Jerry Hey wrote:

Hi Paul,   My wife and I attended the Cart Race at Laguna Seka yesterday. We
were sitting at the hair pin and saw the incredible end over end 360 crash
by Oriol Serbia.  He was unhurt it turned out, probably because the car
landed on its wheels. Still, it was a violent crash that had us worried.

Anyway, rounding a corner in the pits I suddenly came across a neat little
race care with a 13-B engine.  It is the first time I had seen one.   It
turns out that Formula Mazda was running in the last race of the day.  They
had more than forty competitors.

These are normally aspirated engines, chip limited to 6800RPM.  They turn
out about 180 hp.  The engines are sealed and according to the owner/driver
I was talking with, they usually run the entire season without a tear down.
I don't think we can treat our aircraft  engines as hard as these guys do.

I was very pleased to see that they were running exactly the same dual belt
water pump/alternater set up that I have on my engine.  I did not have a
camera so we bought a $10.00 throw away.  I think their cooling set up is
ideal for aircraft installations. Enclosed are three pictures, such as they
are.  These cars are being built in California, so we can get better
pictures. Who knows maybe they will sell us a few parts.   The water pump
upper neck (not the stock item)   is connected via a short hose to a stand
pipe that could be mounted to the fire wall. The radiator cap (16 lb.) is on
top of the pipe.  Both radiators are mounted low and have bleeds running to
the upper stand pipe.  The over flow line is also visible in one of the
photos if  you look carefully.  The hose from the water pump attaches high
on this pipe.  The outflow to the radiator is from the bottom.  Very clean
and very simple.  It fits my project to a "T".  For those guys who have not
modified the water pump neck,  the stock neck actually points in the right
direction in this scheme.  Never thought I'd be able to say that!

I will try to find out more about these engines.   Jerry

I think that is called the Star Mazda series and they are based here in Van Nuys.
Some of the cars have not had the engine worked on in three years.
Darral(sp?) Drummond in northern Calif. builds all the sealed engines.
I have a bunch of pictures of them in their shop that I uploaded awhile back.
They will sell some of the parts that they make like that intake manifold.

Paul Lamar
 
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