X-Mozilla-Keys:                                                                                 

MAR34807@aol.com wrote:

When you "hear" the knock via earphones it is too late. The rotor seals have
been destroyed.

Paul Lamar wrote:

All of six of them?

Ceramic apex seals too?

Is there another way of detecting knock before the seals are destroyed?

Paul Lamar

Ken Powell wrote:

     Is this true for normally aspirated engines?  Is this really true for
     turbo engines?  How about some more feed back from you guys who race
     these things.  This is definitely not the case for a piston engine.
     In the 1970's the smog stuff was so bad that engines knocked often,
     usually when going up hills.  While I'm sure that the long term effect
     was bad, but this went on for years (I always backed out of the
     throttle until the 'ping' went away - note the the HP also went away).
     Yes I understand that knock will destroy any engine at max horsepower
     levels, I'm just trying to determine how vulnerable the rotary really
     is.  Maybe Paul Yaw can quantify this for us?  I'm hoping that if we
     can identify or hear incipient knock we can tune around it.

     Ken Powell

I will have to speak to Mazdatrix, Abel Ibarra and Jim Mederera
at Racing Beat about this. Don't panic :-)

Jim is running 300 HP per rotor on 100LL as we speak. He should know.

Paul Lamar

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