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<< Lancair Builders' Mail List >>
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Dear Mr. Regan,
I have forwarded to you a reply to Harry League explaining in general that
what we tout is a minimum of an 8% fuel burn reduction. Customer Dick Perry
had posted on the lancair list an email stating that he got a 15% reduction.
We do not state that an 8% speed increase is the buy product as was
discussed. We state that we get in general a 6 to 8 knot increase IF the
customer changes the air inlet or outlet to take advantage of the far lower
requirements for cooling air mass. Lance had stated to me in 1993 that at
his guess was that about 25 to 30% of the drag of the LIV was cooling drag.
Cutting the cooling drag is easy and has a big effect on the speed of the
aircraft. If you want to get into long discussions about cooling drag, our
results, etc. then email Eric Alstrom, who is using our engines in his
designs and who is an engineer specializing in the subject.
In regard to your analysis of coatings, quite bluntly, you are uninformed and
or out of date and or Ask Customer Dick Perry at email rlperry@juno.com if he
noticed that the engine that he is running spins more easily with the
coatings in it. In theory you are right, but not in fact. Further, bearings
are not the only place the antifriction coatings are used. The piston and
ring pack is 50% of the friction in the engine. I have a test of my parts by
Ferrari on the dyno where they did step by step testing where their dyno
showed a large gain from just our process on the pistons. Send me your
address and I will send you a copy.
As to your experience with ceramic coatings I can only state that just
because you ran A ceramic coating that your results with that one particular
coating, applied who knows how, of type and formula unknown, that your
results are the definitive "fact" on the coatings. In fact, our experience
would cause the question to arise as to whether you did something wrong.
Contrary to your experience: Detroit engines have run through 1.6 million
miles with the coatings intact., tell me any of the front runners who does
not run the coatings in NASCAR, our engines ran 2,200 hours without coating
failure, one test engine ran 150 hrs at full throttle without failure. Also
please tell me any large, recent manufacture, commercial jet engine which
does not run ceramic coatings on the exhaust section turbine blades despite
extremely high TBOs of up to 15,000 hrs.
Further, you may have had a successful race car in which you ran coatings
once. But that is not the same as being an R&D company who specializes in
developing technology to sell to major engine operations and or who derives
the bulk of their income from such operations. A one time User is not the
same as an industry developer.
All coatings are not created equal. Was yours a paint on water based
coatings or a plasma jet sprayed coating? Was it a refractory or insulator
biased. Was its primary element zirconium or what other major element?
Further, was your rotor cooling sufficient or did you see rotor flexing, or
do you even know.
By the way, in regard to the comment on turbos, we also coat the inside of
the turbo and or the turbine wheel with ceramics in some race applications.
I am getting ready to run several weeks of testing with a prop on a rotary
drone engine for a military customer using the Silver Arrow (Israel) rotary
engines. These rotary engines run in real, day to day military operations
and have been in actual battle conditions. You are welcome to come, watch,
and place your bet as to whether the coatings fail or not. I have one of our
turbocharged inverted V8s of 550 hp on the dyno next followed by a customers
upright V8 of 450 hp. that you are welcome to watch. I also have a big
diesel coming in that weighs 56 tons that we are changing that is used in a
power plant with a 20,000 hr TBO. All run the coatings.
The only problem that we have is that when you run all of the coatings the
oil will not get hot at all in the liquid cooled engines. We actually use an
oil / water heat exchanger to heat up the oil. Otherwise, at the end of an
hour of full throttle the oil temp will not come up over 157 degrees F.
Let me know your address and or when you are stopping by.
Darus Zehrbach
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LML website: http://www.olsusa.com/Users/Mkaye/maillist.html
Builders' Bookstore: http://www.buildersbooks.com/lancair
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