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On Tue, 26 Jul 2005 23:58:12 -0400, "Gordon Arnaut"
wrote: However the wankel engine has some incredible advantages, including smoothness simplicity, ruggedness and power potential that truly puts it a class above the piston engine. There is no question about that, as rotary-powered race cars have proven over and over -- until they are banned because they simply have an unfair advantage. Regards, Gordon. It's true that the rotory offers some interesting advantages, one of which is the ability to continue to run and produce power after the engine has lost compression due to overheating and warped side seals. It will make power right to point where you shut it down, but you won't get it started again because of low compression. I guessing that it's disadvantages were enough that it never appealed to big auto makers to work on them. Wankel itself was unable to make it a success and it's hard to argue that Mazda has either. It's fuel consumption and inherently dirty emissions which require a lot of technology to clean up plus the investment in machine tools to create it just didn't seem worth it to the bean counters, I suppose. And the public did not seem to care much that it was available. When Mazda first brought it out, it had a number of quirks that the buying public had trouble getting used to. It had a cold temperature starting assist that consisted of an injector that added pure antifreeze from a seperate tank into the intake manifold. This of course created a dense white cloud of smoke, which the owner was told was normal, and it was, but it sure made owners nervous to see it. And the owner had to refill the tank, which they often did not do, which resulted in hard cold weather starting. Add this to the manual choke, which the RX-7's had for many years and which the public had difficulty using and it's easy to see why it was popular only for a limited number of people. Then there was the stench of the exhaust. Nothing smelled worse, not even a diesel, and you could not tune it away. When properly adjusted for emissions, it stank most powerfully, it felt like it was actually burning your nostrils. Mechanics didn't like it because it had two ignitions called a leading and trailing ignition and originally, the distributer held three sets of points in two layers. Not easy to adjust and naturally problematic. That of course went away with the advent of electronic ignition, and eventually the engine was fuel injected and everything was computer controlled. But converting such an engine for use in an airplane is not without it's challenges. Corky Scott |
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