Interesting?
jd

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ROTARY ENGINE BREAKTHROUGH?
The Wankel engine always held out a lot of promise, but never was able
to fully deliver on those promises. It was never very fuel efficient,
and the exhaust temperatures were very high. But now an independent
car tech thinks he has stumbled onto what held that engine back Coming
up next, what could be a breakthrough for the rotary engine.

Some of the best automotive innovations come from shade-tree mechanics
and backyard tinkerers. One such inventor has focused his attention on
improving the rotary engine. Ernie Brink has come up with several
upgrades for these unique power plants.

Ernie’s been fascinated by these high-revving engines for decades. As
a former Mazda technician he’d better be. Even though they’re nearly
extinct today, he’s very optimistic about the rotary’s future. In
fact, he’s come up with two possible breakthroughs to their design,
the first of which addresses their inherent loss of compression.

By ditching those big fat spark-plug holes and replacing them with
narrow slots — no wider than 1.5 millimeters he says — compression is
no longer wasted out the exhaust. But there’s more on the table with
the Wankel engine.

The idea behind that offset combustion chamber is to help kick the
rotor in right the direction so it’s not pushing against itself. Ernie
has actually built a specially modified engine to put his theories to
the test. The results of this experimentation were astounding! He
claims EGT, that’s exhaust-gas temperature, fell by 600 degrees
Fahrenheit!

We don’t really know if Ernie has come up with a breakthrough, but
what he’s saying certainly seems to be logical. I hope someone with
the will and the resources can fully test out his theories. Are you
listening, Mazda?

And that wraps up today’s show, thanks for watching, we’ll see you
tomorrow.

Thanks to our Partners for embedding Autoline Daily on their websites:
Autoblogand WardsAuto.com

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Only the trailing plug hole waste compression. I would not call it
"fat" at about 2 mm in diameter.

I doubt the 600 f exhaust temp drop claim. That has been solved anyway
with the RX8 side exhaust.

Mazda and others have done extensive studies on combustion chamber
shape and position.


The real breakthrough would be turbo compound.
http://www.rotaryeng.net/turbo-compound.html

Paul Lamar