Ceramic Apex Seals

[Roberto]

Has anyone tried any custom-made one or two piece ceramic apex seals on a Norton rotary? Has anyone made/had made some apex seals from anywhere off the norm?

[wust588]

Roberto, I seem to remember Norton playing with ( I think ) Carbon fibre one piece seals, although I'm not sure if they were ever used.Richard, any ideas?

[Richard Negus]

I'm not sure about carbon seals, but they did try one-piece ceramic. I have one example which was made for the narrower NR731 drone engine.There was a project with British Gas for a low-power single rotor engine ; this had a cast iron housing (very heavy) and ceramic seals and was an experiment to use low-grade gas to produce heat and power. I didn't see any results of the tests.The Aixro kart engine is available with carbon seals as a higher-revving option. They should fit the Norton engine.

[Roberto]

Thank you to both of you for your comments. I have been in touch with Aixa and Carl Hayward and both are converts to the ceramic seals. Aixa seals are two piece and have the main bit made of ceramic. The small piece is the same metal as the non-ceramic ones. They claim that nobody has worn out a set of ceramics or had them explode under normal use. The fear that Graham and I had was that they might shatter and destroy the housings.If anyone is tempted to try some before me, the number of the techical sales rep for Aixa is Richard... 0787 5491997. He has been most helpful. He explained that some of the cart users mercilessly thrash their engines to over 12k rpm and the case where the tips failed would probably have obliterated any seal regardless. I was more interested in the comments from America where many Mazda owners use them for road use and claim better sealing hence running efficiency.From my point of view, with a lot of town use, the big plus might be the tendency not to pick up carbon and stick in the rotor housing.

[Roberto]

Oops! Sorry -spelling! Aixro http://www.karting1.co.uk/wankel-kart-t ... ering.com/