Went and looked at my 81' 12A housing and they have the webs in place.


The webs are gone on the trailing, but are in place on the

 > leading plug in this RX8 pic.

Royce

It is amazing that there have been so few changes over the years.

Paul Lamar

But did you notice that the water jacket O - ring grooves are back in the
rotor housings?  This is the way it was 1985 and earlier.
Wonder if this is actual RX-8 hardware or just a mockup made from whatever
rotor housing was laying around?

Tracy Crook
tcrook@rotaryaviation.com
www.rotaryaviation.com

Yes. Somebody else mentioned that. I was dumbfounded :)
It certainly is cheaper to mill the grooves in aluminum rather
than in the cast iron end housing. Perhaps that is why they
did it... if they did it.

I hope that does not mean we are looking at shrunk rotor
housings again if you over heat the RX8 motor. Are slime ball
Ford executives looking towards selling more replacement rotor
housings? Nah! :)

Paul Lamar

Do we experence shrinking because the alumimun rotor housing 
water seal grooves  erode away?
Royce

In most case wait until the end of the message Royce. Makes it
too hard to follow later on.

My theory on the shrunk rotor housing was the aluminum wall
between O ring groove and steel liner expanded
and against the tension bolts and took a set when the engine
was overheated. The set was about a .005" to .007" depression
in that part of the rotor housing. That now seems to be a 
failure mode in the past since they moved the O-ring grooves to 
the cast iron end housing.
 
Paul Lamar
 
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