Al Gietzen wrote:
I'm using the stock primary fuel rail and injectors on my
20B,
and a TWM
throttle body with it's secondary fuel rail. The stock
primary
rail has
a
pulse dampener at one end where I intend to weld on a -6
fitting
for a
series connection from the secondary rail. It seems easiest
to
just cut
it
off and put on the fitting. Is there a good reason to keep
the
dampener
on
there?
Thanks.
Al Gietzen
Al, I have a friend in CA who has his own shop repairing Mazda
Rotary
engines for over 20 years. He says to ditch the fuel rail pulse
dampener as
it is only a matter of time (not if) before the pulser develops
a
fuel leak
due to fatiguing of the dampener disk. FWIW
Ed Anderson
Snip
Paul and All,
I believe we have a major safty problem here. We need to
put
an "AD" out
to all that plan on flying the 13B or 20B using the stock primary
fuel
rail that
they should remove the pulse dampener.
Just a week ago a friend asked me to look at a fuel leak
on a
87 RX-7. It
was leaking profusely when the fuel pump was activated. To make a
long
story short
it was the pulse dampener. Since I do not work on RX-7's for a
living I
thought it
was an isolated incident. Ed's post brought to light that we who
want
to fly these
things have a inflight fire fed by 40 psi of fuel just waiting to
happen!
Kelly Troyer
It is true that the pulse dampener is a well known failure point (fuel
leak)
in the Mazda rotary. Still, Mazda put it there for a reason so I'm
still
using mine. The purpose is to dampen out fuel pressure variations
caused by
two sources: 1. fuel pump pulsations and 2. injectors switching on &
off.
Those of you who remove the dampeners could help us all by reporting on
any
anomolies you may notice. The ones I would expect are EGT variations
between the two rotors. The variation would likely change depending on
engine rpm. If you get any unexplained EGT imbalances, let us all know.
EGTs should match within 50 degrees or less.
Tracy Crook
tcrook@rotaryaviation.com
www.rotaryaviation.com
Tracy, I had major EGT variations (as we had discussed previously) while
flying - sometimes as much as 300F that ocurred intermittently and for
durations of 30 seconds to several minutes. I could never pin point what
could be causing it (although it was limited to the rear/flywheel end rotor)
as it never occured on the ground so that I could check it out. Well, after
probably 30 hours of flying with this condition showing up from time to
time, it finally happended on the ground and turned out to be a fuel
injector sticking open at various times. At cruise settings the extra fuel
to one rotor did not seem to do much except reduce the rpm vary slightly,
increase the fuel flow indication by 0.2 gph and the drop the rear EGT by
300F.
Replaced the fuel injector and have no such occurrences. However, I notice
that my "Fuel FLow Meter" continously varies by 0.2 GPH back and forth
around an average number. I suspect I have turbulence in my manifold
someplace as I assume it would only be the Manifold pressure the EC2 is
sensing that would cause that kind of variation rather than fuel pressure
fluctuation. Of course, it could be an artifact of the fuel flow meter and
I'm not actually having that kind of change in injection timing.
Thats all I have to report
Ed Anderson
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