Rotary Engine Failure due to Side Rotor/Side Rotor Housing Clearance..

[MotoTek]

This thread is based on conversation that took placeHERE about if clearancing the rotor is necessary or not on street driven engine. Posts are moved here by request

Originally Posted by charlies7

Rotors are race clearanced and cleaned

Who clearanced the rotors for you? Also, what is the purpose? Running high levels of boost?

[Herblenny]

Originally Posted by MotoTek

Who clearanced the rotors for you? Also, what is the purpose? Running high levels of boost?

I'm confused also.. maybe because its late at night but what does it entail when you say "race clearanced"??

[charlies7]

Originally Posted by MotoTek

Who clearanced the rotors for you? Also, what is the purpose? Running high levels of boost?

Originally Posted by Herblenny

I'm confused also.. maybe because its late at night but what does it entail when you say "race clearanced"??

Glen would have to elaborate since I am not a engine builder . However it allows you to rev the piss out of the motor without interference of the irons.

[Herblenny]

Originally Posted by charlies7

Phil I plan on road racing the car and beating the crap out of it. (In a spirited kind of way )

Cool, I guess than you need what Glen did..

[glenrx7]

See there we go . Phill now you have the info you wanted and i dont have to give up out propreitary numbers to explain myself, basic idea is the same yet our numbers are different

[glenrx7]

I have to say phill that I disagree with your builder. I cleanrece all of the rotors we use in engines that we build.

There is no risk in having it, only a risk in not having it if you are running more power than stock.

This is my professional opinion.


Basically you have a rotor that has clearence for operating in what the stock form was engineered for. By increasing combustion pressure you are going to move the rotors back and for more often and with more force risking the rotor touching the side plates....

[Herblenny]

Glen,

So, why is it that you now want to discuss this when earlier today you didn't??

When I first asked, I wasn't asking you to provide with exact number that you are shaving.. i was mearly asking what you meant by increasing the clearance of the rotor as I wasn't sure what you meant by that..

Regarding to your professional disagreement with my builder..., I'm a firm believe of 30+ years of experience and his ability to do many things at the same time hiding from general population. For years, he did not want to build anyone's engine and asked me not to give out his number. Its just recently he decided to build engines as his children are older and now wanting to get back to rotary. He also pointed out to me things that I never noticed before during my research and his explaination made sense vs. no explanation or BS reasons people like to feed.

Regarding his detail reasoning why he doesn't think its necessary for street driven car is I guess same reason or similar reason as why you would shave it in the first place. Also, if you truly believe its necessary then why wouldn't mazda do it in the first place..

[glenrx7]

Originally Posted by Herblenny

Glen,

So, why is it that you now want to discuss this when earlier today you didn't??

When I first asked, I wasn't asking you to provide with exact number that you are shaving.. i was mearly asking what you meant by increasing the clearance of the rotor as I wasn't sure what you meant by that..

Regarding to your professional disagreement with my builder..., I'm a firm believe of 30+ years of experience and his ability to do many things at the same time hiding from general population. For years, he did not want to build anyone's engine and asked me not to give out his number. Its just recently he decided to build engines as his children are older and now wanting to get back to rotary. He also pointed out to me things that I never noticed before during my research and his explaination made sense vs. no explanation or BS reasons people like to feed.

Regarding his detail reasoning why he doesn't think its necessary for street driven car is I guess same reason or similar reason as why you would shave it in the first place. Also, if you truly believe its necessary then why wouldn't mazda do it in the first place..

I have a process of clearencing that is ours ...the basic idea has been know for years and years .

Mazda does do it....If you buy rotors brand new from mazda they have a clearence. It is better to increase it ...I stated that before. You were asking me to give you details on what we do this is not for the public this is some of the things that gives us our edge.

If you read what I said phill....you would have seen clearly that I stated we increase the clearence that was already there from mazda do to increasing horse power.....

[glenrx7]

Also. let me be clear Mazda clearenced these for a certain output of a 1.3l engine some from 100 to 255 and yes the rotor "clearence" increase as the output does from the factory, Phill......

What people need to remeber we are taking this 13b were it was never ment to go.... 1.3l puting out 500hp ...250hp per rotor (no its not that exact)....

So I believe if you are building an engine for higher hourse power you need to compesate for the increase in power.

Phill, I dont know who your builder is but I have to say I know hacks that have been doing this for 40years and I know poeple that are ungodly good that have been doing it for a short amount of time so 30years does not mean much to me. When some one says not to do it in street cars are they saying stock .... This is why i disagree with this guy becuase from what you said he said it is not good for the street and you have to be careful doing.....This is just not true, you can go to far with the clearencing but if you have it done by someone that knows what they are doing it is not an issue at all to have it and can not be bad no side eefects like in porting something to big and a side seal could drop etc.


Look I believe that clearencing is something that everyone should do increasing horse power I have seen the effects of not having it in high horse power applications some survie some dont and I am in the business of all staying alive my company and reputation demand it


Ok ....so Phil so far nothing I have said give my process away from they way you cam across you wanted me to give specific details to what we do I am not going to do that. I am in business to be the best and I am going to keep it in our bag of tricks that make us one of the top builders.

[Herblenny]

Originally Posted by glenrx7

If you read what I said phill....you would have seen clearly that I stated we increase the clearence that was already there from mazda do to increasing horse power.....

LOL! Glen, if you go back and read what I asked, I was asking what clearance you were talking about as it was very general statement. I think it could of been simpler if you would of been bit more specific to what clearance instead of sayind its proprietary.

It wasn't until I posted what Racing beat consider clearance and their recommendation is when you became more involved in explanation..

[Bryan@BNR]

Clearancing the rotors is a definate when you are running high HP applications. Its not just needed for the sides, its also needed on the combustion faces of the rotor. When there is e shaft flex you want the rotors to have enough clearance so that the rotating assembly doesn't have any contact with the stationary housings. When there is contact, it gauls up seal grooves and also causes bearing failure. People do it differently and there is more than 1 way to do it.

[Herblenny]

WOW Glen, Did you even read my initial question??

Here it goes, read it again..

Originally Posted by Herblenny

Glen,

I'm not trying to give you or Charlie hard time, but I'm still confused to what "cleanrences need to be incresed". Does this mean, tighter seal fit to the grooves or just balance? I know you say its 'proprietary', but I also think that's pretty general statement.

So, was I asking for specific spec's to how you 'cleanrences' the rotors?? Before you telling me to go back and read, you should see what I was asking. I understand that you have specific way of clearance the rotors and I was asking what you are clearancing. Simple question which you NOW have explained over and over after I posted what I thought you meant by clearance need to be increased (from RB's info about clearance of rotor).

Regarding your statement about my builders, I could say the same about pretty much every builder out there.. Including yourself.

[Herblenny]

And finally, Let me point it out to you again..

Originally Posted by Herblenny

I was told by my builder that its not necessary on engines that does not run high RPM for extended period of time.

Glen, if you read what I stated before, I said it is NOT necessary. You do know what that means right?? It means NOT ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL! Which means, its not required, ie, many many engines that have stock internals that have lasted thousands of miles without having this clearancing done.

[Bryan@BNR]

Hey Phil.

If you look at his picture of the rotors, you can see that the sides of the rotors have been ground. Grinding is the most true surface you can get. It looks like he did a good job on the machine work. We do not know how much material was removed.

The rotor housings are 80mm wide and the rotors have a slightly smaller width. If there is more torqe on the tension bolts, it can cause the tolerance between the rotors and the irons to be tighter. If there is too much material taken off the rotors during this clearancing process, there is going to be a problem with too much area of the side seals seeing combustion. Side seals, when they fail, usually anything it touches gets destroyed.

I know that Louis does a very good job on his grinding work. To be honest he is the best I have ever seen. I have gotten brand new irons from mazda that didn't look as nice as his lapped irons. I don't know much about his engine building skills, but if he does that kind of lapping work, I would trust him to build my engines. I am a do it all myself kind of guy too .

I have never clearanced rotors for any of my personal engines. I have made 435 RWHP on one and 440 RWHP on the other. The 435 car spun a bearing after 50K miles which is due to lack of oilmaintenance. The other is in my 1st gen which is still kickin it. I guess the true test will be done when the T72 goes on with the custom upper manifold....

[glenrx7]

Phill, wtf do you want ...You asked I gave you what you asked for


Anyway dude I have said what I am going to say....I am done with this conversation. I hope people get something out of it....