rear chamber there was a large sliver of metal (1/8-3/16 long). I never found where it came from but need to make sure we ID it before the engine is reassembled.

 

keep in mind that "wear" you saw on the bearing could have been from assembly/disassembly.

 

Also keep in mind they were wpc treated. Quite honestly none of us know what the **** a wpc treated bearing should look like after running for 20 seconds.

 

Yeah I could see if the whole bearing was a different color but it was a localized wear spot. Not that it matters, the build fookered either way. Just a lack of attention to detail overall IMO. Honestly the cutting of the side seals kind of blows my mind actually now that I have had time to process it.

 

was it like this?.....I never did look at the rotors



or

 

More like the second pic, like that round wear mark. Obviously Hoss's did not have as much just one the size of that round mark in the second pic and some random scratch marks that were probably due to assembly.

 

yea I was thinking assembly but both of these pics are from a bad bearing press.

 

Who knows. I am glad the engine issues were identified.

 

is the housing trying to separate? That is some odd lines..
Are those some nicks around the intake port?
Damn dude--have to chalk it up to live and learn I guess.
Agree with Houston I think that bearing is a result of a inattentive to detail problem.
what crank angle does that location represent? I cant tell

 

The only thing i can think of that would cause those odd lines around the seal is corrision of some sort that did not affect a seal. Like if someone used acid instead of Hylomar.

 

your looking at the exhaust side if thats what your asking

its weird for sure.

dont flame me too bad for this ....I just want to throw the thought out there..... could a piece of metal (like the one I described earlier) get forced between the housing and iron, then be dragged around by the rotor.....I ask because that scratch makes a complete "J" from 2 o'clock to about 7 o'clock

only other thing is some SiFi **** like major blow by on the side seals (again I kick myself for not taking a picture) "etching" the metal?

 

Could be, it's pretty hard to say definitively what caused it or if it was there when it was rebuilt. Remember Hoss never laid eyes on this engine before the rebuild. Either way new irons and housings are costly.

 

Maybe but it was on both sides of the seal and the seal looked intact.

 

It was corrosion...likely from a coolant seal leak. It was there from the core before the rebuild. Not that it likely causes any problems though.

Not sure why the compression was so poor. If the side seal tolerances are poor enough for almost zero compression...they have to be really bad

 

dude I mean bad..I will take one of my old seals cut it and post a photo so you have reference.....and 10 of 12 were like this

 

Wish you guys took more pics ...

 

Dude we were so blown away when we saw the seals we just didn't think of it. One of them was almost square on one end.

 

what do you mean ? need pics !

 

I think what he means is the cut to fit seals were not cut on the right end. Correct me if I am wrong but did it look like this?

 

excuse my question as it probably been asked before--but why cant the side seals and corner seals be notched? I mean why cant the side seals be made to fit inside the corner seal?

 

they are supposed to be, the cut to fit seals come with a square end and a perfect shaped end to "hug" the corner seal.

What you do is grind down the square end to make it fit within your tolerances.

In this case from what i am guessing the pre-cut side was ground down leaving the square side untouched.

 

It sort of looked like that and the ones that were ground down were not done cleanly and the angles in no way matched the angle on the corner seal.

 

I wish that is what he did but its not. dude some of them had 3 or more angles to them I was flabbergasted

 

No, i mean I have seen corner seals milled so that the side seals fit inside them rather than just butting up against it.
I also have heard of some ceramic corner seals? I dont know of their availability.