Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Lizzie_Zoom]

Wot about the Wankel?

Sorry, should have said  "Vot about the Wankel?"

Yes Jereboam, what has been the development of this "revolutionary" engine of the 1960s? :-/

I know Mazda once had the worldwide patent rights, and used it in some models, with, as understood it, problems developing on its tri-rotor contact points with the master 'cylinder / chamber'.

Was it further developed with these issue resolved?  Is it installed in any cars in 2008?  Is it still Mazda who have sole rights on it?
What, if any, are still the challenges with this engine design? :-/ :-/ :-/ :-/ :-/

 

Mazda still produce the RX8 which has a rotary engine it in, but its emissions are very high and this could effectively see the end of it, which is a shame as it is now a engine that has it's issues pretty much sorted out.

The original Rotary engine in the RO80 was prone to burning it's rotor tips, this was very expensive and so people ended up putting ford V4 engines is as a replacement, Mazda were still having issues when the RX7 first came out, but during the life of the RX7 they ironed out a lot of the issues...

i believe it's swept capacity is about 1300/1400 CC and puts out approx 190bhp!!

Thanks!  

[JueV6]

shmnbo deleted my post

[Lizzie_Zoom]

In Britain, in the 1960s, Rolls Royce Motor Car Division at Crewe, Cheshire, pioneered a two-stage Diesel version of the Wankel engine.[2]

Thanks, but what happened about the patent rights then?  Did Rolls Royce sell them on to Mazda? :-/ :-/

[albitz]

Does anyone remember the Honda with oval pistons? (ceramic I think)
Strokers were ruling the roost & Honda came up with this 4 stroke with oval pistons, Mick Grant crashed the thing on its debut & it burst into flames, I'd bet they were pleased with him.
The Honda 6 (250 & 297) & Honda 5 (125) were light years ahead of anything in the sixties, & the Guzzi v8 was something special in the 50's also.
So far in advance of anything on 4 wheels.

NR500 - basically a 32v V8 using 4 pistons

with2 conrods per piston and iirc 2 crankshafts (?)
further to the wankel engine info-suzuki had a wankel engined road bike in the 70,s RE5 -not a huge sucess,but probably very collectable now.

[Martin_1962]

Some NSU RO80s are now Mazda powered

[Kevin Wood]

i believe it's swept capacity is about 1300/1400 CC and puts out approx 190bhp!!

More like 240 BHP @ 9,000 RPM from the Jap spec models IIRC. 8-)

A little bit thirsty due to the low compression inherent in a Wankel engine (they're just begging for forced induction really).

Kevin

[Mr Skrunts]

i believe it's swept capacity is about 1300/1400 CC and puts out approx 190bhp!!

More like 240 BHP @ 9,000 RPM from the Jap spec models IIRC. 8-)

A little bit thirsty due to the low compression inherent in a Wankel engine (they're just begging for forced induction really).

Kevin

2 models (specs) available in UK (Engine power wise)

RX-8 (192ps)       
RX-8 (231ps)

[bedders]

Wot about the Wankel?

Sorry, should have said  "Vot about the Wankel?"

Yes Jereboam, what has been the development of this "revolutionary" engine of the 1960s? :-/


I know Mazda once had the worldwide patent rights, and used it in some models, with, as understood it, problems developing on its tri-rotor contact points with the master 'cylinder / chamber'.

Was it further developed with these issue resolved?  Is it installed in any cars in 2008?  Is it still Mazda who have sole rights on it?
What, if any, are still the challenges with this engine design? :-/ :-/ :-/ :-/ :-/

 

Norton developed a highly creditable rotary engine for motorcycle racing & swept all before them for a period. All that with 3 men in an old shed somewhere, where it took £m's & hundreds of engineers in Japan to do something similar.

Some info on the Norton rotary engine.

Launched a year ago at Britain's Birmingham Show, and after a season of development held back by the dismal British summer's constant rain, the NRV588 currently produces 165 horsepower at 11,450 rpm from its liquid-cooled twin-rotor engine, yet weighs just 289 pounds with all fluids but fuel. Crighton's ultimate rotary racer offers a power-to-weight ratio comparable to today's factory superbikes, with performance enhanced by current technology that includes a ride-by-wire throttle, fuel injection with a range of usable maps and traction control. "This is the bike I wanted to build for 1995 after we'd beaten the Yamahas and Ducatis plus the RC45 Honda to win the 1994 championship," says Crighton. "I wanted fuel injection for the road bikes to cope with emissions and ride-by-wire throttle to make it easier to ride in the wet via traction control. But they changed the rules to get rid of the Nortons, and anyway the company was fizzling out, so it never got built. But [a British magazine] published an article about my ideas back in August 1994, and when Roy Richards hired me three years ago to restore all his rotary Nortons for the museum, after I'd been working for him for a while I showed him the article. After reading it he said, 'Well, would you like to build it to finish the story off?' He said that he'd finance it personally, and that's how it's come about."