Rotary Engine Trivia

[THE PILGRIM]

The other day I day I talked about my experiences with my Mazda Tribute up the Utah outback. You do know that the Tribute is really a Ford? It was built in the Kansas City Ford plant.
So why are Ford and Mazda involved? Mostly because a German named Wankel who invented the rotary engine. When the Wankel engine was hyped to the world, it was going to be bigger than sliced bread and the Second Coming combined. The big car companies scrambled to get access to the rotary engine. GM got theirs through a subsidiary. Chrysler at that time was moving on turbine engines. So that left Ford out in the cold. In Japan, Mazda had rights to the rotary. So Ford bought into Mazda. And that is why the fire engine is red!
So here is your rotary trivia question for today- what car company produced the very first rotary engine car? It's not the obvious answer. I only ever saw one. It was owned by my buddy's cousin. She was a cute little rich girl.

 

[5-Shot]

NSU? (This is added filler so my answer won't be too short.)

 

[diamonback68]

Probably Mercedes C111, but I believe Citroen built a few too early on.

 

[-db-]

NSU? (This is added filler so my answer won't be too short.)

Yep. The Wankelspider:

 

[P&R Fan]

I thought it was Mazda.
I had a love affair with Rotary engines in the '80s and '90s. My first car was a '76 Mazda Cosmo. Had the 13B Rotary engine, a 5 speed and 4 wheel disc brakes. That sucker was pretty quick.
The Rotary can rev to about 8,000 RPM and not have any problems.
Mazda needs to bring it back.
Jim

 

[absolutevil]

If your buddies cousin is now an older cute RICH lady now, please give her my email address.

 

[ejeli]

If your buddies cousin is now an older cute RICH lady now, please give her my email address.

Hey, That's my line.
e.

 

[Brian41]

I had one in a 1981 RX-& and it was pretty fast for that era. You could wind them up tight with no valves. I think redline was 10,000 rpm on the tach or something close. I'd planned on keeping it until I wrecked it.
I think the fuel economy did them in as they weren't so good even in that little car. I've though about buying another as they're fun cars.
I too thought Mazda was first with the Wankel, guess I learned something new today.

 

[Fishslayer]

Who could forget THIS little gem...

 

[Bkreutz]

I used to work for a Land Rover dealership that took on the Mazda line. 6 months later I quit because I was so sick of resealing rotary engines. The engines are put together like a "Dagwood" sandwich of dissimilar metals that expand and contract at different rates. Then there was the constant redesign of the apex seals . Good idea that.

 

[THE PILGRIM]

Yep. The Wankelspider:

That looks like the one I saw! And looking up the cute gal who is now a cute senior lady is not a bad idea. Her family owned a bunch of that good farm land way down in S. Texas, San Benito to be exacto.
Where I come from we got many sayings-
One is , try to marry a gal who will inherit some bottom land.
If you can't do that, marry one with a good bottom.

 

[Sven]

I had an uncle who had a Wankel Mazda for a while.

But this is closer to the first "Rotary" engine. 1909 French airplane engine. 1909 Gnome Omega Rotary Aircraft Engine - YouTube

 

[Kinman]

My wife's first car had to be a four door and an automatic. We shopped around and ended up with an Mazda RX-3. I have to say that this car was the closest thing to a lemon I ever owned. When it ran, it ran like a raped ape and consumed not only fuel but oil like crazy. The redline was up near 10grand and it loved to run up there, sounded like a Hoover vacuum on steroids. It had a four barrel carb on top and had problems running in cold weather. We ended up getting a new motor in some huge factory recall and traded the thing in on a brand new '78 V.W. Rabbit and my wife learned to drive a stickshift.
NSU built some other interesting cars, I think they built a stinking little 2-stroke that was about the cheapest thing you could actually drive in Germany. I remember the Colonel's German secretary drove an NSU, she also had a great set of legs.

 

[Bkreutz]

I had an uncle who had a Wankel Mazda for a while.

But this is closer to the first "Rotary" engine. 1909 French airplane engine. 1909 Gnome Omega Rotary Aircraft Engine - YouTube

I think it took a French mind to think up an engine where the crankshaft was stationary and the engine block rotated around it. (It did have some interesting characteristics related to momentum in an aircraft)

 

[mike from st pete]

1960 NSU Prinz III

My Dad had a black Prinz not a rotary motor tho.
NSU was the Wankel Engine maker in the late 1950s early 1960s.

 

[Cpo1944]

I have always thought a Wankle would be a Great boat or ultra light aircraft engine. A jet boat would be neat too.
I wish they could get the kinks worked out, because that design has a lot of potential.

 

[-db-]

I have always thought a Wankle would be a Great boat or ultra light aircraft engine. A jet boat would be neat too.
I wish they could get the kinks worked out, because that design has a lot of potential.

I believe it was OMC or one of its subsidiaries that put them in lawnmowers and snowmobiles at one time. Perhaps outboard motors, too.

 

[rcnixon]

I had a friend years ago, Bill, who was an engineer and would buy and sell anything to turn a few bucks. He had quite a car collection, one being a Wankel-engined NSU RO-80. It had been in a rear-end collision. The body parts were easy enough to find but because of the forces in the collision, the rotor side seals chattered and scored the aluminum end plates. The dealer wanted the sell a complete power unit but Bill wanted the seal kit. They wouldn't sell so he ordered the kit from Germany. He had a machine shop surface the end plates and the BUILT a set of tools to hold the seals in place to re-assemble the engine because the dealer network and NSU wouldn't sell the assembly tools. It actually worked and well too. He sold it quick before something else went wrong.

I have a bunch of Bill stories, maybe I'll relate them here as time goes by.

Russ

 

[rwsmith]

Mazda

To me it's the Mazda RX 7, but you guys seem to know a LOT more about these. I think the hardest part of the engine is the seals of the rotor against the internal wall of the engine. Probably by now materials have reached a point where that could be taken care of. An inherent problem in the design is that the Thermodynamics are pretty terrible. To much heat energy goes out the exhaust.


Update: Perhaps the exhaust energy could by harnessed by a supercharger or something.

 

[bgrone]

Rotary engines

One little idiosyncrasy that I discovered when working on used cars was the engine seizing up when left sitting for long periods. If you ever have a chance to buy a clean RX-7 with locked up engine it could be a good bet. Carbon bits get wedged under the rotor seals . You can't bar the engine over past the debris as it just wedges tighter and if you try to back the engine up with a breaker bar on the balancer bolt it simply unscrews. The solution I found was to remove the starter and use a pry bar to ratchet the flywheel backwards by the teeth on the ring gear. Another method is to put the transmission in 5th gear and push the car backwards. I have thought of putting a RX7 engine in a MGB or an airboat, but its behind a few other projects I have on my wish list.

Jim in Iowa