The rough running is normal with a p-port. P-ports have a lot of
 valve overlap at speeds less than 4500 RPM.

 The smoke was probably caused by no restriction in the oil feed to
 the TC bearing. The oil pressure was 130 PSI.

 My mistake.

 Consensus from friends say there should be a .040" dia. restrict-or
 in there. So I made one on the lathe and put it in the fitting on top
 of the turbo charger bearing unit.

 That should cut most of the smoke.

 It has twice the power to weight ratio and half the size as the PT6
 powered Legend and that will climb at 6,500 feet per minute.

 From that point of view ours should climb at 13,000 feet per minute
 easily beating the Bear Cat record of 10,000 feet in a minute and a
 half.

 Here is a screen shot of the Motec EFI Data log. The Motec EFI
 records the data at 10 records per second. Think of it as a airline
 black box.

 The curious thing is the intake air temperature actually went down as
 the engine ran just above idle at 2300 RPM. Prop RPM was 760.

 The next test will be a full power run well tied down on the back of
 a flat bed tow truck at 45 degrees angle of attack to check all the
 pump functions.

 The video is low rez that is the only way to get the file size down
 to email.

 Here is the PT6 Legend taking off.

 Paul Lamar

 Valve overlap????????

 Your videos don’t open for me. What format are you sending? Thanks.
 John Dinkel

 That is because you are using an Apple John. Probably an old Apple
 :-)

 Here is todays run. We got it up to 3200 RPM. No smoke.

 We cleaned the normal plugs and it started on the first blade. Just
 like my RX8 does.

 Next step is put the wings on and run it at full power.

 This engine is half the weight and size of a PT6 engine so it will
 fit in a much smaller airplane that is half the weight of a PT6
 powered airplane.



 Paul Lamar


 Paul, Great job! Looking forward to seeing it flying. Pretty exciting
 project.

 Ray Hellstrom


 Thanks Ray.

 This has wide spread implications in the aircraft engine
 manufacturing community. The question is how long is it going to take
 before the market wakes up. Perhaps the time to climb record will
 help. As we are getting experience with this engine I am getting the
 impression a Reno racer version would not be all that hard to do.

 Paul Lamar


Paul,  It sounds like some extra  caution may be in order today for you
to avoid having to answer FAA inquiries about a flying flat bed tow
truck. I love that you are doing the work to push the boundaries. Good
luck this afternoon.

 Now, when you have time to be contemplative, see if you can give me
some reaction to this. Your 13,000 foot/minute rate of climb might beat
that of the Bearcat and wake up the industry to the benefits of the Wankel.

But, from the viewpoint of market acceptance I'd like to hear that your
thinking might include keeping the benefit of your power/weight ratio in
a very small and light engine scaled down in diameter to produce about
300 hp.

Would not the slimmer design lighten the centrifugal load on main
bearings and produce better heat dissipation?  I suppose what I'm
suggesting would require a complete redesign...a new engine.  And, I
suppose the Mazda folks have been all through that.  But, the needs of
young general aviation folks would be best served by the smaller but
high producing engine.  Do you see anything like that coming? Dave.

David Meier

Not at all. This is a stock Mazda 132B engine mostly. The amount of
power it puts out
is strictly a function of the boost. The RPM pretty much is the same at
all power
levels. That is dictated by the gear box ratio and prop diameter.

If you need a LSA engine a one rotor version with out the turbo would work.

Paul Lamar

In the order that the thread formed...

I think David is right.

And I think Paul is right.

Or maybe it is the other way around... in reverse.

As Paul stated and as is obvious the existing aviation adapted Mazda engines are very power scalable by varying number of rotors, porting, turbo charging, boost, etc. They could go a long way to serving the needs of a broad part of the aviation communities' needs.

However sooner or later, if a perceived unmet need is seen as presenting the opportunity/challenge, someone will provide scalability by varying dimensional aspects as well. Even now I can foresee how a two or three (or more?) rotor engine with a smaller "diameter" and "longer" length but producing the same HP as a larger diameter shorter single rotor engine would be desirable in many applications. If David is suggesting it no doubt many others are thinking it. It would be no different than how reciprocating engines have been scaled dimensionally (piston size, stroke, etc.) as well as by modularity of unvaried dimensional aspects (number of pistons, configuration).

Certainly any engine is a highly engineered machine operating according to physics and math. But there are enough variables of application and design and there are enough compromises and rationalizations that can be made by the engineer that any number of designs can be arise for an application and all be "right".

And that is where all the beauty and variety of the various designs we enjoy and debate the benefits/drawbacks of comes from. That's what makes it a never ending learning process. That is what makes it all so fun!

Brad Chubb


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