Have any of you rotary car racer types tried chrome plating
the rotor faces? In theory it should give a bit more power
and a little less oil heat.

Paul Lamar

Ken Powell wrote:

I don't think that it really pertains to rotaries, but the 2-stroke motorcycle guys did not have much luck with chrome plating back in the early 70's.  The chrome ALWAYS seemed to flake off the cylinder and the rings would never seat.  All in all, not a good solution.  The real problem was that the chrome was non-pourous and would not retain oil on the cylinder wall.

Since this is not a wear surface I don't think we should have that problem.

Mazda does something to the chrome as it sticks fairly well to the
rotor housing wear surface.  I suspect the reason the
rotor housing metal is no higher in temp than a piston engine combustion
chamber despite the vastly increased time one spot of the rotor
housing is exposed to the combustion gases is because it is shinny.
Heat transfer by radiation is reduced.

Paul Lamar
 
The AirCraft Rotary Engine NewsLetter.              Powered by Linux.
ACRE NL web site.
http://home.earthlink.net/~rotaryeng/            http://www.linux.org