I'll be driving this year as I would like to do a little
sight seeing in Eastern Utah Western Colorado. I'll also be
dropping Mark's end and rotor housings off to him near Denver.
There was a little water in Mark's p-port engine and it froze
last winter. Apparently it merely stretched the tension bolts
enough at the bottom of the engine to allow some water to seep
into the combustion chamber.

Fortunately it did not crack the cast iron. It is near impossible
to drain all the water out of an engine so if you get one and
it is going to be cold make sure you install some antifreeze in the
block. All you guys that bought RX8 engines from Australia it
would be a good idea to do this before winter sets in again.
This rusted the wear surfaces slightly and it took only a
few minutes on the Mazdatrix lapping machine to clean them up.

One side of the high temp, high cost, trick potting compound
around the p-port in both rotor housings did not kick off as
it was probably improperly mixed. I dug it out and replaced
it with high temp, low cost, old tech, JB Weld which is what
I should have used in the first place :) It showed some signs
of water intrusion in the first couple of tenths of an inch but it
did not penetrate down to the junction of intake tube and
rotor housing. In other words there was no sign of water
leakage at that junction. In any case it is fixed now as the
JB Weld bonds and seals very well indeed when properly mixed.

Mark is jumping off the deep end and rebuilding the p-port engine
himself. Good for you Mark. That is what experimental aircraft
building is all about. Self education. If you can wait a week
I'll stop in on my way back from OSH and observe if you don't
mind.

Mark, please loads these maps into MS Paint and mark your location.
I might decide to take highway 9 down from 70. Save them as jpgs
and email them back.

Paul Lamar ...No rotor no motor.

I'll be out the beginning of August, 5-11. About where the number 9 is
on these maps. Where are you Mark? I'll be in Frisco.

Blake C. Lewis


The Rotary Engine NewsLetter. Powered by Linux.
ACRE NL web site. http://www.rotaryeng.net
Copyright 1998-2006 All world wide rights reserved.