Maybe they finally got it "right" but it's still a commercial failure.
Posted on 10/25/2012 9:35:49 AM PDT by JerseyanExile
I took me about a day and a half returning home from California which included stops and wandering through the painted desert/petrified forest in Arizona along with a stop for a shower and cooking dinner at a state park in Oklahoma.
On our trip out west, we went through Montana at an average speed a little over 100 mph and a high speed of 120 mph. The rotary was actually more fuel efficient the faster one drove.
I remember one time on the Eisenhower expressway in Chicago when I went from a dead stop to 70 mph in FIRST gear alone and the car was very willing to go much faster. It had a constant feeling of tremendous acceleration during that event.
That should be “Disneyland in California”, sorry about the typo, Dan
It’s a shame they couldn’t get those engines to last longer.
(I’m glad my friend didn’t try to get that RX2 up to 120 though!)
I read that a new Mazda RX 8 burns through a quart of oil every 500 miles. A lot of people are afraid to buy a new car that burns oil like that.
My 1979 “aspirated” RX-7 was a blast. I gave it away when I left Chandler. Just a thought to share.
Thanks JerseyanExile.
As I recall, there's a reason the Wankel rotaries are popular in home-made small aircraft: when they go out they tend to be a gradual loss of function.
The Wankel did make it to market, but it took years and almost bankrupted Mazda, who were finally able to get the seal technology it required.
The Wankel design was revolutionary, but seal technology was not advanced enough for production... not until a junkyard’s worth of experimentation by Mazda and false starts with crappy cars MX2 & 3 I think it was...
Finally, by the RX7, they got it right.
This guy should pop one of these into his own car and drive it himself. I would!
Fingers crossed...
Admit it. You just wanna see this motor in a bike. ;-)
I always wanted to run the Norton Wankel bike. A smooth straight torque curve can be fun.
Maybe they finally got it "right" but it's still a commercial failure.
Thanks for the post & the ping, respectively! Really cool!
If it starts with a vowel, (a,e,i,o,u), use an. An owl.
It'll sound right 99% of the time. I read it aloud in my head before I hit "Post." If it doesn't sound right, I'll double back and try to find where it clangs like a dropped anvil.
It was like my idea of using a pump jet, like on a jet ski to drive a sailboat. Without the prop, it would cut down the drag, and eliminate the torque effect at the stern when backing during docking maneuvers... With the explosion of jet skies, the technology was there.
Over and above, you could shift the power pack farther forward, since the drive shaft length and angle was no longer a limiting factor, to improve the boat's center of gravity, center of buoyancy and the CL of thrust on the rudder, as well as engine cooling.
But, what do I know?
Had an ad for this pop up on Facebook. It’s been over 10 years since this thread was posted and the company is still looking for investors?! Seems like they would be taking over the world by now.
Just saying...
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