Advanced manufacturing show

[Ageing Rotarian]

Evening all, went to the advanced manufacturing show on Wednesday and bumped into our old friends AIE. The west field installation looked very neat and also managed to catch the guvners (nathaniel) address at one of the forums.Also made some enquires around metal spraying and DLC coating (diamond like coating which AIE use) and due the various layers and the extreme heat there was concerns regarding delamination of the surface but understandably they were intrigued and would only commit to giving it a try.I also asked hadleigh castings as to what they thought to patterns and recasting, answer was ballpark 3k for patterns and around £70 for an end casting. Question? Does anyone know we're the original air cooled engines were cast and if the patterns still exist? Pattern shops usually keep the patterns for some time but after all these years I doubt whether they survived.I have added a couple of photos from the show so please advise if you can view them.All the best Roy

[johnbirchjar]

The car looks interesting,do you know if it is road legal?J.B.

[Ageing Rotarian]

John, the 650 engine is a prototype and still under development. AIE hope to make it eligible for road vehicles in the new year following further development, specifically around the exhaust. When they crack it people will be cueing up.All the bestRoy

[johnbirchjar]

I wonder how they will overcome the "Emissions" problem,Mazda must have thrown away shedfulls of money trying to solve that little problem ,and to my knowledge they never did.J.B.