With a peripheral port and custom eccentric shaft, can you make smaller side housings
 

The only purpose in the side housings is for the air to flow from the ports, and to seperate the rotors, correct? If you had a peripheral ported engine, could you use a smaller eccentric shaft, and make small side housings, like 1/2" thick or less? This would kill a TON of weight, and you could make a really short engine with huge power. Also, you could make a 3 or 4 rotor, and eccentric shaft strength wouldnt be as big an issue as it wouldnt have to be near as long. Basically 3 rotor peripheral port, shorter and lighter than a normal 2 rotor.

Sorry if I'm ignorantly forgetting something or this has been discussed before, i didnt see anything about it on my brief search around.

Any thoughts?

Hmm.. Intersting thought. I don't have that much expierence with building rotaries, but i think that as long as you could get enough material there to not blow up - you'd be OK. However that would be some serious engineering in the works ;) Always love a good challenge. Are you thinking runnign PPort secondaries or just using PPorts as primarys and not having the stock primarys? -JinX

I actually dont know what exactly I'm proposing, i have no financial way to make this happen yet, I'm just throwing an idea I had in mind on the table :)

It would be tricky but possible.

actually it would be easier to make because you don't have to cast in the ports....it could even be a flat piece of metal with the bolt holes drilled. Hummm
nice idea...

You do have to cast in cooling passages though.

you can drill the coolant passages since it's a pretty thin. you can get the plates cnc'ed from billet or high pressure cast aluminum for good strength and light weight. the plates will prolly only have to be about an inch thick. a custom short pp 3-rotor would be the best. you'd get all the power of a 3 rotor, and the motor, but you don't get the length or weight of a 3 rotor. it'll be even lighter than a normal 2 rotor due to the replacement of steel w/ aluminum. it'll need a lot of custom work though.

... hum. That's an interesting idea.

Darn it, I need a CNC mill...

If you used pre-1985 13b rotor housing since they have the coolant ring grooves you could avoid needing a CNC although it would be very helpful.
As Kenku mentioned you could use those suggested materials. Have them surfaced to the thickness you determine with a Blanchard grinder.
The center housing would be a piece of cake compared with the side plates. You can drill the coolant holes as well as tension bolt holes straight through on the center.
The side plates would require redirecting the coolant flow back and forth through the assembly.
I think that could be accomplished by cross drilling and "plugging" access holes. You also have to make provisions for the tranny mount, the stationary gears, and whatever you decide to setup on the front of the front side plate.
To say it would be a challenge would put it lightly.
You also have to have the wear surfaces plated or coated since the aluminum would not hold up to the side seal wear.

And what of the oil cooling passages?

you'd need shorter thru bolts aswell, good idea though definitly worth investigating,

the centre plate/s would be limited to the thickness of the extra bearing which comes in usefull on a peripheral port engine

Yes the oiling system has to be implemented as well.
There would be a lot of work and money involved. The cost of the custom eshaft would be up there a pretty good bit in itself.
Instead of making the intermediate plates thinner I would rather beep them the same thickness in order to use the stock eshaft and just make aluminum plates.
Instead of pporting you could make both side intake and exhaust ports like the Renesis.
You could pull the exhaust insert out and replace it with a solid plug.
Now that would be a light and efficient motor ;)

Why not buy some RB AL housings? They're perfectly flat w/o side-ports (perfect for a PP), easily had, and probably cheaper than custom.

They are about $3600 for the three which would be less than making them unless you owned a machine shop.

The e-shaft may have to be multi-piece if it were shortened because the mid-housing(s) might not angle-onto the e-shaft like when putting together a normal length engine.

the nsu engines basically used a flat plate as side housings. they are making nsu spyder rotor housings again too, so hmmmm

mike