As y'all may remember, I have had some, uh, "issues" with my rotary.
After seemingly toasting my first rebuilt rotary from lack of
knowledge and the learning curve, I gathered my newly learned skill
and bit the bullet and bought new end, center and rotor housings from
Mazdatrix and built what was essentially a new 2nd gen 13b.

I was all excited and got it to start with little problem and had
learned a great deal about most my systems and was very confidant in
the new build.  DOH!  After getting everything back together it
started to exhibit some of the same symptoms of the first engine (I
had discovered coolant leaking into the rotor housing of the first
engine, which had been built from the parts of three 2nd gen turbo's
we found as a lot on ebay), namely, the engine would start up fine at
first, but would become very difficult to start after the first start
of the day.

Since I recognized the symptoms, I reluctantly pulled out a spark plug
and hand turned the prop and low and behold, coolant squirted out the
spark plug hole. Damn-it.  I was at a loss, so, I removed the engine
from my Velocity and took it over to a trusted friend (who is building
an RV-7a with a Eggenfielder Soob) and engineer to get a second, and
as it turned out a third opinion on what was going on (my friend had a
friend over who is a 30 year veteran Audie mechanic).  Upon inspection
it seemed as if the problem was that the coolant ports that feed into
the stock intake had not been properly sealed.  Eureka, or so we
thought, we had solved the problem with both the new engine and the
old one.  We thought the coolant was coming into the rotor housings
via the bad seal and the Mistal intake not sealing as expected.  What
a relief......wrong.

Over the last couple of months, since the engine was off the plane I
refined many of the firewall aft systems and added both a much bigger
radiator and oil cooler.  Really got things much more flight ready as
opposed to "proof of concept".  The old radiator was not up to the
task in Houston's heat, so I got one on there much closer to the size
of John Slade as opposed to Tracy's original size, that, IIRC, was
marginal at best. It was for me anyway.

So, last week I had most my systems installed and got the engine all
rigged.  I rolled the plane out of the hangar for an attempt to start.
 It started right up and was even admired by some neighbors,
including the married NASA rocket scientist next door (great couple)
who had just spent $60K for a new certified engine for their Lancair
Legacy.  I was feeling like I was actually making progress.  Alas, I
was mistaken.  The engine was shut down to allow a plane to pass
returning to its hangar.  Upon restart it was more difficult.  I let
it run a few minutes to check cooling, which seems better (coolant
doing better than oil).  I then shut it down again and restarted, even
harder this time....lets try again....even harder.   Hmmmmmm.  Okay, I
have seen this, no reason to wait.  Let me pull the plug.  Yep, as I
hand propped the engine, I got coolant squirting out the lower rear
spark plug hole.

I have lost some of my patience, so I stripped most everything off the
engine over the last few days.  Today I mounted the engine on the
stand and cracked it open.  Everything looked fine, UNTIL I got to the
intermediate/center plate.  There was a piece of the center iron inner
water seal O-ring wall that was missing!!! (see attached photo) This
is a brand new housing purchased and ported by Mazdatrix last
summer.....brand new.  On one hand I am horrified at my new plate
failing after only about an hour of running.  On the other hand I am
happy that I did not screw up the build.  There is no way I can grasp
that I made this happen, thus my build was solid.  A part that does
not usually fail, failed.  Now, I wonder what Mazdatrix's return
policy is.....will it be covered under warranty?  It is a $500.00
piece purchased in the last year (kinda long, but I admittedly do not
have the luxury of testing every day and it only has about 1-2 hours
total time on it) that should not have failed.  I will call them
tomorrow, but regret I do not have much faith in them accepting
responsibility.  That being said, I know it was not anything I did.  I
will likely purchase another plate, send them my damaged one and hope
for the best...I want to move on.  I am sick and tired of messing with
it....I feel like I have been going in circles....so, so close, but so
far.  I think I would have been flying if it were not for this
issue....however, it has allowed me to make my systems much better
during the experience.

Please check out the picture and ad any thoughts you may have.

Thanks.

All the best,

Chris Barber
Houston
Chris,
This is common to the extent it has been seen many times before. It could be a result of an oversized O ring or a join in the O ring which took up all the available space - there needs to be expansion space.
It could also be metal fatigue of an old but refurbished housing. It could also be a casing flaw in a brand new housing .
George (down under)



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