Engine animations

Bloody marvellous

http://www.keveney.com/Engines.html

 

Interesting but not exactly new thinking. A friend demonstrated the 4
stroke cycle on the school PET 32 by use of much PRINT, CLS and GOTO.

 

http://auto.howstuffworks.com/engine.htm is better.

 

It has to be said it doesn't quite cover the same number of engine
variations.

 

Super

 

The wankle was interesting. I'd heard about them but never quite been
able to picture how they worked. They were used on some bikes weren't
they? Why did they stop? I would have thought they would be more
efficient in some way.

--
John

SV650
Black it is
and naked

 

Gotta love the Gnome rotary.

http://www.keveney.com/gnome.html

Absolutely bonkers Great site TOG, thanks!

 

Suzuki RE5, Van Veen OCR1000, Herculex/DKW W2000, and Norton made both
air and liquid cooled ones.

Poor fuel consumption, environmentally dirty (they burned oil like a
two-stroke)[1]

Smoother, fewer reciprocating parts.

Expensive to build, though.

[1] I'd like to know how Mazda gets round the pollution aspect.

 

Yeah, I was never able to visualise how hose things worked until I saw
that.

 

jsp wrote

Emissions issues I think it was.

Less moving parts should have made it this way but even with development
they have never really lived up to their promise. Or it may be that
they have been made as good as every they are going to get. Who knows.

 

knows.

The biggest problem with them is making efficient
seals at each point of the triangular "piston". They
get very hot and have to resist a lot of pressure.

 

Didn't they have problems with the rotor-tip seals as well?

 

Originally, yes. NSU did on the RO80 car, and I think Suzuki did too on
the RE5. But improved tip alloys, and better lubes, cured the prob by
the time Norton made Wankels.

 

Aye the new Mazda RX goes some by all accounts. Time it made a proper
comeback in bikes, perhaps a Suzuki/Mazda joint venture.

 

What are the technical problems that hold back the Wankel Rotary Engine ?

 

I don't think the problems are technical now

 

Originally, yes. NSU did on the RO80 car, and I think Suzuki did too on
the RE5. But improved tip alloys, and better lubes, cured the prob by
the time Norton made Wankels.[/QUOTE]

IIRC they were experimenting with ceramic tips at one point.

 

1965, MZ KKM 350
http://www.mztech.fsnet.co.uk/images/lh18.jpg

IIRC that was due to lack of development and they require tighter
manufacturing tolerances. The vane tip sealing was always a problem.

There's also the issue of the major manufacturers resistance to
re-tooling and retraining.

 

True enough. It's a shame the Norton was banned by the FIM for being
too good. Another Norton which would happily top 140mph...

<dons asbestos overalls>

 

tallbloke said....

IIRC it was banned because they couldn't decide its true engine
capacity. Entering it in 600 races was a little bit cheeky imo.