New Onex guy- general Aerovee questions

[MichaelFarley56]

Mike,

I'd like to publicly thank you for all the time you've spent making informative turbo videos. I've been working the graveyard shift with lots of time to kill, and I was on the second or third video before I put two and two together and realized that was you. Great videos, though they're not exactly helping me resist :)

Cheers,
Rusty

My pleasure Rusty! Hopefully I'll have more soon. Robbie Culver has the challenging part of those videos by editing them! If there's anything else you'd like to see in a video let us know.

[13brv3]

A turbo 13B would be double super cool in a Onex.

My only experience with wankels was with the Cypher UAV when I was at Sikorsky. It had a 52 HP UAV engines single rotor motor. Weighed 50 lbs wet. UAV engines was a spinoff of Norton, and I believe related to the motor in the Johnny Players special race bike. Neat engine, and nothing could beat it for noise per horsepower.

I would love to have a small rotary engine for the Onex, and I haven't looked at them recently, so maybe I should...

As you can tell from my standard screen name, I had a 13B in an RV-3. It started out with a stock turbo on it, but I removed the turbo when it became obvious that it wouldn't last long. The non-turbo 13B RV-3 could climb at 2700 fpm, but you're right about the noise. Turbos are cheating, but I'm older now and I need to cheat :lol:

I also made a custom single rotor engine based on 13B parts, and I put quite a few hours on it using a test stand. It was really too heavy for the power, and had some nasty torque reversal issues I never resolved. The weight could have been resolved with aluminum ($$$) side housings, and a lighter reduction drive. The torque reversals could be fixed with the right damper, but I gave up on all of it and sold the project to someone else.

Cheers,
Rusty (another long boring night at work)

[SonexN76ET]

I thought I would provide some details for you on the cost of a complete top end overhaul of an Aerovee.

For my own reasons having to do with whether or not I had constructed my Aerovee properly, specifically setting the compression ratio, I took my heads off. I accidentally damaged a piston while trying to remove it from the connecting rod. The damage was minimal and many thought I could still use it. I decided against it.

For about $750 I now have a completely new set of pistons, rings, and cylinders, new valves, new cylinder head copper gaskets, new push rod tube seals, new tapered induction tube reducers, and completely cleaned cylinder heads. I bought the parts from Sonex. You can't beat that price for a top end overhaul with all new parts! (heads and rocker arms thoroughly cleaned and re-used).

A further complete engine overhaul would likely only include new bearings, rear main seal, and (optionally) ignition systems and charging system.

Jake

[13brv3]

I thought I would provide some details for you on the cost of a complete top end overhaul of an Aerovee.

Jake

That IS pretty amazing for everything you got. I think I'm 95% set on ordering the turbo Aerovee, maybe later this week, so let the fun begin 8-)

Thanks,
Rusty