Dave Lemon,

   You might be interested in this super simple turbo installation
   on a one rotor engine. Owned by Randy Lewis in the Simi Valley.

   BTW there is a huge interest out there in an all aluminum one
   rotor with or with out turbo. People bug me once a month about
   a rotary LSA engine for the last five years.

   Jeff can make the shafts and counter
   weights if you order a few. Since you have a bunch of E-shafts
   just sitting on the shelf for the last ten years these can be
   converted to one rotor version rather cheaply.

   This engine would fit the new Light Sport Aircraft class.
   All you need to fly one is a drivers license. Google it.

   The only engines available  now are the Rotax and Continental
   O-200 which are only 100 HP and cost $20,000 each.
   You could easily get $15,000 for this 1 rotor with a gear box.

   We have a new super simple gear box and prop flange design.
   Ed Carver and I are building prototypes now. Uses low cost Ford
   C6 auto tranny planetary gears. There are hundreds of
   similar Ford C6 based gear boxes flying now with 2 rotors.

   Or you could use a cog belt like Randy's engine.

   A Holley 2 barrel carb with leaning kit would work fine. Ignition
   is super simple using 2 RX8 coils and one hall effect
   sensor firing both plugs at 22 fixed degrees BTDC.

   The titanium rotor would really pay off in weight reduction
   as the weight saving is doubled due to the lighter weight
   needed counter weights.

   Paul Lamar

   BTW Dave, it is in the tradition in engine development history
   to use a one cylinder test engine.  It is quicker to take it
   apart and put it back together. I suggest the same thing
   for your titanium rotor development. Build a one rotor test
   engine.

   Paul Lamar

  One item you mentioned below needs some clarification.
  The RX8 coil can not be used in a simple ignition as implied,
 because of  the  2ms dwell time required. The trigger is at the
rising edge of a 2ms square  wave, and coil firing is at the falling
edge. This will give you a 90deg.  retarded ignition at 7500RPM.  I
believe we talked about that already a few years back.

  I would be nice, if someone came up with a simple electronic setup,
  without
  a microprocessor, taking care of that.

  Richard Sohn
  N2071U
  www.fairpoint.net/~res12/home.html

  Real easy to do that Richard with a 555. It is called
  a non-retriggerable one shot.

  Paul Lamar

  I would seriously be interested in how that works. I could not
figure it  out.

  Richard Sohn
  N2071U
  www.fairpoint.net/~res12/home.html

  After thinking about is some more the single chip computer
  may be the cheapest solution.

  The computer in Henry's $10 tach does half the job already.

  Paul Lamar

Is it possible (reliable) to use a regular distributor on a one
rotor? Given that it fires every revolution and no actual
distribution other than from the coil to the single rotor, it seems
fairly simple.  Unless there is some erosion problem that I'm not
aware of.

Chris Cosman


Years ago after thinking about how they rotary works, to baffle friends minds
I took the distributor caps off my two distributor '73 RX3 and ran a wire from
each coil to one leading plug. I then drove to where they were and opened the
hood. I am not sure they figured it out to this day, and two of them bought
rotaries after that.

Dale Davies