Paul

you see Kit plane in "Letters".......thought you would want to comment...

jeff


Yes I saw it but I am debating with myself on what to do about it.

The guy is uninformed as to the success of the rotary in racing.
Mazda rotaries have won more 24 hour races than any other
brand including winning Le mans out right 1991 with a fuel limit.
That engine had no measurably wear. Star Mazda rotary engines run 40 races
or more over a period of 4 years with out touching the engines.

When I worked for Chaparral back in the late 1960 we were
lucky to get 2 hours out of a Can Am V8. It took GM several years on
the programed dyno to get the engine to complete a Le Mans simulated race
cycle. Parts would break and they would have to start over with one or more
new parts. On top of that the final race version V8 had to back off on the power and the RPM red line.

In the current Rolex GT races it is common for piston engines to fail while
the RX8's keep running. That includes the 12 and 24 hour races.

The Formula 1 engines still blow from time to time even though
they must complete 4 two hour races.

Of course you can blow any engine with too much boost.
He might be talking about the drag racer that are getting
up to 800 HP out of a 2.6 liter rotary and  1200 out of a
3.9 liter 3 rotor.


He also took a few comments out of context.
"If the wear of the seals and tge sliding surfaces can be reduced to low levels,"

Here is the missing context and the rest of the sentence:  "the life of the rotary could be 10,000 hours or more."

How many aircraft piston engines can make it longer than 3000 hours?

I am surprised Marc Cook did not say something about this.

It might help if some of the readers on here sent Marc letters
in the form of email. I think that would have more credibility
than if I did it.

Marc Cook <marc@kitplanes.com>

Paul Lamar