Posted on 05/24/2023 1:22:18 PM PDT by Red Badger
“Anybody remember the Mazda rotary engines?”
The wife bought one back in the day. I made the Knoxville to Nashville run at 120. The truckers were having a blast on the CB.
Not really. It just moves the Apex seals from the tips of the rotor to the block.
Here's a different Liquid Piston animation that has the "apex" seals shown. They're at the separation point between each of the three chambers, and the peanut rotor rubs against them.
“It would be comparable to having to lubricate the surface of a piston in each cycle.”
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Due to the lack of precision in metal manufacturing of earlier combustion engine components, leaded gasoline was required to help lubricate the cylinder walls and you had take it easy and break in a new engine slowly to help the cylinder rings seat well without scoring the cylinder walls. Today, with the precision of modern manufacturing, that’s no longer necessary of course.
how many miles you get out of it? did you sell it still running or did you let it go not running?
On a related note, AMC intended to use a Wankel engine in the Pacer.The what-ifs there are priceless. Can we hope for a re-boot?
Still will require edge deals, a bugaboo of the earlier rotary.
See my post #42 for a clearer animation. Being a "two stroke", the exhaust exits one face of the rotor as the intake charge enters from the other face of the rotor.
exhaust is green...
One "ear" of the lobe is for compression, and the other one is for exhaust.
As the exhaust "ear" pulls away from the chamber, it creates a vacuum pulling the exhaust gas away which then combines with air being forced into the engine to exit through an opening in the face plate. The exhaust is 20% expended gas and 80% new air due to the constant flow of air into the engine.
I totaled it on the third day driving it to Fort Lewis from Houston.
Flipped the car head over tail and then rolled a few times, that was all after splaying the wheels out since I landed right side up at first.
Made the front page of the newspaper, it was totaled from every angle, bottom, top, both sides, front end, rear end, just a mass of metal.
Sounds like an older two stroke.
Not very good for emissions.
Now, if they can build an airframe to deal with the inreased stresses, it sounds like a great power plant for the next gen Predator drone.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLtyNtf9_ew
Does this really solve the Wankel problem with seals?
how busted up did you get?? Obviously you lived(thank the almighty!) but how many broken bones??
The comparable analogy I used would be lubricating the piston surface in a piston engine. As with the rotary engine, such lubricant would be burned off in the ignition cycle and add to pollutants to the exhaust.
Lead in fuel as I understand was more for lubrication of the valves. Carbon buildup on the valves in direct injection engines, leading to improper sealing, needs to be addressed with fuel cleaners added periodically to the engine. (Whereas mixing fuel in a carburetor or fuel injection bowl prior to entering the cyclinder can use detergents in the fuel to clean the intake valves).
later
None, I thought I lost and eye but it was just a small flap of skin blocking it, I pushed back and then the army sanded it down for me a few months later, my fiance was OK except for some glass in her hand that the emergency room took out, and our Keeshond dog was OK.
I was puzzled for a few moments until I figured out that the interior of the car looked funny to me because we were upside down, it was at night, and an 18-wheeler to us to a town.
I don’t recall but a little google research show it was Mazda.
https://www.mazda.com/en/innovation/mazda-stories/mazda/rotary_revolution/#:~:text=It%20was%20Mazda‘s%20engineers%20who,power%2Dto%2Dweight%20ratio.
Co-worker of mine traded in his 1988 Fiero GT (The year they finally got it right) for an RX7. I’ve never driven an engine that had such a perpetual power curve. It just smoothly hummed to the red line while you were pressed into the seat. Unfortunately every 20K it was in the shop for engine overhauls. A very bad-ass car. It’s reliability though made it British, instead of a Japanese product.
first thing i would have done was buy a lottery ticket! :P
Bttt!!
Agreed, but at least the seals aren’t frantically rotating and nutating and cycloiding all at the same time. That has to be an improvement on the forces they see at the same time they are dealing with all kinds of extreme temperatures and pressures.
After all, pistons have seals too, right? Piston rings?
Anyway, I see what you’re getting at.
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