Dear Sir:

After conferring with the engineer I transferred you to yesterday, I was
opposite of where I needed to be.

He explained that he actually hooked up a 6A unit, basic CD ignition
with no rev. limiter or cylinder select function. On an 8 cylinder
application the multi-spark reduced to one spark at 3,000rpm.

When he tested for the 4 cylinder application the multi-spark doubled to
6,000.

He surmised that on a 2 cylinder application, the multi-spark would
disappear at double that r 1200 rpm.

This was on a four stoke application.

He did say that he wasn't sure about a Wankel application and was
waiting for a call from you to discuss some issues.

That engineers name is Rick Bennett, his extension is: 2402

Sorry for the confusion. I apologize.

Thanks,
Rick Jage MSD Tech

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Thanks Rick. Sorry to put you through the wringer.
Merry Christmas


What Rick is saying here is one  MSD multi spark capacitor
discharge ignition system  per rotor will give us  multi
sparks up to 12,000 RPM.  A 2 cylinder four stroke engine
fires the same number of times as a one rotor engine.
Namely once per rev. A two rotor RX8 engine fires twice
per rev. If you are not running one of these or something
like it you are wasting gas.

Rick, if you don't mind, can you ask the engineer to build
a unit for Mazda rotary engines that spreads the sparks out
to 60 degrees of crank shaft rotation. Each engine will need
two. I will promote it for you and you guys can patent it.

We will also dyno it and measure the BSFC.

Here is why:

Since we have a moving
combustion chamber that stays in contact with the leading spark
plug for over 270 E-shaft degrees we need an entirely different
type of ignition. If we fire 20 degrees BTDC the combustion
chamber is still in contact with the leading spark plug for 220
degrees  of e-shaft rotation.

In fact it is more than that. The center
of the fire stays in contact with the spark plugs much
longer than a piston engine due to the geometry and
centrifugal force on the mixture molecules.

MSD claims the spark duration is 20 degrees.
We need more than that. We need 60 degrees or more.
We must get away from piston engine thinking on this
matter. Here are three jpgs that show 20 degrees BTDC,
TDC and 20 degrees ATDC. Notice the rotor hardly moves
at all in 40 degrees of e-shaft rotation.

One MSD could fire at 20 degrees BTDC. The second could
fire at TDC and the third 20 degrees ATDC for a total spark
duration of 60 degrees. Three times longer than one
MSD. We need to combine this into one MSD box.

Rick Please pass this along to the engineer.
This could be a major reduction in fuel burn
for the RX8 and all rotary engines not to
mention a major reduction in un burned
hydro carbons.

Paul Lamar ...Merry Christmas

Paul,

Excellent.  Put me in line for testing this unit.
No waste spark but we must consider the duty
cycle on the plug itself.  Colder plug perhaps?

Doug in Japan.