Just a thought, does anyone know of titanium apex seals ever being tried out, or if they would be a viable thing to try?

 

I am sure in 40 years of rotary development it would have been considered if it were a viable option. My guess though is that it would destroy the housings and would be a shitty material to use as a seal. It's not about strength.

 

Yeah, I agree with 9k. Titanium wouldn't be flexible enough.

 

eh? Titanium is VERY flexible. The issue with titanium is that it galls more than more metals. I think there was an article a long while back about someone who tried putting titanium seals in an RX7 and literally locked up the motor instantly.

 

Yeah I am no metallurgist or engineer so I just use Mazda OEM Apex seals. No one has put more R&D in them than Mazda. And OEM Apex seals are a combination of metals I believe.

 

Huh, guess I'm wrong then lol
Sucks for that 7 owner!

 

lol titanium carbide on the other hand .... that **** wont flex worth a damn

 

my best friend has a wedding band like that. his wife gets pissed when he opens beer bottles with it.

 

LOL... YES. I remember that ridiculous thread on 7club years ago.

LMAO.. took a while, but I found it...
Original mention:
Having titanium apex seals made. - RX7Club.com
Conclusion:
Titanium apex seals...what happened - RX7Club.com

 

lol... nice.
My band is TZP Zirconia with a strip of tungsten-carbide running down the center. If you look at it under a microscope, you can see bits of diamond lodged in the TZP ceramic where it was just breaking the diamond tooling...

 

Ti is so yesterday, lol

the yield strength drops off quickly beyond 600 degF; it can't handle the heat or the sliding friction contact, which is where ceramic dominates

it's not recommended for exhaust temps that exceed 800 degF which is why you rarely see it used for anything but catbacks and tips

.

 

Lol you mean tungsten carbide?

Yea ... very durable wedding bands, but something that takes great caution lol. ER visits are a dime a dozen for WC wearers. A coworkers good friend had to have his ring finger reconstructed ... he is a construction worker, slid off a beam and got his hand caught ... everything gave way except the ring lol ... blew the top half of his finger off. No bueno.

They recommend you dont sleep in them, because dramatic change in your body's water retention / temprature over night can get the ring stuck on lol.

 

add this to the long list of reasons to never get married.

 

its one metal, an iron of some sort, however its got different harness treatments for different parts of the seal.

for example the top of the seal, where it rides on the rotor housing has a different hardness than the sides, which have to be easy on the rotor.

the stock seals are crowned a little too, so its not flat on top.

 

Yeah I have heard a kind of gray cast iron but I have never seen anything concrete as to what the actual composition is.

 

me neither actually, the various literature just says iron with a laser hardening process. and you have to admit laser hardening sounds cool.

i don't think the base metal is all that special, but i'm no metallurgist!

 

Mazda might spent the most in R&D but that doesn't mean they are the best ... Ceramic Seal is one great example. they simply can't figure it out no matter how much money/time they've spent ... that's why they gotta hire Dr. Iannetti for the job.

Ceramic seal is KING. , something OEM seals can't match (also the price, lol)

 

I have learned a lot about ceramic seals and lets just say that if I ever have to rebuild. Ceramic seals will be used.

 

I like this this thread went, thanks for the great input! I've been working on making titanium parts on the CNC this week and my mind tends to wander on what else could be done with it.

 

creamic has many benefits however,I understand that the corner seals are still standard so this could still be a weak point. a lot of blowby under boost and advanced timing come from the corner seals.

i have heard of builders using soild corner seals for high boost applications

 

its a good thought, didn't pan out this time, but you never know

 

there are ceramic solid corner seals, just not sure if it's available for MSP yet.