Dennis, are the signature motors available yet?

Also, I had my LHS contact RD about the Richey engines and he was advised that they are available and shipping in limited quantities. Is this correct? I thought from your posts above that there was a supply/manufacturing issue.

Any light you could shed on the subject would be most helpful.

so the motors have been pushed back again? is that the bottom line?

Ok
I'm going to explain what is going on in the clearest way I can so that everyone understands what is going on while protecting the integrity of the engines.

There are two engines that we intend to sell to the public.

The first engine is the one we have been working on for two long years

It was to be built a firm in taiwan. it is a long rod 12 engine
specs. It is a brand new ground up engine

13.98 MM bore
14.06 MM Stroke
Long connecting Rod
3 port with RTU gen6 style porting and timing with full cnc blending
12 MM 4340 billet steel crank RTU gen6 fully blended and radiused on a cnc. RTUgen6 timing
fully blended turbo cut on a cnc
conventional turbo and standard head buttons
2 needle carburetor similar to an os carb. to be scrapped in favor of a three needle design

The development of this engine is done as far as I am concerned and anyone who has seen one or driven on will tell you they really cook. However during the development we have had issues and still do getting the manufacturer to produce it. they just cant seem to get it together. So a couple weeks ago a decision was made to transfer the production to another firm. We did all the development on the engine so as far as we are concerned we own it. This obviously will take a few months as the new firm will have to redraw all the parts for us and make new dies set up machines etc. At this time we are confident that the new firm will step up and we also are sure we will recieve an even higher quality product in the end. This engine has yet to be NAMED.

The other engine
13.80 MM bore
14.04 MM Stroke
short rod
stepped steel crank
our timing and fit specs
3 needle carb

In not wanting to put all the eggs in one basket we have been working with another manufacturer in taiwan to launch a short rod 12 engine. we had some initial performance issues during summer testing but those are solved and testing of the short rod motor is showing to be good enough that our version (we asked for a number of changes internally) is on order and some are comming in as we speak. They have made the changes I asked for and these will be sold as Richey Racing Engines also with the RD logics logo on them. These will be based on an STS block and crank but will be different enough we will market them as new engines. This is similar to an serpent picco situation. thats the best way to describe it. These are the R3 and R5 engines. you should see these pop up on the RD site in a week or so.

Hopefully this sheds some light on the subject for you

i certainly wasn't trying to be snippy. i have just been trying to wade through the mire of information (and misinformaiton) of the past few months. looking forward to the motors release as myself and at least 2 others in my local club are getting them as soon as the "ground up" engines are available.

No problem
I've been as confused as you are latley just trying to keep up with all our new stuff. The short rod engines will be the ones the first signatures are based on. I am confident of their performance also or I would not be building signature versions of them. We have turned almost the same numbers with both of them with the long rod having a slight edge because of increased torque. Both motor variants haul. Their just different.

sounds great. are you sourcing the bearings from sts also? i have had bad luck with their bearings, in fact that is why i am in the market for a new engine...

what bearing issues are you having?? They use Japanese IJK's which are good bearings

i had a front bearing go out and getting a hold of project zen is like pulling teeth.. i'd just get the dang replacement from boca, but it's twice as much + shipping..

Yes,we bought the bearings from Japan.We believe Japanese bearings are the best in the world. That bearings are expensive C3 spec. STS don't produce any bearing actuality.

Tally the bearing is standard 607zz with a rubber seal
you can use any bearing of that style. all pre NS model novas, and rb's use that bearing it is very common. Os uses it to. I'll get you a number so you can get one from tower.

I see alot of talk about bearing leakage these days. so let me dispell a myth. They all leak slightly no matter what your running these days. The long intake timing and short pipes everyone has gone to to get smoking performance causes this. the blowdown and subsequent pressure rise in the crankcase causes a small amount of fuel to be pushed out the front. And if you run the engine to rich it will really leak. The other issue is that at the rpm the engines run at the seal can go away really fast. I used to keep replacement seals in my box and changed them as a maintenance Item on my novas. Thats just the way it was.

Dennis sent you pm

well i get a ton of blow back from around the bearing and just can't get the thing to tune. i sealed everything else and figure it must be the source of my grief. this engine and i just don't get along and haven't from the beginning. i originally ordered it from team crc and it came in opened packaging with the shrink wrap off. i got about a quart and a half through it before i had to rebuild it... i'm just ready for something else, but if i can nurse if back to lfe with a new bearing (and that realy turns out to be the problem) than i will use it for practice and bashing....

I'm one of the guys who runs with TallyRC. Have you seen any evadence of engine bearing leakage with the AE pipe(duel chamber)/non shortened header?

Diffently looking forward to the engines. Good luck with the new firm in charge of production.

Yes, I did take Dennis Richey's engine out because of problems. I did in fact put a X-12 in my car, guess what? That engine ended up blowing the front seal out in the last qualifier and I didn't catch it. I ran the fastest Master's lap of the weekend on the clock but did not finish the last qualifier because of running out of fuel. Do to the seal failing. Consequently in the main I kept running out of fuel at the 4 minute mark do to seal failure and possibly costing me the win! Prior to replacing Dennis Richey's engine the engine was absolutely awesome when it was running. Reminder that this engine was still in the prototype stages at that time. If the engine did not have these problems that Dennis has enlightened everyone on I would have not even thought about taking it out. Dennis is one of many of the best engine modifiers out there and when this engine goes in to production, believe me it will be one of the most powerful engines around. Give him some credit for testing and testing prior to releasing of this engine.

Dino, do you have a link to a place where I can get C3 spec bearings? I have a Rody V12 and was told that the outer bearing has gone bad only after a 1/4 gallon through it.

I've read most of your posts and appricate your insight.

Thanks in advance!
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Motorman! I look forward to your new engines. I know it's tough, but keep up the good R&D. I see many people slap there names on other peoples hard work. I have faith that in the future others will want to private label your products.