I know stupid question but anyways I was wondering if anyone knew what type of material the apex seals in a 12a are made of. I was wondering because

i have the means to makesome if I can figure out the material to use.. Any help is greatly appreciated..



Thanks,

Nick

 

I know they are a carbon impregnated steal, what grade and compound exactly im not sure. I belive there was a topic that had apex seal compositions talks in it a while ago.



You do know you need precision down to 0.0001" at least right?

 

I know know how precise it all has to be and I have new Fully automated CNC mill at my disposal. I also have a heat treating plant that will hook me up with some metal thats been treated but I'm not sure how much carbon needs to be in it. They have all the equipment at the plant to check hardness, carbon levels, and such..

 

good luck

 

I know the price of apex seals are high. But unless you plan on spending a good chunk of cash on development and go into the business of selling hundreds of apex seals I think that many you should just pay retail price and be happy. not to say that you don't have a friend who has a good CNC mechine and can make perfect cuts. Apex seals material science is not for the do it yourself-er.



people have tried before(making thier own seals) and only a hand fully have succeded i.e. Atkins rotary ,Mazdatrix, and MAZDA





remember to give yourself a big buget on rotor housing becuase i'm sure you will go through lots of them... like everybody else who has tired



Good luck

 

Its not a friend that has it. Its a local machine shop that just got a new one. and if you know what meterial they are made of then error should be at minimum maybe 1 set of housing wasted. IF THAT.

 

[quote name='nicholas_earl' date='May 11 2005, 08:48 AM']Its not a friend that has it. Its a local machine shop that just got a new one. and if you know what meterial they are made of then error should be at minimum maybe 1 set of housing wasted. IF THAT.


[/quote]



You've never done any R&D, have you? Do you fully expect to build one engine and have it figured out? Unfortunatly it is not that easy. Good luck anyway.

 

I'd like to see the bill on scratch building a set of housings. I would wager it would be more than what an FD would go for.

 

The Mazda seals are not an 'off the shelf' grade of cast iron and the only way that you could reproduce the heat treatment would be with a laser melting technique. I also don’t think that a CNC mill will be able to produce the surface finish and tolerance required especially for the radius on the wear surface. The material is also very hard approx 60 Rc so milling may not even be an option, EDM wire cutting would be a much better option.

 

I think you're going to waste your time and money going through failures and rebuilds just to get it working.

The Mazda OEM stuff is hardened on the leading edge, and this makes it expensive.

All the other crap aftermarket stuff is basically off-the-shelf steel that is crap.

Although I'm very suspect of your project, I wish you the best of luck.





-Ted