The first question that comes to mind is: can you still have a pre-burner and turbopump? I think the answer may well be "yes", but it could be complicated. Wh

The first question that comes to mind is: can you still have a pre-burner and turbopump? I think the answer may well be "yes", but it could be complicated. What if having any exhaust contents (water, in this case) mixed with the fuel and oxidizer prevents detonation? Then you'd have to exhaust pre-burners separately, but now it's not a pre-burner but a small-burner for running the pump. Maybe that would be a simplification: you wouldn't need high pressure pipes conducting pre-burner outputs into the main combustion chamber,. Then the only high-pressure components would be the small combustion chamber for the turbopump, the turbine, and the main combustion chamber. And there'd be no fuel rich/lean/full-cycle pre-burners, just a single separate and small burner burning just enough fuel and oxidizer to power the pump into the main chamber. Another thing is that hydrogen is a terrible fuel because it's so damned light. It damages pipes and pumps and everything by making materials brittle as it invariably seeps through. That makes hydrogen/lox engines less reusable than methane/lox engines. Ideally the detonation engine could work with methane and lox.