bye bye rotary engine...

dsi1 > wrote in news:j703pn$3en$1@dont-
email.me:

> On 10/10/2011 4:37 AM, Bill Vanek wrote:
>> On Sat, 08 Oct 2011 00:16:34 -0500, bob >
>> wrote:
>>
>>> http://www.impomag.com/scripts/ShowPR.asp?RID=19277&et_
>>>
>>> bob
>>
>> I had one of the early ones in the US - the RX2? Soured me on rotaries
>> for good. Backfires kept blowing holes in the muffler, horrible gas
>> mileage, and worst of all, it wouldn't start in the winter in Chicago.
>> And the factory admitted it - I called about this, and they told me,
>> "yeah, they don't really start when it gets below 30 degrees". Maybe
>> they shouldn't have sold them in cold climates, then. And Chicago
>> ain't exactly the north pole.
>>
>> It handled pretty well, though.
>
> The worst thing one could do would be to blip the throttle right before
> shutting the engine off. That would cause a backfire of dramatic
> proportions.



That's exactly what I had done when my muffler split! The bang sounded like
a gunshot.



> In my case, once was enough to ensure that it didn't happen
> again.
>
> Light backfiring was perfectly normal when the engine was decelerated.



Oh, yeah. That pop-pop-pop-POP-pop-pop-POP-pop-pop-pop...

Happened during decel, downshifting, and going downhill.


--
Tegger

On 10/10/2011 3:20 PM, Tegger wrote:
> > wrote in news:j703pn$3en$1@dont-
> email.me:
>
>> On 10/10/2011 4:37 AM, Bill Vanek wrote:
>>> On Sat, 08 Oct 2011 00:16:34 -0500, bob >
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> http://www.impomag.com/scripts/ShowPR.asp?RID=19277&et_
>>>>
>>>> bob
>>>
>>> I had one of the early ones in the US - the RX2? Soured me on rotaries
>>> for good. Backfires kept blowing holes in the muffler, horrible gas
>>> mileage, and worst of all, it wouldn't start in the winter in Chicago.
>>> And the factory admitted it - I called about this, and they told me,
>>> "yeah, they don't really start when it gets below 30 degrees". Maybe
>>> they shouldn't have sold them in cold climates, then. And Chicago
>>> ain't exactly the north pole.
>>>
>>> It handled pretty well, though.
>>
>> The worst thing one could do would be to blip the throttle right before
>> shutting the engine off. That would cause a backfire of dramatic
>> proportions.
>
>
>
> That's exactly what I had done when my muffler split! The bang sounded like
> a gunshot.
>
>
>
>> In my case, once was enough to ensure that it didn't happen
>> again.
>>
>> Light backfiring was perfectly normal when the engine was decelerated.
>
>
>
> Oh, yeah. That pop-pop-pop-POP-pop-pop-POP-pop-pop-pop...
>
> Happened during decel, downshifting, and going downhill.
>
>

Ha ha, I was young and kinda stupid back in those days.

http://www.devilfinder.com/find.php?...+rotary+engine
cuhulin

> You're right that the crank was bolted to the bulkhead. The prop was
> fixed to the engine housing. My guess is that moving the cylinders
> around like that promoted pretty good cooling. The gyroscopic effects
> of such a setup must have made turns a bit tricky. One thing you don't
> want is a fighter plane that doesn't want to change directions. :-)

Those rotaries were low tech cool... castor oil flying everywhere...
no throttle, only a kill switch...
They would turn 'with' the motor fiercely, the other way not so much.
Real men flew those things.
Ben

ben91932 wrote:
>> You're right that the crank was bolted to the bulkhead. The prop was
>> fixed to the engine housing. My guess is that moving the cylinders
>> around like that promoted pretty good cooling. The gyroscopic effects
>> of such a setup must have made turns a bit tricky. One thing you don't
>> want is a fighter plane that doesn't want to change directions. :-)
>
> Those rotaries were low tech cool... castor oil flying everywhere...
> no throttle, only a kill switch...
> They would turn 'with' the motor fiercely, the other way not so much.
> Real men flew those things.

Impressive albeit a bit weird:

http://www.aviation-history.com/engi...ary-theory.htm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UBAukXPD-0

--
Andrew Muzi
<www.yellowjersey.org/>
Open every day since 1 April, 1971

On 10/10/2011 3:39 a.m., Tegger wrote:
> > wrote in news:j6qvhc$9uv$1@dont-
> email.me:
>
>> On 10/8/2011 1:38 PM, J R wrote:
>>> If you want a little bitty Wankel engine to play with, I think some of
>>> those stores that sell model Airplane engines also sell some Wankel
>>> rotary engines.
>>> I have no idea what they cost.
>>> cuhulin
>>>
>>
>> The 80s were the heyday of the rotaries.
>
>
> That's arguable. By then, the rotary was installed only in the RX-7. I
> think the heyday was the early-'70s, prior to the gas crisis.
>
> During the early '70s, Mazda was putting them in just about every model
> they made, including station wagons and pickup trucks. The rotary was
> considered to have such promise and future that GM, Mercedes and Citroen
> all took out licenses to develp their own rotaries. Even AMC dipped their
> toe in the water: the Pacer was originally intended to have a rotary.
>
> The gas crisis, plus the crisis that arose from the early rotaries'
> propensity for sudden self-destruction, killed that engine as a mass-market
> proposition.
>
>
>
>> One could always tell when a
>> rotary went down the street at high RPMs. Without a muffler, the engines
>> were loud and ear-piercing. They were loud because they used big holes
>> on the exhaust stroke instead of valves.
>
>
> Except that the big holes acted like valves in that they were covered and
> uncovered gradually. I don't remember my unmuffled 13B being any louder
> than an unmuffled V8.
>
> But they were HOT, which was great for the heater on winter days. My RX-4
> had an exhaust-temperature warning lamp on the dashboard. One day it lit-up
> on me. It turned out the exhaust pipe had cracked in half above the rear
> axle, and the rubber trunk mat had /melted/.
>
>
>
Must have been a fault in the exhaust system because that's the same
place the exhaust pipe on my RX4 broke too. Only mine was a 12A with the
twin distributors.

I had a lot of plug fouling problems even using the N2G plugs so I built
a Capacitor Discharge Ignition system one for each dizzie (this was back
about 75) which put out around 33k volts. Solved the fouling and gave
instant starting.

--
Everyone is entitled to be stupid, but some abuse the privilege.

On 10/10/2011 11:05 a.m., Tegger wrote:
> > wrote in
> eb.com:
>
>> On Sun, 09 Oct 2011 14:39:49 +0000, Tegger wrote:
>>
>
>>>
>>> But they were HOT, which was great for the heater on winter days. My
>>> RX-4 had an exhaust-temperature warning lamp on the dashboard. One
>>> day it lit-up on me. It turned out the exhaust pipe had cracked in
>>> half above the rear axle, and the rubber trunk mat had /melted/.
>>
>> I had a '75 Corolla that had a "Floor Temp" warning light. That was
>> for the Catalytic converter!
>>
>
>
> I remember those. There was a probe that was inserted into the cat body.
>
> But the pre-'81 rotaries had no cat except in CA. What they did have for
> exhaust emissions was a "thermal reactor", basically a specially-shaped
> open chamber that was meant to operate at super-high temperatures to cook-
> off HCs.
>
> The problem with the reactor was that it required a rich mixture to keep
> the fire going inside of it, which really cut into gas mileage. I never saw
> more than 19mpg.

19MPG was what I regularly got but I once saw 21MPG on a trip they were
IMP gallons.

> Plus, the reactor also required a separate air-pump and air jacket to help
> control its temperature. The exhaust for that air jacket was the second,
> smaller tailpipe next to the usual one.
> Reactors were notorious for cracking because of heat-cycling. I think BMWs
> around that period also used reactors.
>
> The exhaust ran so hot on rotaries on account of the thermal-reactor system
> that Mazda had to install the warning-lamp system. The sensor was in the
> trunk, above the rear axle. Right where my exhaust broke....
>

At a race meeting I was involved with there were a number of RX2s
entered. It was a 9 hour race and ran into the night. The exhaust had
been modified to a 2 inch pipe which exited just in front of the rear
wheel. As they went passed at night this glowing bright red pipe
underneath the length of the car was very impressive.
--
Everyone is entitled to be stupid, but some abuse the privilege.

bugalugs > wrote in
:


>
> I had a lot of plug fouling problems even using the N2G plugs so I
> built a Capacitor Discharge Ignition system one for each dizzie (this
> was back about 75) which put out around 33k volts. Solved the fouling
> and gave instant starting.


I also had plug-fouling issues. Oddly, only with leaded gas. When the plugs
were new it would rev to 7,000 without problem, but once the plugs had been
in there for a while it would begin misfiring at high revs. A few tanks of
unleaded and the problem would eventually go away. So I just used unleaded
all the time. More expensive than leaded, but at least there was no
misfiring.



--
Tegger

In article >,
ben91932 > wrote:
>
>Those rotaries were low tech cool... castor oil flying everywhere...
>no throttle, only a kill switch...
>They would turn 'with' the motor fiercely, the other way not so much.
>Real men flew those things.

Actually, my ex got to fly a 1916 Bleriot once. Although, she is pretty
macho. She did puke afterward from the stench of burned castor oil, though.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

Inhaling those castor oil fumes was a Good laxative for those Airplane
Pilots.
cuhulin