I remember when there were 2 Wankel engined motorcycles available - a DKW, and the Suzuki RE5. The DKW kept to the engineers tradition of KISS, but the Suzuki was almost twice the weight, and very little faster....
Sorry, make that 3 - Norton did one as well.
This was before Mazda had spent an absolute fortune on developing reliable rotor seals.
Reliable doesn't mean gas tight! It just means that they don't have to replace engines after a few thousand miles, which is what bankrupted NSU with the otherwise very advanced Ro80.
I get the impression that Mazda (having proved that they could solve the wear issues) were determined to carry on making Wankels, rather than loose face. As far as I know they are the only company still making them for cars. Rolls Royce made some diesel versions. There's a good article on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wankel_engine
The piston engine might be far from perfect, but it's such a well proven and developed design that it will be around for a long time.
Microdave the Hercules might have been simple, but it was also pretty basic. The RE5 must have been sold at a loss given it's complexity over say the GT750. The most surpising thing to me is that people will still pay lots of money for good examples of both bikes.
Didn't Mercedes produce a gull winged, wankel engined car?
Infidel - From memory the RE5 was not as fast as the entirely conventional GT750 (The "Water Bucket", "Kettle" and no doubt many other nicknames). I think the development engineers solved one problem, which caused a side effect, then they solved that one, and so on!
I suppose it's a good job some people do keep examples of these going - history would be lacking if only the very best examples of technology were preserved.
The Mercedes "Gull Wing" could be the C111 mentioned in the Wiki article.
8 comments:
A swift Wankel every now and again is nothing to be ashamed of.
I remember when there were 2 Wankel engined motorcycles available - a DKW, and the Suzuki RE5. The DKW kept to the engineers tradition of KISS, but the Suzuki was almost twice the weight, and very little faster....
Sorry, make that 3 - Norton did one as well.
This was before Mazda had spent an absolute fortune on developing reliable rotor seals.
"This was before Mazda had spent an absolute fortune on developing reliable rotor seals."
If they're so reliable, why does so much unburnt fuel escape?
Reliable doesn't mean gas tight! It just means that they don't have to replace engines after a few thousand miles, which is what bankrupted NSU with the otherwise very advanced Ro80.
I get the impression that Mazda (having proved that they could solve the wear issues) were determined to carry on making Wankels, rather than loose face. As far as I know they are the only company still making them for cars. Rolls Royce made some diesel versions. There's a good article on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wankel_engine
The piston engine might be far from perfect, but it's such a well proven and developed design that it will be around for a long time.
Thanks MD
An informative article
Microdave the Hercules might have been simple, but it was also pretty basic. The RE5 must have been sold at a loss given it's complexity over say the GT750. The most surpising thing to me is that people will still pay lots of money for good examples of both bikes.
Didn't Mercedes produce a gull winged, wankel engined car?
Infidel - From memory the RE5 was not as fast as the entirely conventional GT750 (The "Water Bucket", "Kettle" and no doubt many other nicknames). I think the development engineers solved one problem, which caused a side effect, then they solved that one, and so on!
I suppose it's a good job some people do keep examples of these going - history would be lacking if only the very best examples of technology were preserved.
The Mercedes "Gull Wing" could be the C111 mentioned in the Wiki article.
huhuhuh he said WANKEL huhu .
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