Paul

    I contacted a a transmission shop they have plenty of 3rd Gen
    manual non turbo bell housings but that bell housing pic is
    from what he says is a Turbo manual trany, those are very hard
    to come by plus they don't sell that tranny without the bell
    housing. Can we verify if that is for a turbo or non turbo motor?
    that seems to be the biggest issue with these bell housings.

    Tony

    All third gen RX7 are turbo's. I don't think he is all that
    familiar with rotaries. Try E-bay or new.

    Here is the second gen manual TX bell.

    Paul Lamar ...No rotor no motor.


    What is the deal behind using the stock bell housing instead of
    what Tacy supplies with his re-drive? I like his since I can
    keep an eye on the tension bolts and leaks

    LOTS A CARS

    To each his own.
    People are not impressed by the looks. Does not look
    professional IMHO. Looks crude and home made.

    Paul Lamar ...No rotor no motor.


This is kind of like the difference between stressed skin and tube frame
structures.  The cast bellhousing is like a stressed skin structure.
Stressed skin is more elegant, and somewhat prettier from a laboratory
standpoint, offering some slight advantages in structural efficiency
(depending on the materials and manufacturing process) - lighter
weight.  The Tracy Crook structure might be more like a tube frame
structure..  Easy to see what's inside, easy tooling to construct,
rugged (not easily dinged/dented), easy loadpath analysis and maybe
slightly less structurally efficient than the stressed skin design (but
probably not much in this case).  It's quite possible that if you made
the bell housing style thin enough to realize any lighter weight via
structural efficiency, it wouldn't be rugged enough in service, or would
be very difficult to manufacture (tough to cast something thin enough to
be lighter).  These ideas have been discussed before..  Sorry if this
seems like extraneous review.


Regards,

Matt-

Well they are high pressure die cast which is way beyond what we can afford.
We are talking $200,000 to $500,000 for the molds. The mechanical properties are far far better than sand cast.
-- 
Paul Lamar ...No rotor no motor.

Matt,
Paul summed it up pretty neatly - the only thing that's stronger than HP
cast, is Plate which Tracy uses. Porosity and therefore strength goes down
from there and thickness to compensate and therefore weight goes up.
George ( down under)


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