I would guess their approach did not work (in addition to the fact Paul
points out - that the chamber becomes in-effective when you go below
10:1) to the fact - compression ignition relies upon the heat of
compression - the rotary has a slower compression cycle per out-put
shaft rotation, and by compounding the compression cycle into 2 steps -
both features are allowing some of the heat of compression to transfer
to the surrounding structures.

It you really want to research this ( I've given it much thought while
reading everyone else's labor here ;-) I would start with the 10:1
P-port with "smart plugs" for initial ignition
http://www.smartplugs.com/engines/rotary/singlerotary.htm and turbo
charge to high enough boost such that maybe you can sustain compression
ignition. Reminds me of the Michael Zoche approach in a way.

By the way, the latest in diesel technology uses piezoelectric injectors
with the common rail at around 23,000 psi and they inject 4 - 6 small
injections rather than one large injection. This takes advantage of the
swirling of the charge to promote fuel burn. You would need to use the
new ultra low sulfur diesel with them. I don't know about Jet-A and
sulfur content.

There are tid-bits of technical information in the consumer magazine
Diesel Power http://www.dieselpowermag.com - most of the writing is
geared toward the truck fan that wants to twist metal with unreal
torque, but some of the info is useful.

-dave


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