Does a build center exist somewhere in the United States where you can get
hands on help learning to recondition your Wankel Rotary Engine for
installation in an Experimental Aircraft?

Seems like the largest danger with the Wankel Rotary Engine is knowledge.
Once you have a baseline of knowledge, and continue to maintain the engine
as trained at a build center, it will eliminate many of the normal dangers
of a piston engine such as the Chevy LS engine.

GFCurtis Jr.

Not that I know about. The cheapest way is to buy a junk engine and take it
apart yourself. The best thing about it is there is no machining of any
kind
required to rebuild them. Once you take one apart you discover how easy it
is. I think Ed Carver will back me up on that as he has been in it for less
than a year as I recall.

You can download free shop manuals here.

http://foxed.ca/foxed/index.****php?page=rx7manual<http://foxed.ca/foxed/index.**php?page=rx7manual
<http://**foxed.ca/foxed/index.php?page=**rx7manual<http://foxed.ca/foxed/index.php?page=rx7manual

Several videos are available. Mazdatrix sells them as I recall.

http://www.mazdatrix.com/

Tracy Crook sells one too. Real World Solutions.

Go to any fair sized city and ask around for who fixes Mazda rotary engines
and go there and hang out.

Put "How to overhaul a Mazda rotary" in the youtube search engine you will
get 264 results.

This one has been watched by 20,000 people.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?****v=ijJeUk_GqiI<http://www.youtube.com/watch?**v=ijJeUk_GqiI
<http://www.**youtube.com/watch?v=ijJeUk_**GqiI<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijJeUk_GqiI

There is no cheap way to eliminate the dangers of the Chevy LS
short of replacing all the parts with aircraft quality materials
and parts. All the knowledge in the world will not help.
It is not cheap to do that. The endurance racers spend as
much as $100,000 on a Chevy V8 to get it to last one 24 hour
race.

The Orenda Chevy based V8 got up to a 1200 hour TBO when it was finally
certified after 30 years of very expensive R&D
and all parts where changed with aircraft quality parts including the
block. At that point they were charging $100,000 for them.

When I was involved in road racing we would get two hours
out of them and that was it. Almost every part was cracked
including the block. The competitive NASCAR racers get one
new engine per 500 mile 3 hour race. Many laps are done under
the yellow flag.

The stock Mazda RX8 engine on the other hand is raced 10 races a year for 3
or 4 years without being touched in the Star Mazda open wheel series. More
Mazda rotaries have won more 24 hour races than any other brand.

Paul Lamar

Paul,

Thanks Paul these are great links to Wankel Engine build information.

A part of the question I did not express well, relates to the build centers
concept I had read about for various kit planes.

I thought that it would be very useful to have a place to join with other
Wankel engine builders to find out tips on how to setup engine mounts for
an
installation for a certain type plane, cooling system mounts for oil and
water, heat shields, cabin heating, exhaust line setup, most importantly
choosing the right PRSU installation, or at least eliminating bad choices
on
the ground and not finding them while flight testing.

Just thinking out loud I guess, that developing some knowledge
baseline/hands on, perhaps a library of sources for engine mount setups,
cooling systems, PRSU's matched to various propellers, etc., sort of
filling
in where Wankel auto engine's lack FAA certification, and thus are not
factory supported...

GFCurtis Jr.

There is a lot of that kind of stuff on the web site. Takes a little
fooling around to dig it out.

I plan on having a rotary engine informal flyin somewhere in So Cal
after I get the RV4 flown off. We had one in 2010 in Borego Springs which
was a really nice place.


Tracy used to have one in Florida but I don't know if it is still on
this year.


You are welcome to show up at SZP the first Sunday of the month for
the SZP open house. I usually have the hangar open if I am in town.

Paul Lamar

GF,

You just missed the annual Alternative Engine fly-in held in Paducah, KY.
There were four flying rotary a/c and lots of rotary parts to look at.  It
is sponsored by Ed at TechWelding (
http://www.techwelding.com/2011-maae-fly-in.html).  That's probably more
rotary powered a/c than you would see at SNF.

Mark S.

We had six one year at SnF.

Paul Lamar