Hurley Engine Failure- Autopsy

[stuart wizy]

you said in one post pip mapped the car on twins with std injectors at 300 brake with std injectors and stated the motor neaded bigger injectors due to the high duty cycle.
not being funny mate but you can have the best motor in the world, but lean it out for a split second and its toast as my mate found out trying 16psi on a brand new rebuilt twin turbo 13b with std ecu and injectors!!!!

[Jonathan_F]

You are right Stuart. There were mistakes made along the way. This post is not a pop at Hurleys. More an honest description of events. It was my ignorance at the time that meant that the engine was used at these high injector duty ratings. I will  say that if Turbo Technics (TT) had correctly sized the wastegate inserts they fitted then the car could of been run at lower boost pressures. I am still completing the final stages of running my new engine in but it will now hold 0.5bar at 6k rpm. I have blended in the inserts and opened them out further. An hours work that TT should have completed themselves.
I will say that Hurleys seals must have survived many detonations as I drove that car very hard indeed and it was very lean. I have much more to post but no internet at home yet. Please bear with me.
Jon
Jon

[antnicuk]

keep it up John,  its interesting talking technical

[Jonathan_F]

During the engine removal process I found the following faults. Remember this was a £3.3k engine with about 4.5 thousand miles on it.
1)All three cast iron plates were worn more than 5thou.
2)The coolant jacket o-ring grooves in the irons showed serious pitting and were unserviceable
3)Both housings are heavily marked, grooved and the chrome is cracking from the edge of one. There is a score from seal failure in one.
4)The rotors have both been involved in seal failures and have deep grooves in their surfaces. They have been heavily linished to remove this damage. They were not rebalanced.
5)The 3mm grooves for the apex seals have been machined too wide in both cases. One rotor has grooves over 100microns too wide.
6)All the corner seals are very slack fits and have heavy scoring from the side seals.
7)I took the apex seals to Hurley’s and they were inspected in the jig they were made to fit originally. The corner pieces had been tipping into the grooves in the side plates causing them to wear against the main seal piece. They now no longer seal in the straight or the \'tipped\' condition.
8)The rotor bearings had touched down unevenly in places and copper was visible at the edges.
9)The oil seal rings were all second hand and near worn out. At least 2mm of chrome was visible on 6 of the 8. The last two and been reground by Hurleys. This removes the hard coating, and leads to problems with wear I should imagine.
10)The oil sealing o-rings used were not Mazda Viton rings but cheap nitrile type. Many were hard and brittle.
11)Many of the apex seal springs had been overheated causing them to loose their temper. This was what was causing the poor starting. (two were squashed flat)
12)The oil pump was near failure. The 2 keys that lock the rotors to the shaft had chattered and were tipping at about 30 degrees in their slots.
13)The sump was damaged and squashed upwards. This had almost blocked the pick up.
14)I found a length of invoice edging strip inside the sump wrapped around the pick-up almost blocking it.
15)The blowing exhaust gasket was caused by incorrect fitment of a stud. The stud had too long a lead (unthreaded length) and the nut had bottomed on this. This meant there was very little tension in the joint and the gasket had been burnt through by leaking exhaust gasses.
16)4 of the 6 engine mount bolts were not tight.
17)The main bearings were heavily and unevenly worn.
18)The oil pump chain was heavily worn with about 20mm of slack.

I shall explain each point and what I believe was the cause.
1)The worn irons:
These were second hand irons and the corrosion in the grooves indicates the engine had not been well maintained. I spoke with Mick Hurley and he explained that they buy scrap engines from japan for £150-£200 and strip and rebuild them. My irons had not been reground ( Mazda use a very large diameter milling cutter which is different to the surface grinding that Hurleys have done(I asked)) so they were pro worn to start with. The engine had been fitted with hurleys own corner seals. These were undersize with their bores in the rotors and appeared to be very soft. From my experience soft metals cause problems with wear and Mazda use a hard material. The slack fit meant they could tip under load (from boost) and this would exacerbate wear. The lean condition of the engine also meant that cylinder pressures were high accelerating wear rate. I believe Hurleys use these corner seals on a cost basis. I would not recommend they unless you are drag racing. Even then their poor fit in the rotor bore’s would cost power.
2)Coolant jacket o-ring bores-use of unserviceable plates by Hurleys. Carl Hayward rejected some other plates I’ve seen with less pitting.
Thanks again...any comments on my \'theories\' welcomed.
Jon

[DFLROWLAND]

My question aswell seeing as my RX-Motors gripe was slammed shut before I could even list all the problems they\'ve caused me.

mullins,

i\'d be interested to hear your experiences with rx-motors as i\'m thinking of using them for my car.

can you email me at

DFLROWLAND@AOL.COM

if its not too much trouble.

cheers

[20B_boy]

mullins,

i\'d be interested to hear your experiences with rx-motors as i\'m thinking of using them for my car.

can you email me at

DFLROWLAND@AOL.COM

if its not too much trouble.

cheers

As niether RX Motors nor Mullins asked for the thread to be closed or removed (I tihnk theyve both said theyd prefer it to ahve been left open in fact), it might be fairer if it was reopened and both sides of the story are provided?

[Oedipus Rex]

Jon,

you have to remember that you\'ve opened it up and found all this in your engine. However it sounds like it was running very lean under hard driving conditions for an expented period before you popped it open.

Knowing how much of these problems were evident before you leaned it out is impossible.

[Jonathan_F]

Indeed.

Apart from the second hand oil rings, nitrile o-rings,re-ground oil rings,incorrectly machined rotors, pitted seal faces on the irons, badly out of balance rotors, worn out oil pump, damaged sump and heavily worn aluminium housings.

These things I know were problems before.
The lean running I agree is a big factor.

Jon

[Oedipus Rex]

I know where your coming from here

but are you sure the out of balance rotors were originally out of balance? the housings were originally worn and the seal faces were pitted when the engine was built?

they may well all have been and the fact that so many shortcuts were obviously taken in other places points to the fact that it wouldn\'t be unlikely and maybe you actually know for a fact they were I dunno. I just think it important to assign blame correctly.

Second hand oil rings, cheap o-rings and a knackered pump and sump however is a total pistake.

[Jonathan_F]

I know where your coming from here

but are you sure the out of balance rotors were originally out of balance? the housings were originally worn and the seal faces were pitted when the engine was built?

they may well all have been and the fact that so many shortcuts were obviously taken in other places points to the fact that it wouldn\'t be unlikely and maybe you actually know for a fact they were I dunno. I just think it important to assign blame correctly.

Second hand oil rings, cheap o-rings and a knackered pump and sump however is a total pistake.

The pitting came from lack of anti corrosion agents in the coolant. The car was owned by a cOllegue of mine and well maintained.
The out of balance rotors was caused by hurleys taking a linisher to the rotors to remove the gouges caused by a previous tip failure.
The worn irons I am unable to attribute to Hurleys due to lean running. The housings, I am confident are, as they were gouged by a seal, grooved by dirt and dirty oil (Pip had a look) and the chrome was cracked at the edges.
The sump can only of been damaged prior to fitting. And if Hurleys are buying scrap engines from Japan the chances that they have been lugged around on their sumps is high.No sump gasket was used either..although this may be a good choice to avoid leaks (silicone was used, as have I)
Jon

[stuart wizy]

get a machine tool inspector to check all plates tolerances apex seal slot width and record each measurment with calibrated equipment and get the inspector to sign each recording and take the readings to hurley and tell him this is how you inspect components to iso quality control 9001, and obviously you dont use this code of practice.

If hurley are iso quality control aproved tell them you will report them unless they rebuild your motor using parts that are within tolerance!!!!!

iso are very very keen on measuring equipment and traceability on toleranced components and for 3mm milled tips,I would have thought they should be inspected after milling as the tolerances are high.

[mullins]

The Hurley website reads like they are world renounded. Does anyone know of a high mileage engine built by them?

[deanflowers]

i agree their website is good and makes them seem like they know what they are doing, when i bought my car it said that Hurley had fitted the engine and done the work on the car so i looked at the website and thought that they were a proffessional established company.  How wrong could i of been,

if there had been more threads like this then i would never of entertained the idea of buying this car and looked elsewhere

[Jonathan_F]

i agree their website is good and makes them seem like they know what they are doing, when i bought my car it said that Hurley had fitted the engine and done the work on the car so i looked at the website and thought that they were a proffessional established company.  How wrong could i of been,

if there had been more threads like this then i would never of entertained the idea of buying this car and looked elsewhere

I\'m in a similar position. i thought Hurleys were good. Bought the car, then a few old posts seemed to suggest the oposite. That is why I\'ve done this thread although I also want to pass onto others my mistakes as well.
I\'ve made a few.
This is my first rotary so i\'m in the same position as many who post questions and are re-building.

Stuart. I\'ve worked in machine tool inspection and I\'m qualified to make engineers reports. I was tempted to put together a document so my colleague could try and get some of his money back. But its such a difficult process through the civil court system. I\'m sure there must be people getting angry enough to get involved in other ways.
Hurleys are very much on their guard. And so they should be. I think the brains of the company left when Eamon retired. Mick Hurley runs it now and he\'s got bad arthritus and has spent time in hospital recently. Its a bad time to buy an engine from them with only the mechanics at the place. They did offer me another engine for £2.2k (ported top spec) but I built my own for the same money. It has new plates and housings and genuine mazda seals and gaskets. Hurleys use the atkins kit (nitrile oil o-rings) and alot of reground plates.
We shall see how my attempt fairs  :driving

[deanflowers]

ive taken an engine builder to court before with a previous car, but it is a very lengthly process. basically you need a couple of independent inspections and all receipts accumulated during the problems.  

I involved trading standards when i did and although they are powerless there are helpful with advice and will prepare all court papers on you behalf, they will also tell you whether there are any other cases against the same company which could support your claim.

The problem is even if you win you are not guarranteed to get the money back, i know a few people who have taken companies to court and then ended up taking them back to court several times for not paying. Sometimes they get away with paying you back 50p a week!

I was lucky i paid my bill with credit card, therefore the credit card company responsible so i took the credit card company to court for £1200 worth of rebuild plus any expenses during the time the car was off the road plus damages to the vehicle and they settled 3 days before after saying they would defend the claim. I got a £1900 payout.

In total it took me near on 9 months to get the money.

The court costs are £120 which you pay but get refunded if you win or settle beforehand.