Corky Scott wrote:
On Tue, 21 Dec 2004 03:00:05 GMT, Dave S


Dave, my feeling is that it does not matter that the engine did not
fail, the PSRU did and the result is the same: No engine and a forced
landging.

(snip)

Corky Scott

It sure matters to me. The mazda rotary is about the only auto
conversion that I have even given any serious thought to. I have one
assembled on a stand at the hangar waiting to be put on the airframe. We
are hoping to fly it to Osh 2005 (so we have a timetable to try and
meet, safety permitting) ANY power loss incident involving one concerns
me greatly since I am going to be one of the follow-on experimenters
behind the trailblazers. I'm using a commercially produced PSRU.. not a
transmission made into a PSRU... so yea.. it matters quite a bit to me
that the power failure wasnt in the engine itself, but one of the
peripherals.

So far, in the past 6 months, the list of Mazda engine casualties has
included 3 blown turbos (2 by one person), one of those blown turbo'd
engines ALSO had a shoddy rebuild by a local race shop that contributed
to power probs. There has been a blown oil cooler (fashioned from an a/c
evaperator core) resulting in a dead stick landing into Spencer
NOLF/Helicopter field and then this tranny failure. By and large, almost
all of the failure modes are being attributed to causes other than the
heart of the engine failing. And ALL of the failure modes involve either
substandard labor or the use of automotive accessories in a manner they
were originally never intended for. This is actually refreshing that the
engine itself is not the problem (no bad cranks, blown seals, etc)

The dead stick plane actually looks like its going to be flyable now
without a rebuild (pilot pulled power immediately when the oil cooler
blew, and when he tried to advance the throttle slightly, it stumbled
and died. Actually appears that it didnt seize or scorch the rings.

Dave