Excellent, hopefully we can work something out for you. I'll be checking the status of our grant application on Monday, the guy I deal with has been out of town.

Any progress on this?

Yea, we are unable to get a grant so the new fixture will have to be funded out of pocket. Just need to allocate some funds for this as it will not be cheap to make.

BEST thread on the rotary webz , subscribed

with out giving away the trade secrets
is the chroming treatment staged in steps with varying chrome compositions
to put softer but corrosion resistant layers on the liner
and progressively harder chromes on the surface treatments
( as i believe mazda evolved after noting chrome to liner separations )

i guess what i am asking is ,, does this new process have specialized layer compositions to
1: bond favourably to the liner
2: another that is impervious to mixture and moisture from attacking the inner and causing separation
3: hard faced on the top to limit galling and friction

also,, any plans to try a final nikaseal facing?

Hi and thanks for your questions.
At this point no there is no progressive application of the chrome, we were just happy to get the result we did after so many others have tried with mixed results. My guy tells me that the chrome flaking is due to the prep of the liner and feels we wont have this issue. We use the best quality hard chrome available and I guess the real tell will be when the engine Pineapple Racing built comes apart and we can see the internals. It's been a few years so its just about time to get at that.

No real plans for Nikasil at this point although we do have access to it and I already have a client who uses Nikasil on the housings for their 35cc UAV engines. In fact they ran the special custom ceramic apex seals we made directly on the steel housings with no heat treating or hardening of any kind. Cubewano reported the steel polished like a mirror with no advetrse wear patterns.

On the Nikasil housings they have run the engine with ceramic seals for 250 hrs with no measurable wear to seals and housings alike. Measurements were taken with a digital Mic in a temperature controlled environment.

I'll definitly be talking to my guy about your points though :)

If you can produce this for way less then stock housings you will be swamped with orders. People better stop throwing out housings. I have a few sets that required refurbishment but I went and bought new housings to bed in those NRS seals :)

Hopefully this venture will progress..

This is so awesome. I really hope the Pineapple Racing engine comes through with good results.

thanks for the reply
yes we will all look forward with much hope to the results of the pineapple pull down
if it shows compatibility with mazda seals you are onto a huge thing

my leading questions as to the process of chroming
comes from recalling some SAE paper some-wheres regarding to the varying Cu / Si / Cr compositions in the chrome applications
all done in sequence to promote bonding, corrosion resistance and hard facing
- not all normally applicable in just one chroming application

as for the nikasil -
- nikasil has been shown to work well in the UAV engines and i wonder if a trial recoat on mazda housings is worth a look-see
particularly in view that the process may be simpler than multiple chrome composition application
and due to the the apparent compatibility of nikasil with the ceramic seals

BTW,, if you don't mind ,, for interests sake
( i don't own a rechroming business !! )
is the initial stripping process a hone, electrolysis , or a media abrasion technique?

ps
would love to learn your digital mic technique for gauging the inner housing dimensions
is there any chance of some pics of this in action,, or a vid ?

my own process are far more rudimentry than that,, and something i wish to improve on

I too am glad to see this progressing.

I have a bunch of housings that are past resurfacing (although that is a really cool survice that goopy offers) and will need to be rechromed. I hate throwing things away, so I have been saving them.

bumpstart, you should contribute in the tech section, I like your attitude!

i think everybody in mazda land wants to see this work,, and in sven's capable hands
- one of the few capable of the R&D needed to make this work

though i think shipping back and forth from ANZ is going to be a deal breaker for anzacs, no matter what price sven can cut
if he gets it to work satisfactorilly,, methinks he is also going to be swamped with work just from the US/canadian market

- am hoping he can patent the ideas and allow something to happen closer to our shores that he ( and us ) can benefit from


myself, like many have had these ideas for a while
,, but not the manpower or budget to do anything about it

as is,, some in aus have done the lesser "goopy" thing before,, privately,, and never yelled it from rooftops
am hoping at least that low tech part of the process ( not chroming ) will kick off soon in aus
- would love for sven to at least sub contract his part of the principle out and make the entire refurbish process economically available to a world market





as for your kind words,, thanks,, but here i think there is very esteemed company
much of them would be frustrated with my
" zero budget , can do " approach !
- my knowledge is hands on , low budget, learn the hard way
and it comes from being technically unemployable due to chronic injury and still wishing to have some toys and be useful to somebody

Yea we've thought about that and realise the AU/NZ markets will be huge. The only way to properly service these markets and the like would be to set up facilities in that country and do the chroming there. Under a licencing agreement or something.

A note on the Pineapple engine. I talked to Rob a couple of days ago and the owner of the car is not going to want the engine out of his car. It is his daily driver and everything appears to be fine so far. Rob suggested a comp test and I added the suggestion of removing the header and taking some pics inside the exhaust ports so we'll see what that shows.

This was performed by my customer for their 35 cc UAV engines they manufacture. You can check out their website here for some vids.

http://www.cubewano.com/index.php?id=Resources

Vids at the bottom

Ok, well we dished out some more $1000's and all our pcs are on order for the fixture. We should have everything in a couple of weeks. Then off to the machine shop and then some welding etc.

Hopefully we'll have some results and some housings done in a couple of months time or less.

We really want to get this going so I'll be pusing for sooner. The last step in finishing this project is underway so get ready everyone and dig out those housings you've been hanging onto. Once we run a few pairs we will be looking for those interested in beta testing.

A) The beta tester that has the engine through Pineapple not relinquishing the engine for a few days for a tear down, that's total BS. Even with no written agreement, he should have some conscience about him to give it up to let it be tore down. I'm sure he got a killer deal on the engine so I'm actually a little pissed that he's not sharing results.

B) I've been saving housings for quite some time just for this. I'm ready willing and able to put them into my FD build where I'll be looking for 500rwhp+