Paul:
Next time you talk to the Mazdatrix guys, thank them for the great job
they did on my engine.
It's been on the plane for four years now, I haven't taken it off since
I installed it in Palm Springs June 2001.
375 hours on it now, never a problem. 540 hours total.
It did start leaking oil from somewhere around the front cover on the
right side after about 1 year. I've never been able to locate the source
exactly. But it's a low seepage that I just live with, not worth taking
the engine off for. I have to add a quart every 3 to 4 hours, but some
of that loss is injected oil - two remaining oil injectors in the
engine, the two from the intake manifold have been removed.
I recently completed a round-trip from Oregon to Kansas, the engine
continues to perform flawlessly. My biggest problem travelling is
finding mogas. I can't burn 100LL, it will foul my plugs every time.
Updates on http://www.ductedfan.com

Perry


Paul:

What steps can one take to be sure that he does not need to use mogas?
Don't want to be limited to only mogas.

Rick Irwin


The engine runs fine on 100LL. 100LL just slowly fouls the plugs and
slows the response time of the O2 sensor which is not a real problem
as Tracy does not use the O2 sensor. Perhaps for initial tuning.

Run some auto fuel once and a while and the O2 sensor and maybe the
plugs will recover.

Paul Lamar

BTW capacitor discharge ignition systems will fire through fouled
plugs. Unfortunately Tracy does not like them. Most guys
that race the rotary use MSD (multiply spark capacitor discharge)
ignition systems. They work up to 11,000 RPM. I think with a bit
of experimentation you might be able to fire an MSD unit with Tracy's
ignition pulse. You will probably need one MSD unit per spark plug.

Somebody mentioned that they did not think MSD fired more than
once at high RPM. A CRT or TV HV flyback transformer operates at 16,000 cycles
per second. (horzontal sweep rate)  at 8500 RPM that is only 142 CPS. HV flyback tranformers should be a dime a dozen as every old CRT monitor has at least
one and that includes TV sets. A flyback transformer is like a coil as it will
put out 20,000 to 30,000 volts.

Don't know if it will work. Worth a try.

Paul Lamar

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