Apex sealing face

Hi guys,

Just wanted to post here first and hopefully get some input on what looks to me like a defect on the sealing face of a set of apex seals I received.

Not inexperienced with putting engines together but first time doing a freshen up on the 13b, no availability on my number 1 pick of seals so went with my number 2 pick and received an open package with only 3 seals in it for starters but then looking at them closely I don't like what I'm seeing. They're meant to be a wire edm cut part but the surface finish looks kind of crappy to me and I'm particularly concerned about the porous line running across the face on the worst seal.

Any thoughts?

Not sure about which ones those are, but I would expect ANY seal to be ground or machined, and not left in cast condition - unless that's a coating that will disappear within a few revolutions.

I-rotary (Iannetti), rx parts, PTS, Goopy have good reputation. SCR/powerseals seem pretty hit and miss and I personally wouldn't use them although a lot of big power drag cars do. I'd say their quality control in on the low end, not great on housing chrome either I don't think.

I almost never get looked after when I'm not happy with a product but the vendor sent me a new set (with all 6 seals) and made sure they didn't have any of that nasty pitting I was concerned about. It seems like they might have been rejects that weren't meant for sale but somehow got shipped out and made it to my mailbox.

I can't imagine that level of quality being acceptable by even the slowest button pusher in a machine shop so fingers crossed it was a once off.

I-rotary would have been my first choice but waited months for the Aus distributor to get stock with no luck. While I have no experience with powerseal apex seals I did buy their o'ring kit, and as a guy who fixes leaks and deals with lots of o'rings I'm not exactly impressed and wish I bought oem, I definitely wasn't about to try their apex seals

Bit late but Green Brothers in NZ usually stock I-rotary and soft seal kits, worth trying PPRE as well if chasing stuff.

I would have liked to try the latest and greatest but oh well, these seals are also well regarded so I'll find out for myself if they live up. Got 2x new housings and rotors so no better way to test lol.

Little off topic but the only other dilemma I'm facing is one of the new rotors has both a C and an E stamp on it and has had a lot of material removed when balanced, leading me to believe it might actually be an E weight, I'm kind of hoping to max out my turbo and make around 500hp on high boost so ideally would have wanted matching weight rotors, tossing up if I should try to get the rotating assembly balanced now to be safe, already spent so much trying to do it right though so pockets fairly well empty