Good morning, a quick introduction - My name is Ian Dewhirst, I live in
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada and I am building and RV-8 (wings).  I have
assembled a turbo rotary power plant from new parts (more on that later),
I am waiting on the re-drive and engine management system from RWS, mount
from CCI.

While scrolling through the archives I came across posts that mentioned
water in the coolant jacket of new 13B engines purchased from RX-7
Specialties among others.  Here is my engine story:

I purchased an engine from a local builder who had purchased from RX-7
Specialties 8 months previously.  The engine was in a crate sealed in a
plastic bag, containing a desiccant bag.  The outside of the engine &
combustion chambers looked great.  Internally the engine was heavily
corroded,  I dissassembled the motor and cleaned up the rust in the
coolant passages of the side plates and thought I was ok, on closer
inspection I noticed some dark spots on the casting, out came the die
grinder and the dark spots turned into dust; the side plates were junk.  I
was lucky that the fellow I bought the engine from was a very upstanding
fellow; he contributed $1500 to the price of the replacement parts.  At
the end of the day I ended up replacing the front, intermediate, and rear
housings as well as the rear rotor housing due to internal corrosion.

I hope that this is a very limited problem with these “new” engines.  I
would strongly suggest that you open and inspect these motors before use.

Thanks for the active list, I look forward to participating.

-- Ian