My ongoing project car

[NoDOHC]

Actually, on high mileage engines, the triangle-shaped part of the apex seal will wear into the rotor. I had good success with switching rotors, as that allowed the triangle an un-worn part of the groove to seal in.

I don't know if that was better or worse, but it worked.

Make sure that you get the three piece seals in correctly. The triangle piece should always touch the rear plate for the rotor (towards the back of the engine). The reason that I am telling you this is that I wore a housing out prematurely (significant wear in 350 miles) using a backwards-installed 3-piece seal. It doesn't matter with the 2-piece seals.

As said before, as long as the seal fit in the groove within the tolerance, you should be Ok.

[RETed]

You can sometimes tell on subtle wear on the rotor gear and apex seal groove area.
The rotor spins only one way, so those areas wear a certain way.

If you never brushed off the carbon, it's more obvious from the carbon patches.
This is true of the side seal area by the tips, cause of reversion going in and out of the intake ports.


-Ted