RB aluminum int & end housings
 

I was wondering if anyone on this board has ever dug up enough cash to afford and used these aluminum housings in place of the stock irons? Besides the price, why have I not seen anyone utilize them on a street car?

http://www.racingbeat.com/resultset...artNumber=11051

Re: RB aluminum int & end housings
 

Well, I'm pretty sure I once saw it said that RB simply doesn't make them anymore; no real demand.

Yea, talk about unobtainium. :(

.. as a casting in aluminum they should be very cheap, I know I can get high quality aluminum sand castings made for next to nothing ( aircraft parts..) the actual plug to form the casting is what is usually expensive, but you already have that in the form of an iron housing.. the cost to make a high quality aluminum casting would be somewhere in the $60-$100 can range... The cost of the surfaceing MUST be where the bulk of the cash is spent on that part.. It might be best to reffer this to scalliwag as he's been knee deep in 'it' for over a year or so.. but if his costs are representative of the cost to coat and surface the housing then RB must be making more then 4x the actual cost on that part I think it would be a good experiment to do some aluminum housings. but I'd want to talk with Scalli first about the coatings. I know that I could sell a tonne of these to the aircraft industry alone.. a single rotor 100hp ultralight engine that's only 45lbs or less.. cha ching

Scali had some info on this actually. I think its buried in the resurfacing saga thread. Something about some company that used to make them years ago. Look for it, or just ask Scali.

yeah i remember that in there somewhere. i checked out the idea of using an OEM casting as the mold.. no go, aluminum needs amould that's oversized due to severe shrinkage it would require a 4 part mould at least and some fancy mill work after.. has anyone contacted RB to see if they will part with thier moulds ??

I doubt they would part with their molds. I really want a set, but i regfuse to spend that amount of money. I got to hold on when i visited them about a year ago and they are very light, very noticeably. I would pay like 500 a piece, even though thats like double the price of brand new irons, but i refuse to pay quadruple which adds up to like 3000 bux for something that wont actually make me more HP. It would bring my rx3 from about 1900 to 1850 though. I think if they offered them at about 500 a piece i think they could still make money and they would sell quite a few. I am sure they wont make them unless they make a whole batch at a time. mabe we should try and get a sort of group buy together so they will make a run of them and we could get them at a somewhat reasonable price. i am sure we could get some of the rotary shops like pineaple and some others to buy a number of sets along with us.

CJG

That would rock

You could try and find some old Mazda OEM aluminum side and intr. housings. I think they were used in really old cosmos. Sadly Mazda quit making them as they cost too much for prodection based cars.

unless RB is willing to give up thier moulds I don't think it will happen, the cost to make a 4 pc mould for that here in Canada would be insane, the mould has to be a specific percentage OS from the actual housing due to casting shrinkage in aluminum.

FWIW...
Rick at Downing was telling Evil Aviator and I couple years ago about them using some Aluminum housings.. cant remember if they were the RB ones or not... But they had problems with them.
The Front Housing would crack around where the front gear was secured, cause of the smaller bolt circle. So they went to using the aluminum Rear, Intermediates, and a Iron front housing.

Anyhow.. its 10AM and I havnt slept.. forgive spelling and grammer.. LOL