Rusty, do you have the name of the company that wants 900 more engines?  I'm
in the market for new RX-8 Renesis engine - if that is what the company is
buying now, maybe they'd split one off to me for their cost plus a little.

David Carter

----- Original Message ----- From: "Russell Duffy" <13brv3@bellsouth.net>
To: "Rotary motors in aircraft" <flyrotary@lancaironline.net>
Sent: Sunday, April 04, 2004 5:26 PM
Subject: [FlyRotary] Re: Apex seals


I'm trying to back track and gather some info on the engine that I purchased
from a previous group member.

I'm guessing you bought Wayne's engine, or maybe Gordon's?  Both were
modified by RX-7 specialties.  I think I can put my hands on a set of mods
that each of these had.

 I have one of the 13b's that was (as I was told) part of a group purchase
(members of this group) from a company called RX7 Specialties out of Canada.


I don't know of any group purchase, but I do have one of these engines.
Below is pasted from a message that I sent someone back when I bought mine.
It explains where the engines came from.

First, Mazda will sell brand new engines to anyone who orders at least 120.
That's really more engines than the average person can use, so these "new"
engine deals are pretty rare.

These engines were destined to be used by the natural gas, rather than oil
business.  It seems that some natural gas is contaminated, and is called
"sour gas <snip>  To give you some idea
of the scope of this, each engine is running a 75 kva generator 24/7,

and the company that's buying these engines wants a contract to be supplied
with
900 (!!!) more engines.

Specifically, the engines are running at 3600 rpm, under a fairly heavy
load.  The company used to use 454 V8 engines, but the sour gas eats the
valves up and they don't last long.    For sour gas use, these rotaries are
modified for durability with ceramic apex seals, ceramic coated rotors, and
additional hardening of the rotor and side housings.  With these
modifications, the engines show zero wear on the apex seals, and less than
one ten thousandth wear on the side seals, after 3000 hours of operation.
One engine ran 16,000 hours, which is about 2 years of continuous operation.
Others are as high as 8000 hours, but they don't know the average hours of
operation before failure.  Lest you think these engines are cared for in any
special way, realize that they run 24/7, and only stop for oil changes.
Also, they don't run oil coolers!  They just run a bypass hose were the
cooler should be, and they're just sitting out in the open running...all
over the countryside.

<snip> Mine eventually got sent to Bruce Turrentine for 9.7
rotors, porting, and mods, so it got cleaned out there.

Hopefully, that helps some.

Cheers,
Rusty (still too windy, tomorrow should be better)