plasma coatings
 

I have found out about a special process called plasma coating that can be used to fuse different substances to a surface. One coating offered is a thermal barrier coating. Because of the incredible bond strength, you would be able to use it on rotor and side housings along with the rotor faces, making the entire combustion chamber coated with a thermal barrier. Depending on how well the coating holds heat in, power would be substantially increased. I am interested in getting this done to my 12A that I am currently rebuilding and I am just wondering if anyone has tried this before?

http://thermalspray.com/plasma.htm

Hrm, me thinks that would make the cooling system not as effective and actually be a bad thing...

Blake

thats not a bad idea....now we need to get scalliwag to machine our housings :D

this stuff is resistant to wear.....aka....friction....this should be good for the housings.

what about using this for exhaust coatings? To keep engine bay temps cooler. :D

The problem is getting a uniform coating. This is real similar to the thermal arc process I tested with except they use metallic powders instead of special alloy wire.
As a matter of fact the place I use also has this process as well as this place has the wire process too.
This business is the same in other words.
Oh, the powder is much more expensive to have done BTW and the wire is not a cheap process either.
This shit is hell on tooling and if they cannot control the coating it is very bad. It takes a very long time to finish the surface and expensive tooling because it is so hard and has a very low friction.
Diamonds are a guys best friend in this case.

The 2-stroke motorcycles of the early 70s used this as a cylinder lining. For racing, of course, street bikes used inserts. Yamaha used chromed aluminum bores, like our rotaries, but Suzuki and others tried the plasma coating (silicon nitride on aluminum as I recall). It worked, but did not cool the piston as well (some % of piston cooling is through the sides to the bore - the rest is from gasoline with an over - rich mixture - on the bottom of the piston). Our rotors are oil cooled (inside), as are 4 stroke piston engines (bottom of piston), so this may not matter. Chrome bore conducts heat better than the silicone nitride. The plasma coating is more abrasive than the chrome (not as smooth), but it holds oil better.

The problem will be to get an even coating on a non-cylindrical surface. An interesting project!

i told emailed the people and told them what the coating was being used for and the guy said he thinks it would work, but then i emailed him some more details over a week ago and he hasnt sent anything back to me yet...

assuming it would work, what percent torque at a given rpm do you think you would gain?

find out approximately how much it will cost....