They do it with flywheels, why not rotor housings? A replacable friction surface! The guy that though of this is brilliant. Someone build it!

http://home.earthlink.net/~rotaryeng/two-piece-end-house.jpg

It isn't patented yet? Nice Idea if it holds together.

Just searching through old threads and dug this up. Anyone ever go through with this? I haven't seen any other threads about it, and through the search didn't see anything. Just curious as this could be something pretty sweet.

If I had the ability, I'd make them. But, I don't. :(

Any takers? Charles R Hill you should make this one of your next projects, or Cortc. You 2 seem to be the type to try cool things like this. Please? ;)

Eh.... I don't think anyone wants to be the guinea pig on this one. :(
Too much r&d involved IMO.

Since the idea is already patented, the best I could do would be to offer to produce the item but Lamar would need to contact me if he is interested. The hardest part would be dealing with the Teflon seal and I am sure that could be handled by another company.

Charles

Hokay, so I just emailed Paul Lamar's website asking him to either email me back and let me know whether or not he would allow production of this by someone else, or to just come onto the forum and let everyone know. If and when I get an email back, I'll post it here. It would be pretty awesome if this worked out.

Ummm, what is this?

It's a replaceable plate for rotor housings. It's a good idea, especially if you don't want to replace the entire housing. I wonder if Jerry the machinist at school could make one of these. I'm totally thinking Design IV project. :)

*gulp* Ok, I'm way out of my league here. Please forgive my intrusion. :)

I am out of my league too here.. Whats the advantage of replacing this part? So whats if it's interchangable and or replaceable..... Can someone explain that? Is it only for those who are having engine issues?

My belief is the plates are subject to wear, much like flywheels, which is why I think rotarygod made the analogy. Take it this way: would would rather just replace the plate, or the entire housing?

Imagine an engine that broke an apex seal and sent parts through the engine damaging everything as they go. Instead of throwing out the side housings, you could just replace the friction surface. You could rebuild these almost indefinitely assuming of course you don't warp one by overheating the engine. What about a replacable rotor housing insert? Same thing. Why replace engines when you can replace pats of engines? This could be a fantastic product for a race team.

Paul Lamar and his team emailed me back, and here is what he said

You are free to use it. Let us know how it works out and make them
available
for people on this list that would also like to buy them.
Also feel free to upload any and all of these graphics to your list.

Paul Lamar

The Rotary Engine NewsLetter. Powered by Linux.
ACRE NL web site. http://home.earthlink.net/~rotaryeng/
Copyright 1998-2004 All world wide rights reserved.

At the bottom he added 5 graphics, and here they are. Charles, I guess if you would want to go through with this, you can go ahead. Maybe you want to email him and discuss it a bit. His email is Rotaryeng@earthlink.net.

How did Mr. Lamar make such a great 3-D model of the rotor housing? I haven't done a tech drawing since my senior year in high school.

He is a very creative thinker. Check out some of the different pictures on this rotary aviation website. There is some very cool stuff hidden in there.

http://home.earthlink.net/~rotaryeng/ACRE.html

He's a really cool guy too, at least from what I can tell from his e-mails...and he is genius. I think it's awesome that he is allowing us(someone here hopefully) to build this part. You guys should all subscribe to his newsletter. If you have any questions he's fast with responses too. I asked him to join up on the forum, as he would be another great resource for us. haha. Charles, it would be really great if you went ahead with this. Thanks.

Thanks. I'll contact my machinist today and see about costs and such. If a profit is to be made, Mr. Lamar has some royalties coming his way. Thanks for the info and e-mail address. Now we just need to find a supplier for the o-rings.

Charles

sweet but wouldnt we have to pay some 1 to tear down the engine for us and shave off a bit of metal so the plates would fit.
any help would thank me i think ill wait till my 30 k then ill put these bad boys on

I am sure there will be a racing application in need of these plates soon.

Charles

If ypu CNC the shape you could just shrink the plate in.

Regarding that replacable friction plate:
Since the friction plate and the housing are not the same entity, the friction plate will be hotter than the housing due to the inferior heat transfer (there's always a temperature jump between two plates). In order to avoid the friction plate to warp (due to the different temperatures at different locations) it might require a relatively thick plate which would further reduce the heat transfer. So, unless that plate is going to be made out of some exotic material I'd be concerned about overheating it. And what would happen if some oil ended up underneath that plate and started to boil?
Also unless someone is taking the engine out and apart by himself or herself, I'd guess the labour costs of repairing the engine might be so high that the costs for a new housing would end up being almost neglectable anyway. (I remember that some Garages don't even bother to fix gearboxes because simply replacing them is cheaper.)

This is really an idea that is most suitable for race teams. I don't replace my engines very often. Well actually compared to the rest of the normal population I do, but only because I can't leave anything alone.

The replaceable plate would be overlapped by the rotor housings. They aren't only held in place by the force of the rotors. For heat transfer reasons, you'd want it ceramic coated.