Mazdatrix Titanium Rotors
 

So we have another player in the lightweight rotor game. If some of you remember, East Coast Racing came out with Billet rotors a little while ago. Now Mazdatrix has announced its Titanium rotors that they hope to get under 6 lbs.

Thoughts?

Where did you see/hear this? I can't find any mention on their web site.

Titanium is not a good material if there is any chance of metal-to-metal contact.
Titanium galls like a mofo.
Add to the fact now you've got another different metal with differing (heat) expansion rate, and you've got one messy engine unless you calculate all the clearances correctly.
I bet it's almost necessary to run those under apex seal oil jets that Hurley Engineering was touting a few years back just to keep the apex seals from seizing in their slots...


-Ted

Yep what he said,

I made my own Ti seals in 1994, they were fucked :(

There is a reason it is used as a rubbing block on the bottom of F1 cars LOL. MASSIVE SPARKS.

If you ever tried to grind Ti on abrasive belts, good luck you will see what we are both saying :) to cut it is fine (machines great!) but "rubbing" its a disaster as natural as a homo having sex.

The Ti will need some sort of coating or insert on all the seal slots to work.

not worth a bajillion dollars to save a couple pounds nor will mztrix make it usefull and functional!! All they will accomplish is making a cool sparkler!!

My take is that they might be of interest in sponsored rotary drag racing.

I'm yet to see evidence of any one in the world undertaking a controlled scientific test to see what the real limit of the factory rotor engine is when its correctly running. I have no doubt 1MW could be generated for a minutes at a time using just about any factory twin rotor if all the conditions were controlled.

Plant to supply the boost on a dial in a test cell
Inductrial sized Coolant and Oil Coolers
Controlled test fuel
Correct mixture and ignition calibration

I saw this on facebook. Didn't even think about how it would work with the other metals as far as expansion and all that. Not that I was going to get them anyway haha.

There you go

http://www.ewp.rpi.edu/hartford/~les...unterfaces.pdf

Tech paper FTW!

Why not just coat the titanium rotors with ceramics?
:dunno:

Some sort of dry film coating is basically what most of the documents related to titanium from the site in my last post suggests. You have to stop the titanium from transferring a layer onto the other metal it has friction with.

The rotor shouldn't be making contact with anything other than the misc seals (apex, side, corner, etc). If it is making contact with the epitrochoid, then you have other very serious problems... I do think they will be too light for street use. I'm curious to see what the dyno says and what the RPM response rate looks like both on accel and decel.

I wonder how light they'll actually seem in regards to drivability. People go from a stock flywheel (17lbs?) to one under 10 and are fine with it. I'm sure due to differences in inertia, center of mass, and other stuff I don't really understand it's not a direct comparison, but the question remains the same: How much will shaving 5 lbs off the engine's rotating mass affect drivability?

I believe it's more of a concern with the rotor touching the irons, not the epitrochoid. If all is clearanced, shouldn't be a problem but if not that is when galling starts.

I'm with ted Im curious what the heat will do to the rotors and how they'll clearance accordingly seems like it would be too loose to me only good for a race or two before having to be torn down?

I'm still confused how coating the rotors in something doesn't solve the problem? Ceramics, iron, whatever...

They're using inserts in the apex seal grooves, but not the side seals. So they may still have a galling problem. I would have to agree though that TI is probably not the best material. I'd rather use a heat treated AL, or keep the outer casing a cast iron and make the guts out of a lot lighter material.

The side seals are constantly oscillating and are going to bind and gall the shit out of the side seal grooves. Not to mention the indifferent heat exspansion rates for the two metals. Side seals gaps are going to be the end of them.

If the side plates are indeed aluminum, then I completely agree with you. Aluminum has a 270% greater thermal expansion rate than TI...

Honestly, you'd be better off making the casing and side plates out of the factory cast iron, or stainless. Grey cast is 5.8, Steal cast is 7.0, high grade stainless is in the 5.5 range, TI is 4.8, AL is 13.0.

I would be fine if they made the bearing core out of TI assuming you still pressed in a factory bearing. It's not a friction part.