Rotary Guru?
 

Anybody ever heard of him?

You mean me? lol! But seriously, what are you talking about?

My friends and I use to call Rob Golden the Guru...or are you talking about Gururacing or something like that? CJ

I heard of a guy here in the PNW that had his hands in on the original launch of the RX-7 in North America. Since the advent of the 7, he was a tuner that was constantly pushing the envelope, he was said to be the first person to do a 20B conversion here in the states (or ever).

He is now retired, and only takes jobs at his discression...

My story seems a little etherial, I know....

But I heard it from one of the most honest people I have ever met.

I might possibly be contacted by this "Guru" I just wanted to get to know a little bit more about his history, before I get the oppertunity to meet a potential legend/myth like character of the rotary community.

Yes, I'm still thinking about a 20B, dispite what people have told me.

never heard that one before....

I know a few of those. Most specifically Bill Burnum and the Ryan family. I know the Ryans, there is also terry, the turbo expert. Then there is also the guy who lives down the road from my parents, out by mollola. He has been doing this for years, only takes random jobs, only new parts.

This sounds like it is straight out of a movie or something.

Al Smith, now the Service Manager at the Salem Mazda dealership, was a factory trained mechanic who showed the factory builders of the engine what the correct "settings" for the apex seals should be back in 1971 or '72.
The story was...The apex seals would fail to work effectively because the engine was assembled with too much "slop" for the apex seals and the apex seals had a tendency to be unable to contain compression during startup.

The factory was unable to diagnose the design flaw and engines were failing while still under warranty. This was happening to every dealership; but one.

The factory came to the Salem Mazda dealership because Salem was the only dealership which was not sending every rotary engine back to the factory and the factory wanted to find out what Salem was doing differently.

Al tore apart and rebuilt an engine in the presence of the factory dudes, in order to demonstrate a different "setting" for clearances. The setting and results were relayed to Mazda headquarters and Al's recommendations were adopted and implemented by Mazda in their manufacturing and assembly procedures. Now we have engines that can be expected to last longer than the 10,000 miles that one got with the early engines.

Al is retiring to Mexico in the near future.

:)

Mark Mark,Kurt Robertson is not a rotary guru,he no longer has a shop in mollala,that guy is a butcher,i was just over at bill burnhams this morning ,he was installing the back half in his RX3-SP,he doesn't do any engine building except his own,he had the first 3 rotor in a rail style dragster in the northwest.back in the 70's Jerry Wright was the guru,factory trained,he has a shop in tacoma i think called jerry's little car.but the guy i have called guru for the last 13 years is Rob golden(Pineapple Racing).terry& Pat Ryan are good people,Terry did some stuff back in the day with the first Samarai Warrior(R100)and i think he had another R100 called Dales Toy.i could go on but that would take all night,so i will stop now.

yeah its called jerry's little car shop and as of purchasing my car it was still in business

until a few weeks ago,i didn't know he was stiil around,it's cool to see he's still doin it,i'm thinking of driving there and paying my respect.

until a few weeks ago,i didn't know he was stiil around,it's cool to see he's still doin it,i'm thinking of driving there and paying my respect.

sorry for the double post,damn computer

Ya you all "know me"
 

I am Kurt Robertson and I am currently building three engines for customers, A stocker for an elderly customer of 18 years, a Bridgeport with a paper trail from Pineapple 700 miles ago, and a Kurt Robertson engine under warrantee (you guys who build will have to look up that last word! ). I no longer have a shop in Molalla, that is correct. I have a warehouse. I have just bought another 175 + engine casings, 50+ transmissions and stock almost anything rotary . . . . . . . so to the guys who are fans of other "Gurus" and have lots of money to throw away . Take a good hard look at your god (Guru) and when you are looking for me to supply your "Guru" with engine casings or a factory correct R-100 engine or dash cluster for a RX-2 have him call me at 1-800-Too-Bad -I -Don't -deal -With- Gurus. PS call the Better Business Bureau for my report. By the way Mazda Motors of North America sued me in 1990 for unfair trademark infringement- seems all the dealers were losing business- at least the dealers were up front about critisim