Nihilanthic

What kind of auto and slip did he use to get the torque from.. well, zero mph to be able to rock crawl from a 13b?

rotary emotions

Here we go again... SHM21284 is obviously right: it is a 1.3l. I can see *some* logic in the 2.6 argument, but mechanicly it IS 1.3. Air flow is not used to measure displacement, not on ANY engine. The rotary engine simply makes most of it's size, where as a US V8 in stock trim makes very little use of it's size. Any 5 liter plus engine in europe would make more. Even if you take in account the x2 factor for a rotary, you need to compare things equally. Only a 26B can be seen as a comparison to a smallblock: 2.6l times two makes 5.2l (still the shortest/smallest engine in use at the time they raced it!) and makes 500hp in NA WITH restrictors. Open intakes made 700hp in a NA racecar that won Le Mans! It was actually detuned for LM because it needed to last that long. When they cracked the engine open (I have pics of that in a book) it looked like new! All that stuff about failing apex seals etc is typical for people who don't know much about the rotary engine at all.
You keep talking about weight distribution not suffering, but since the intial weights you gave me were pretty far off, why should I believe you there? Actually I'm starting to wonder if you use correct scales! If you add that much weight in the nose, it MUST suffer.
You keep mentioning an oilcooler as a source of extra weight. But have you thought about the fact that due to it being larger the V8 has larger oil and water capacity? And even with it's relict pre-historic push rod design, it's center of weight is higher than on the rotary.
I can see the money as an argument for using V8's. But it's the only argument.
You say something about a "funny two piece e-shaft". You find that funny? Well, ever thought about that funny valve train? A two piece E-shaft will last, no problem. There are way more moving parts in any piston engine than in a rotary, plus rotary engines run turbine like, where a piston engine has dead centers.
Actually, looking at the way governements and racing has been dealing with the rotary engine, I believe they are damn scared of it. That's the reason they double the size!

Nihilanthic

Um... a PP Rotary "26b" made 700 hp out of 5.2 liters of displacement. If you think a "boinger" cant do the same with high revs and a radical camshaft, youre in la-la land. Mechanically it is a 1.3. The reason anyone bothers with rotaries is that theyre compact externally for their internal displacement! VOLUMETRICALLY a 13b is 2.6 and a 26b is 5.2 liters. I am NOT going to buy that the VE% is 140-200% on that! Now, again, rotaries are viable for racing, but because of the differences in how to write rules not it, a lot of people exclude them. IMO thats ******* lame, you should just give them a 2 or 1.8 coefficient so they can compete. BTW, if you look at AIRFLOW, rotaries make less power per pound of air than piston engines do. Thermodynamic efficiency of the combustion chambers and a high as hell BSFC cant be argued away, its inherant to the design of the rotary.

The other thing, is that the oil and water in a v8 is... in the v8. Its not kept way up over the nose. Leverage of where its placed on the car, matters a lot when working out weight distribution. Put 200 lbs on the NOSE of a car, vs say, in the drivers seat, and see the difference.

Finally, Pushrods are a LATER DESIGN than over head cams. Theres *NOTHING* bad about pushrods. Youre wrong in a LOT of ways about it, and your ignorance is really showing. Lemme show you a 5 liter "302" pushrod vs a 4.6 liter DOHC "Cammer" v8, both by ford:


1. Pushrods dont 'raise the center of gravity' - Big *** DOHC heads *WOULD* do so, and also cause a severe weight/size gain in the engine. Look at the pic!

2. Pushrods allow the engine to not only be smaller, and lighter, but also be cheaper to design, and you only have to change out ONE camshaft, not FOUR, to make tuning cheaper. And you can put the old cam back in, unlike trying to 'un port' a housing.

3. AGES ago, pushrods would have valvetrain flex so at high revs their lifts would start to taper off at the valves. However, ages ago rotaries sucked *** too! Imagine that, they've made strong enough pushrods to handle 10K and really high lifts (and rocker arms with ratios to increase it farther @ the valve)

4. What you fail to realize, also, is that Pushrod SMALL BLOCK v8s can easily get up to and over 7 liters displacement. Big blocks hit 8 and over, and are strong as hell for racing. But, they are rather big... about as big as that DOHC monstrousity.

If youre calling LSx enignes prehistoric despite the fact that OHC is older than pushrods, and act like its a 'weakness' of some sort, and the tiny *** pushrod heads raise the COG more than DOHC heads do (where the hell do you get this ****?) you really need to pull your head out of your ***. Theres nothing wrong witih pushrods, theyre a very viable design. LSx are a clean sheet, NEW design, hell, wankel rotaries are from the 1940s. Isnt that even older than pushrods? OH NO, DINOSAUR! BTW, the LSx engines were a clean sheet design in the 1990s. If you wanna compare the LSx to something, compare it to a renesis.

Oh, and finally, turbo rotaries arent very reliable. Crazy *** port jobs arent very reliable either. If you knock, your apex seals are GONE. Piston engines are more robust than that! Rotaries are great for racing, but for street engines crazy *** porting kills your low end worse than a "VTEC" honda would be if it was stuck on the hot cam all day, and big *** turbo wheels arent exactly driveable either.

I can get all that power, plus torque, plus much better gas mileage, plus reliability out of a v8. OMG! STOP THE PRESSES! I CAN RUN TURBOS OR A WILD CAM (equivilant of a port) TOO!

I sat here on a long time about to get a FD when I realized I really dont wanna bother with all that **** when I can spend less money and have a car thats fast as hell and be able to have "cheap, reliable AND fast" instead of "pick two". You cling to the displacement as mazda measures it, not paying attention to the volumetric, functional displacement, and cling to "well its heavier" when after the swap the cars come out as balanced if not 'better' by being tail heavy. You call pushrods old as a dinosaur when wankels are about as told themselves, and be a bigoted IDIOT about pushrods when their viability and ADVANTAGES are as clear as the picture up there, while ignoring the downfalls of rotaries. Do you really expect me to **** with that 4.6l DOHC boat anchor up there when I can get as much power of out a smaller, lighter engine?

Tell ya what, go get an aluminum 427, and compare that to any 26b you got lying around, then I'll stick it in my FC and smoke it The STOCK C6Z06 is gonna make 500 hp out of it, and with LT headers, and more radical cams (the one on it now is practically a baby cam... compared to 427s that builders have made years ago even) can bump up the power majorly, without touching turbos or superchargers or nitrous.

Now, I'll try to end this on a good note. Rotaries arent useless, but they have some impracticalities for daily drivers. I can get a LS1 FC up to viper-killing levels as a daily driver with excellent gas mileage, low maintainance (well, not tires unless I got a really soft right foot) driveability, and low end torque. To be fair, a turbo 20b would be more fair than a 13b to compare to a LS1, but its still a gas hog, oil burner, has expensive parts, and just isnt very reliable. I'll save the rebuilds for those with the passion to deal wth it. Personally, I love the rx-7 chasiss as platforms, like a kit-car thats also a daily driver. I just dont want to deal with the rotary headaches.

Dont like it? Well, its not MY fault that a FC (or arguably even a FD) roller chassis is an excellent alternative to most if not all kit cars and production sports cars and can handle engine swaps so well, and are so damn well made. Go buy me a corvette or something if you dont like what Im doing

shm21284

ok ok. lets cool down a bit. I am not trying to tell you to swap your engine out for a rotary at all. V8s are cool, but im just arguing my side of it.

v8's burn oil all the time, by the way. Once you start adding forged parts, moly rings, etc, these engines burn the exact same amount of oil as the rotary does: 1 quart/1000 miles.

I never bashed pushrods at all. They are great for reducing the overall hight of the motor, but it causes the engine to be slightly wider. Better for CG and a road/race car (corvette). But, pushrods have more oscillating mass. Not the best to use on a gas saver, like a honda or toyota.

A 700 hp NA small block chevy would not last as long as the R26b. I'll bet that R26B could run at least 1-2 more 24 hr races without failure. A 700 hp NA small block probably wouldnt last a full 24 hours, it would have to be a big block, and then your talking a lot more weight.

The gas consumption for the R26B le mans winner was a respectable 3-4 MPG. It was by far not the worst, but not the best either, top of the middle.

I think a more fair comparrison would be a 4 rotor to a LS1. Or a 3800 to a 20b. Reliability is not an issue if you have someone who knows what they are doing. Sure, knock is bad for the apex seals, thats a huge downfall. But you should never knock any engine. And if you do, your an idiot. Tuning is not for retards, and if you knwo what you are doing, it wont happen. And just to give you an example, I had no ******* clue what i was doing when i was 18, and I knocked the **** out of my motor, all the time (12a turbo). LOUD *** knocking. It took a bunch of that to finally crack the rear cast plate (not the apex seals). Never, ever, ever broke an apex seal. I reused them when I rebuilt the engine, street ported it, put a bigger turbo on it, and they never blinked an eye. So apex seals aren't all that weak.

The 4.6 boat anchor has a larger angle between the banks. Pushrods also make it hard to have variable intake and exhaust timing, something the american manufacturers haven't touched yet. There are some great advantages to VVTI or VTEC.

You can't compare the LSx to a Renesis. The knowledge background on piston engines extends back 100 years, where the rotary extends 45 years. Thats a lot of wisdom advantage to the rotary. Yes, they were both designed within 10 years of eachother, but that doesnt mean the piston engine guys know more things that you shouldnt do than the rotary guys do. there is still a lot of development needed for the rotary.

yellowbird

v8's burn oil all the time, by the way. Once you start adding forged parts, moly rings, etc, these engines burn the exact same amount of oil as the rotary does: 1 quart/1000 miles.

I seriously disagree on this comment. I drove for several years a 302 ford with forged slugs and Moly rings and it burned about 8-10 ounces of oil between oil changes (3000 Miles)

I never bashed pushrods at all. They are great for reducing the overall hight of the motor, but it causes the engine to be slightly wider. Better for CG and a road/race car (corvette). But, pushrods have more oscillating mass. Not the best to use on a gas saver, like a honda or toyota.

Pushrods do not in any way make the engine wider, they are located in the vally between the cyl banks and occupy space that would be just open otherwise.
You are correct in the increased mass of the valve train though.



The 4.6 boat anchor has a larger angle between the banks. Pushrods also make it hard to have variable intake and exhaust timing, something the american manufacturers haven't touched yet. There are some great advantages to VVTI or VTEC.

Umm, no. All domestic V-8's are 90 degree designs. To do otherwise would make a nightmare for primary and secondary balancing.
As for Variable Valve timing, true, it is not done on OHV V motors. It would be a small challenge to just change overall cam timing, but to have seperate I/E timing would be a serious enginering challenge. Oh and the American Manfuactures have done VVT on a domestic motor, it's just not a V motor. The Trailblazer inline 6 has VVT.

rotary emotions

First: I never said a pushrod design had a higher center of gravity then a OHC, I said a V8 had a higher center of gravity then a rotary. But again: pushrods are an ancient design. To prove my point: outside of the USA, they're long gone. Why? Simple: overhere gas costs a few times what it costs you (what about €1.30 a liter?) so manufactures seek a powerfull, yet not very thirsty engine. In the US, where gas is dead cheap (compared to us that is), they swear by "there's no substitute for cubic inches". Overhere they found one: technology. If Ferrari makes a 5.xx l engine, it WON'T have pushrods, and it'll be more powerfull then the stuff you guys use.
Second: rotary development continues. A german firm made a Rotary that runs on diesel and makes 60kw for 500cc. Uses as much fuel as any ccommon rail diesel.
Third: the 787B won Le Mans because it didn't use as much fuel as the competition! Which wasn't all that slow: Mercedes had bombshells under the hoods, Jaguar even had V12's with 7 liters!
As for pushrods being a later design... what can I say? Ever saw a 50's European engine?

rotary emotions

found this, ends all discussion on engine weights:
http://www.35pickup.com/mulligan/weight.txt
13J as the 4 rotor before the 26B, wieght WITH accessoiries: 396pounds
Smallblock chevy: 535-575 Chevy ZL 1 (all alu) had 550

And then this: a shortblock 13B (95kg) is a complete engine, minus accessoiries. A V8 smallblock is NOT a complete engine, as it'll need all the stuff the 13B needs (pumps etc) + heads and valvetrains.
I now finally know a V8 IS heavier than a rotary, and not by litlle.

Nihilanthic

PUSHRODS ARE A LATER DESIGN THAN OHC! OHC is from the very beginning of internal combustion engines. Pushrods were a later development to let a V engine share a single camshaft! ARGH! Pushrods ALSO have no impact on gas mileage. Dont give me this **** about Pushrods being 'ancient' - the first engines were over head god damn cams. Dominant american v8s were pushrods from the 50s-70s, so thats where you think "ancient" from - that era. That still doesnt change the fact that OHC is Older. Werent Flathead fords OHC, btw?

4v or 5v heads (OHC) is a little better than 2v in terms of air flow at low lifts, mostly. They also have a slight advantage breathing through a restrictive exhaust vs a pushrod, so they make more sense with mild cams and 15 bazillion CATS and pre-cats. But, when you start getting into high-lift conditions, big valves, good head flow, and tuned intake/exhausts, its a non issue. Show me that DOHC engines can have higher BSFC than Pushrod ones if you actually tune either, and I'll accept theres a reason to have them. Yes, any boosted engine will beat a N/A, and honduh engines have high BSFC, but their whole paradigm is highly tuned, high strung tiny displacement engines - but id love you to tell the road racers, circle track racers, and the drag racers that they have **** engines with no power blablabla.

Also, a 1970s ZL1 is *NOT* a LS1! THEY ARE TOTALLY DIFFERENT ENGINES! Youre comparing two totally different aluminum v8s. Do not give me an apple and call it an orange, dude. ZL1 IS NOT LS1. Repeat after me. ZL1 is not LS1!

Oh, and yeah, that 4.6 boat anchor is wide from the heads. Look at the two cams on top of the heads, really good arent they? Sure. Id rather have *ONE* cam that I can change out easily, smaller size, etc. Another thing is it seems that it might have longer con rods to support high revs to make up for it lowish displacement.

BTW, LS1s still get 30+mpg highway EASY. Ive seen Guys on camaro forums get 36 mpg cruising at 85. I dont know the rear gears, but I doubt its anything numerically lower than 3.73 I suggest you actually educate yourself about modern american engines instead of spouting the bigoted bullshit that everyone on the other side of each respective ocean enjoys to do. Bitch about american car interiors/ergonomics or handling, please... MAYBE they'll fix them :P

Nihilanthic

I'm making this a seperate post so i dont have a giant monster one...

Yellowbird, the 2K5 mustang has cam phasing, and some kind of lifter trickerey to alter the lift. The Northstar v8 has variable valve timing, too, but not variable lift IIRC. I think its just cam phasing like what the mustang has.

saltyslug

all these last posts should be erased for not having anything to do with a rockcrawling 13b.

shm21284

Nihilanthic, your getting way too pissed off to argue sensibly. chill out, man. Your making yourself look stupid.

Nihilanthic

I had a hard day today

I had to take the drum brake assembly off on my beater to change out the hydraulic cylinder for it, which was a bitch. Oh, and I had to take the whole hub off to clear it to remove the old one and put it in. Then I forgot how all the levers and springs went.

So I got online to find a exploded chart for it, and I got it in, but the springs were all messed up and the new shoes were so big they were rubbing the drum big time, even when adjusted as loose as I could get it!

So, after 3 hours of that I finally go to put air in my tires on my beater, and some dick cleaned the hose for the air pump with chlorox, so my nice red shirt has orange stains allll over it now.

Yeah, I should just not even talk about cars when I just got pissed off at one, lol.

And Slug is probably right, we're getting way off topic

rotary emotions

I didn't say ZL and LT was the same. And repeat after me: there's more then V-8's...
It's not because pushrods are a later design in the US, that it isn't ancient technology.
First engines (engines I said, not V-8) had sidevalves, therefor the camshaft was way down in the block. This evolved step by step. When the OHV (over head valve) came, the camshaft was still in the block, using pushrods. The pushrods added a lot of moving parts, so they decided to develop the system further and here you go: OHC.
It's not impossible (don't know enough about history of V8's to argue) that you are right about pushrods being a later design on V8's. But technically speaking, in terms of engine-history, they are outdated.
As for getting off-topic: yep, but what's to more to say about this rock crawler???

rotary emotions

and one more question: isn't a flathead a sidevalver too? that's not OHC is it? Could be wrong too, I just base myself on pics I've seen.

Nihilanthic

Im really ignorant of flatheads mostly, but Id swear I saw the cams on either side of the head, one for intake one for exhaust. If I'm wrong, I hope I'm corrected.

Anyway, pushrods aren't outdated except in your opinion. Whats a more technical, quantified, objective reason its so outdated, hmm? The lack of Variable Valve timing/lift isnt really that much of an issue, and pushrod engines are very much viable. I dont see whats so outdated about them when I look at it from the point of view of bang/buck performance, driving manners (gas mileage, emissions, yadda yadda yadda) and the fact that it lets you put it all in a smaller package. But, I suppose if youre trying to sell DOHC as a feature of your car, comparing it to something "old n busted" vs the sellers "new hotness" can work. It certainly has on you