Paul,
                I'm just starting the disassembly / inspection of my
   20B for the
            purpose
                of an aircraft conversion.  The thing that seems to be
   worrying
            me the
                most is the water pump.  That thing is huge, or at least it
            sticks up in
                the air a mile over the top of the engine
   block.  And....the
        pump is
                cast iron in an aluminum housing....very heavy!!  Is there
        some way
                to modify, or preferably another pump that will mount
   in its
            place that
                will solve these issues?  This thing will NEVER go inside
        the engine
                cowl?

                Thanks again!!
                Don Mitchell

                No problem. Not to worry.
                I'll give you a step by step on how to cut it down with
        pictures. I
                did one for Bulent and his is working and cooling fine.
        Later today.


                Paul Lamar ...No rotor no motor.


            Don,
            If I can jump in here with a comment or two.  Yes the 20B
   wp is
        big and
            heavy.  I'm in the process of converting my 20B to accept
   the much
            lighter Renesis front cover and wp, saving 6# and get the
   better
        CAS in
            the process.  There is one bolt that will have to be drilled &
            tapped, but that's the only mod that I could see.  If you don't
        want to
            change the entire front cover, you can cut the wp section from
            the Renesis front cover and just use the wp section on the
        20B.  Since I
            wanted the newer style crank mounted CAS, I will be using the
        entire
            Renesis cover.  The coolant inlet/outlet on the Renesis is
   better
            suited for a/c purposes.

            Mark S.
            Lancair ES - N/A 20B

            Not so fast guys. The 20B impeller is a much better design
            than the RX8 impeller. The RX8 impeller is the same as the
            third gen. I think Mazda re-designed it for low average power
            street  car use to cut the WP power and improve the BSFC
            slightly. It seems to work on Tracy's RX8 2 rotor engine.

            Before I did something like this I would install a CHT
            sensor near the lower spark plug on the front rotor housing
            (tractor 20B powered airplane). Cooling wise the front end
            housing is the least well cooled. Particularly on the 20B.

            Paul Lamar ...No rotor no motor.



        Paul,
        Yes, I did the CHT mod as shown in
   ROTOR_HOUSING_THERMOCOUPLE.JPG when I
        had my engine disassembled and installed a thermocouple in each
   rotor
        housing.  So, now I can monitor the temps as you advise.  Does
   anyone
        know the flow rate of the Renesis wp?

        If I recall correctly, Tracy is running a Renesis wp on his
   RV-8.  Since
        he hasn't flown (that I know of), we'll have to wait a little
   longer to
        find out how well it cools.

        Mark Seitle.

        (we got two Mark S's )

        Great Mark. I know you have not flown yet but what kind of numbers
        are you seeing so far?

        Please fly with the stock pump. We need some base line CHT data.

        I don't have any data yet on the flow rate of the RX8 water
        pump. The second gen are 30 gallons a minute.
        --
        Paul Lamar ...No rotor no motor.

   Paul,
   Sorry, I didn't record the cht's.  I'll note that during the next run.
   As I recall, they were just slightly higher than the H2O temp.  I
   suspect that will change as I load the engine more.  Lots of things to
   watch during this phase.  Sure could use Tracy's data logger.

   I didn't plan on making the Renesis mod until later on.  I'm just
   gathering the parts for now.  You have to lock in the design somewhere
   or it will never fly.  ;-)

   Mark Seitle.

   I have a data acq device I will loan you if you have a note book
   computer. Each device records four thermocouples values directly on
   the hard disk. Search Google for Omegabus D5321. These are
   K thermocouples  -150 to 1250C. RS232 so you will need
   a $20 RS232 to USB adapter cable and a terminal program that
   runs in the notebook computer.  I have two of these so you
   can record 8 channels. All three EGT's, water temp, oil temp
   and three CHT's and what ever else you need.

   http://www.omega.com/

   --
   Paul Lamar ...No rotor no motor.


Another option is to mount a camcorder such that it can view the
existing engine/flight instruments.  Obviously lighting conditions
and camera resolution play a part in the data availability...


Matt-

Shades of the past. I used a 16 MM movie camera to record the count
down sequence when firing a Polaris missile in 1965 :)