Eccentric

There is no religion in my posts, only facts. Best of luck to you! Do as much testing as you can on the ground. Read the recent issue of Contact magazine to avoid the limp home mode that caused some grief to others.

I can comment on this one, having owned 5 RX-7s. The 86 to 88 NA 2nd Gen RX-7s with the EFI 13B, same vintage that is in my plane, tend to fail the same way: after about 15 years the coolant o-rings get old and brittle and start leaking. Combustion pressure slowly blows the coolant past the pressure cap, overflowing the catch bottle. You will know this is happening when you see the coolant temp slowly rising. Tear down of these 150k to 250kmile engines show very little wear. For aircraft use teflon o-rings are used instead of the Mazda rings. Good choice. I have a turbo 13B in a real engine mount bolted to a mockup LEZ firewall, a project that I started in 2001. I decided there is just no room in a LEZ for the turbo and the heat that it generates. Not to mention the potential reliability issues, and detonation will crack apex seals. A PPort NA 20B will be quite a performer.

Al Wick is your guy for that, but I don't know if he is on here. He's on the Cozy list and Canard Aviators.

True. I think the RX-8 motor with side exhaust ports addresses the latter issue. We've had these conversations before, it's always fun to revive them once in awhile. The rotary can be aggressively leaned (I don't practice that yet, but Tracy Crook does). I believe the BSFC will always be a marginally unfavorable compared to water-cooled reciprocatings but may not be significantly different than air-cooled reciprocatings. Since this thread is under "Model Specific - Long-EZ", I forgot to mention my page with some fundamentals for installing a rotary in a Long-EZ. http://www.bridgingworlds.com/LEZ13B/LEZ13B.htm

Marc, as a mechanical engineer don't you find the Wankel engine, that tends more towards a turbine (hence higher fuel burn) than a "reciprocating" (in FAA speak), an elegant machine? [i had to list my engine as a "reciprocating" even though there are no parts in my engine that do that]. Me being of the electrical variety, prefer the simple moving mechanisms with electronic control. You are right in that the parts count alone is not an indicator of overall reliability, as most actual failures of both rotaries and reciprocatings are rare and not usually in the engine itself. (Except for those rare crankshaft, rod and exhaust valve failures). I don't know that Gowan ever got his Long-EZ flying again with any engine. Maybe he did. I thought he bought a Vari-EZ to fly while he was working on the Long-EZ. But that was a long time ago and I haven't heard anything lately.... Joe suffered from a broken spark plug - IMHO he was using the wrong spark plugs. Bulent got frustrated with the EFI. I've had almost no issues, but I took the lowest risk approach with my install.

Great Picture!Amazingly some people still don't get it!

I think I've got the highest time in a rotary Long-EZ at 675 hours. http://www.ductedfan.com Before me there was Ron Gowan who put a couple hundred hours on a rotary LEZ in the mid 90s.

I put a couple 3D files up on the web. Use at your own risk. No guarantee of completeness or accuracy. I may not leave them there forever http://www.bridgingworlds.com/3d_ez_engine.dwg http://www.bridgingworlds.com/psru_prop_cowl_lg4.dwg

You don't need a plans number. As builder, you can assign any serial number you want.

Hi Ben, I installed my rotary back in 1997, at the time I couldn't figure out how to put shock mounts in, so I didn't. The engine and mount are bolted directly to the airframe. You can probably only do that with a rotary! I've been refining the design of a new mount on paper for years now. I decided I'm not actually going to build and install the new mount until I have to take the engine off for some reason. That hasn't happened yet, over 5 years and almost 500 hours since the engine was last installed. There are other rotary projects in process on other airframes with this type of mount design. You would want more power on a Cozy IV than I have (approx. 145 HP). This can be done various ways: porting, supercharger, turbocharger, 3-rotor, etc. You can do it for under $10k including a professional engine build, PSRU and accessories.

http://www.bridgingworlds.com/LEZ13B/LEZ13B.htm If there is enough interest in this engine mount design for the Long-EZ, I might have it produced for sale by a professional welder. Perry

Check out this map, you will see that obtaining mogas at airports in the West is almost impossible. http://www.chouby.com/apps/autogas.html When I've flown from Oregon to Kansas in the past to visit family, I've had to enlist the help of EAA members/homebuilders enroute in Montana and Utah to help me get mogas. I decided to start the Mogas Assistance Network, so people can volunteer to help us experimental/mogas-stc pilots get mogas when we travel. Members would be aviation enthusiasts who would have an interest in seeing homebuilt airplanes anyway. Go to this link and add your name, location, email, and closest airport if you want to help us out. http://www.frappr.com/mogasassistancenetwork Perry http://www.ductedfan.com

Ronnenberg's Berkut was parked next to my Long-EZ at Columbia CA. In addition to no lower winglets, it appeared that the upper winglets were a few inches shorter as well (maybe 3"?).