Tracy,
Paul had the photos on the newsletter. I don't think there was anything wrong with the drive. He was just way outside normal HP and load. Turbo 13B in his RV-6. The bearing at the rear of the output shaft, not sure if it was a thrust bearing or support, looked siezed. There was considerable amounts of swarf and the outer ring was bright blue from what looked like over heat. There is also the possibility that there was an oiling problem completely unrelated to the gearbox that caused the failure. Since the planes are at high revs and pulling some g-load on the course all the time oiling could be a problem. I would love to be able to examine the gearbox to be sure of what happened. Since you evidently DIDN'T my guess is they felt what they were doing was abusive and caused the failure. They got another redrive from someone else and changed it out that night. Dave never got to race it as that was the year the Mustang broke and went into the crowd. Dave was a military doctor and was quite heroic doing lifesaving work on many of the survivors of the accident. I have made clear when ever mentioning the incident that this was racing and the loads and forces are very unusual doing so. Having built many cars for racing I can state things fail in places you wouldn't believe. (Ask me about the battery cable failure I had on a formula C SCCA car sometime.) Also the causes of failures may be unrelated to the soundness of design on the parts involved, and can be caused by other outside problems. The point of the discussion was not a critique of the parts involved, rather a cautionary tale to keep new rotary engine converting owners to be aware of the need to do careful assembly to prevent problems. Check with P.L. to see if he has the pictures of Dave's redrive stored somewhere.