Don't get me wrong, I hope to see lots of rotary engine clearly outperforming Lycoming in reliability, and performance, but I frankly don't think that day has come.  I'm rooting for Bill Dube's 6 port intake, though.  

 

Cheers,

Rusty (someone has to play the bad guy) 

 When I get around to building my airplane engine, it will be pieces for an early 13B 4 port, with seal rings in the housings. It will have a very nice Pport and manifold. It will be a struggle, but I think I need 200HP at 6,800 RPM with 180HP cruise at 6,000 RPM.

It will be tuned on a dyno, and the sheets available for all to see.

 

I don't see why I cannot have a dyno in the plane using a strain gage to measure torque, just like the big radials had. I have most of a BD-4 kit now, and as soon as we sell our big house

we will build a new (small) house in Florida (45 minutes north of Sun&Fun) and that house will have a shop to build engines and airplanes.

 

Once upon a time a friend had an MGB race car (yes it is even hard to type that line but people did race them) We got the Jaguar carbs homologated using a picture of a stock manifold clamped to the carb. It was done by cutting off the runners. Cutting them into 4 pieces length wise, adding wedge shaped scrap pieces, welding on the flange from a Jag manifold, and finished it up with a needle scalier to make it look stock. I slicked it up inside and matched it to the head.

 

It ended up on the dyno, and I had to work that day (I was a cop) and knowing the HP of that engine before the change, I wrote a number on the edge of a shelf and put a strip of tape over it.

 

When I got home the troops were pulling the engine off of the dyno, and they were long in the face. What did you get? He told me. I pulled the tape off of the shelf. It was 148 HP. And it had good power everywhere in the range.

 

I told him it would be fine. A California builder was claiming 160 HP from that engine and selling them like candy. My friends car was faster than the factory car everywhere. It just occurred to me that I did the rods for that engine. He was leading them around the track once and twisted the pinion shaft in two. After the race the factory people were looking at the manifold.

 

So, you see that the bigger the HP number, the more engines you can sell. California HP is smaller than Ohio HP. So, 148 Ohio HP is stronger than 160 California HP.

 

Actually peak power is not a big factor in racing, a broad power band is more important.

 

If it won't do it on my dyno, it probably won't do it anywhere.

 

 

Lynn E. Hanover