Mailing List flyrotary@lancaironline.net Message #36545
From: Russell Duffy <rusty@radrotary.com>
Subject: RE: [FlyRotary] Re: single rotor testing
Date: Sun, 15 Apr 2007 20:08:04 -0500
To: 'Rotary motors in aircraft' <flyrotary@lancaironline.net>
Message
you should get a speeding ticket!!
Everyone else is toiling away for years and you just slam together some parts and start it! 
 
Hi Thomas.  Well, in this case, no records were broken.  This is the same engine I had running on the Kolb about a year ago.  All I did recently was change the gear drive, and put it on a trailer as a test stand.  I even used the same wiring, hoses, and even the old Kolb inst panel, so there really wasn't that much to it. 
 
For your 1-rotor, you a right about more inertia from the flywheel, but you could keep mass down by making it a big diameter with most of the mass at the rim, inertia-effect goes up with radius at the same weight (actually it goes up with the square, if don't get it completely wrong here)  
 
That would be the plan.  I've all but forgotten about remaking the current aluminum adapter, because it would be too heavy, without helping much.  It's also way easier to make a heavy ring that uses the existing bolt holes in the flexplate.  I'd have to come up with a way to balance it, and it would have to be at least 10 lbs I think.  I tried several pounds before (with Tracy's drive), and it made no difference at all.    
 
Also what about a freewheel-unit, before the PSRU? Something like in car-auto-trans, it would not eliminate the torque reversal in the engine, but keep it from going into the gearbox/prop. 
 
You mean like a torque converter?  That might help, but there's no room for that.  A few of the two strokes use "slipper clutches" to help with the gearbox resonance. 
 
By the time the Mazda-1-rotor is smooth and idles well, it probably will cost the same as a small re-engineered 2- or 3-rotor. You mentioned Alu-side housings - as the price is now, these already buy a whole 40-hp engine..... unless Mazda goes Alu at some point....
 
Nevertheless, keep hacking on it!! 
 
This is one of those projects I'm doing just because I want to.  It's clear that it may never become anything worth using, but it's an interesting exercise nonetheless.   With any luck, it will keep me busy until someone makes an ideal engine :-)
 
BTW, I found no evidence at all of damage from my missing piece of intake.  I can't inspect everything through the intake and exhaust ports, but what I can see looks perfect, and certainly the apex seals are fine.  There's about a 50% chance that the aluminum piece came off after I removed the intake, since I was trying to break it the rest of the way apart after I got it off the engine.  I didn't see the missing piece on the workbench, or floor, but that doesn't mean much either. 
 
Rusty
  
Subscribe (FEED) Subscribe (DIGEST) Subscribe (INDEX) Unsubscribe Mail to Listmaster