Paul,
Just running the question to see what the opinion is,
I noted that somebody mentioned and have noted elsewhere,
In some types of racing they have been known to use 3 spark plugs per
rotor for the ignition system. This I assume is for more complete
burn and power which equals better fuel efficiency.
1. Is this capable of being done on the Renesis housings?
If the answer to 1 is yes then
2 . If we assume that is the case where do you put the third spark plug?
3. Is this worth looking at or doing?
Comparing the potential for a more complete, faster burn which should
produce more power. The potentially more redundancy for the ignition
system if it put together the right way.
Regards David Gaze
--------------------------------------
It amounts to a couple of percentage points in better BSFC.
If you want to read the whole story I recommend:
Mazda 4-Rotor Rotary Engine for the Le Mans 24-Hour Endurance Race.
(Mazda won the race outright beating all of the famous European race car
builders.) Ritsuharu Shimizu, Tomoo Tadokoro, Toru Nakanishi, and Junici
Funamoto Mazda Motor Corporation. SAE paper 920309. By far the best
technical paper on the Mazda Wankel type rotary engine. Lots of information
on how to make a powerful, normally aspirated, light weight all aluminum,
heavy duty p-port rotary engine. It is in english in case you were
wondering :)
Paul Lamar ...No rotor no motor.
-------------------------------------
Actually the main reason would be for a cleaner burn from the engine.
EPA regulations will only get tougher and are getting tougher in AUS.
A more redundant ignition system, always nice to have, you could have
a plug/coil failure of some sort and not loose any real power.
In effect you could look at the third plug as an additional safety
factor mainly. The fuel economy and cleaner burn / slightly more
powerful burn are mainly just spin offs, although it should produce
some fuel saving which while it may not be much it is always nice
to have. The weight penalty should be pretty minimumal.
Regards David Gaze
David,
Remind me to get back to you on this spark plug issue next week. I will be
speaking with an ex Mazda rotary guy who helped design the intake system for
the LeMans engine. The sparkplug question as well as the profile shape of
the P-port are several answers I seek. I happen to agree with about the
future of stricter EPA regs. in the future.
Doug in Japan
Heaven help us :) Light aircraft make up .0000000001 percent
of the [smog] problem.
Paul Lamar ...No rotor no motor.
David
Sorry I didn't get back to you. I still haven't gotten an adequate answer
from the Mazda people. I suspect the housings were specially cast for the
Lemans engine. This is counter to what the literature says but the location
of the third spark plug is in an area up just below the alignment hole with
a thin rib in there.
I am tearing down my junker engine now to try to do a trial run on P porting
and third spark-plug installation.
Striving to improve the efficiency of the engine (even if it is a few
percentage points) is a good mindset.
Doug in Japan
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