Maybe having provisions for mounting on the front cover of the engine would avoid conflicts with the exhaust system, and would lessen the amount of mounting tubes/weight needed.

 

I hate to sound like I'm pontificating here, but with all this talk of aluminum side and middle housings with a  nitrided wear surface, has anyone thought about the minimum thickness of a steel wear plate to avoid warping due to heating? The reason I ask is that I was thinking that in order to have aluminum side housings, a sandwich of wear plates with the rest of the side plate made from aluminum might work without brazing the steel to the aluminum, if brazing is even possible. Instead of brazing, O-rings like the water jacket o-rings might be incorporated.  Just a thought.

 

My RV-4 is 1090 lbs, heavier than I'd like. That's about 230 lbs heavier than the Hatch/Beckham Powersport RV-4 at around 865 lbs, if I recall correctly.

 

Brian trubee