"as mentioned earlier I have been working as development engineer for
Wankel Supertec for two years. Target was the development of a spark
ignited Wankel rotary engine, running on Diesel or Kerosene. I have
actually built and re-built approx. 20 Singles and one Twin rotor engine
(see attachment) in those days. The actual compression ratio was in the
order of 14:1 including a cut-out in the rotor flanks. Without those
cut-outs the theoretical max. compression ratio would actually have been
16:1!

The engine ran on Diesel without the support of the spark plugs at
nearly all loads and speeds except tick-over! But admittedly it ran a
lot smoother with the ignition being switched on. We even managed to get
it firing up on diesel right from a cold start without the addition of
petrol as we used to do at MWE!

Wankel SuperTec relocated all of their development work to Cottbus
University last year - and to Korea, see: http://www.lmlkorea.com/"

Martin


Starting to smell like a Wankel version of Zoche's Diesel !

Whats been "leaked" on web now appears to represent more so
a marketing tool than an extensively tested finished design.

Oh well, back to a good ole 13B !

still "Thinking outside the box"

JCP


Paul,

To shed some more light on the Wankel SuperTec engine and its predecessors:
Dankwart Eiermann, who happened to have been the late Felix Wankel's Chief
Engineer in Lindau, used to be chief engineer with Wankel R&D and their
successor, Wankel Rotary as well until their demise in the year 2000.
All "material left-overs" from that company were purchased by Mario
Häberer from East Germany to found a new company called Wankel AG,
see http://www.wankel-ag.de/seite1.html.  Since those days he apparently
tried to establish the charge cooled single and twin rotor engines,
called LCR (l*iquid c*ooled housing R*otary), on the market, in particular
for Kart racing.

In parallel he tried to manufacture the LOCR-series engines (l*iquid cooled
housing, o*il c*ooled R*otary), which have the same geometry, but are plain
bearing engines with oil cooled rotors. So they share the same rotor housings
and some of the accessories, but are internally entirely different designs!
A single rotor engine, based on this design, was the first Diesel fuelled
Rotary to run through the complete 400 hrs NATO acceptance test at Wankel
Rotary in Korb, Germany.

In 2003 Dankwart Eiermann founded a new company, called Wankel SuperTec, to
reap the benefits from all of his previous experience with heavy fuel Rotaries.
Together with a team of long-term Wankel designers like Wolfgang Baier (of Fichtel
& Sachs fame, in particular the Hercules W2000 motorcycle) he designed an all
new 500cc Rotary, which was the first Wankel engine to be specifically designed
for the use of heavy fuel right from the start - besides Rolls Royce's cottage
loaf engine in the 1960es. This range of engines was called KKM500 in reminiscence
of the early NSU engines. A whole range of up to four rotors in line was designed,
called KKM 501 (single), 502 (twin), and so on. They all have 500cc swept volume
per rotor, plain bearings and oil cooled rotors. One of the early press releases
though depicted a charge cooled rotor out of a Wankel Rotary LCR engine with a
swept volume of 407cc! This rotor has got nothing to do with the Wankel SuperTec
engines!!!

Diesel Rotaries with their peak pressures of up to 100bar will destroy needle
rotor bearings in no time at all. This, and some more heavy-fuel specific features,
were what lead the early Wankel SuperTec team to design the KKM 500 engine the way
it is now; without any relation to any other known Rotary so far. Based on some five
year experience collected with that design the all new KKM 350 series was designed
by Hans-Jürgen Klusowski, another ex-Felix Wankel engineer (and the designer of the
VanVeen OCR1000 motorcycle). Both engines - or at least dummies - shall be on
display at the AERO in Friedrichshafen, Germany next month, see
http://www.aero-friedrichshafen.de/html/en/exhibitors_products/exhibitors/exhibitors.php?app=letter&cat=exh&popup=0&let=W
 See you there?

Regards,

Martin.

Hey that might be fun. I think UAL has a non stop from LAX to Munich (MUC)
every day at 11 AM. I'll bet Francois will be there? Also Mistral.
We could all have a little rotary get together.

Too bad for us that Wankel Spider Journal pdf is not in english.
It has some interesting pictures. The modular concept looks interesting
as a main bearing can be placed between each rotor.

I visited Wankel Rotary in Korb 1999 and saw all those engines.
Juergen Bax let me drive his pristine RO80 :)

Thanks for the update Martin.

Paul Lamar