A piece of Domestic Rotary History
 

I wanted to share a piece of Domestic Rotary nostalgia with the rotary community...

What rotor has 5mm Apex seals, dual rows of side seals, 1700cc of displacement, and is made of cast iron?

I look forward to your guesses. This came from a running engine design, however it never made production. (See attached photo... More to come).

Answer to follow...

Enjoy!

http://www.dave-n-cindi.com/cars/rx7/john_rotor_2.jpg

is that from when chevy was thinking about running them in the corvette?

John Deere's industrial Rotary?

Re: A piece of Domestic Rotary History
 

:confused:

Daimler-Benz maybe

I think sonicrat is right i found a pic.

"http://www.pistonheads.com/features/rotary/xp882t.jpg

"It's a lesser known fact that Chevrolet acquired a licence for the Wankel engine in 1970. Two and four rotor engines were built and mounted mid-ships in experimental cars.


The XP882T used two rotory engines bolted together to produce around 400bhp

They went on to get Pininfarina to style a new Corvette around the engine as they considered production options. Various two and four rotor, steel bodied and glass-fibre bodied Corvettes were worked on until 1974 when retiring GM president Ed Cole suspended rotary engine development due to emissions difficulties. Research was halted completely in 1977.


Thats the only USA car i could find

getting Warm!!
 

You guys are getting VERY close to the truth.

I will post the answer with a couple more photos of this acquisition this evening.

I really am enjoying the interesting research and facts you guys are sharing with all of us, though!

Bah! Ive got a rotary history book at home in my car. ill have to look through it and see what else is in there.

Did it come from the Chevy Vega?

Ford. A friend of mine's dad actually has three or four Ford rotaries sitting in his garage. I keep meaning to get pictures of them. His dad actually was on the r&d team when Ford was trying to develop their rotary plans. Exciting stuff.

what was ford wanting to put it in? I guess since they couldnt get it right themselves, they just purchased it insted?

Get pics! I wanna see. :D

-Error402

Mee tooooo..

//magnus

Some more photos
 

Here are some more photos...
This will help reference the size of the rotor as compared to one from a 13B ('89 T2 I'm rebuilding-to be exact).

Enjoy...
http://www.dave-n-cindi.com/cars/rx7/2rotor41.jpg
http://www.dave-n-cindi.com/cars/rx7/2rotor38.jpg

A couple more photos
 

http://www.dave-n-cindi.com/cars/rx7/2rotor40.jpg

http://www.dave-n-cindi.com/cars/rx7/2rotor37.jpg

THE ANSWER
 

Without further adieu,

Here is the answer on the source of this wonderful piece of Rotary engine nostagia, directly from the person whom I acquired it (from the horses mouth you might say, although I am sure he wouldn't appreciate that reference :))
********************************************

"...the rotor was from Chevrolet's effort to mass produce a rotary to be used in the Chevrolet Monza. The Monza was designed specifically for the rotary application.

The engine was near production ready when the plug as pulled. And it wasn't just emissions. As I said last night it was also fuel economy.

The effort was essentially ended when Ed Cole retired. I'm not sure he had a say in the decision.

G. M. Engineering Staff continued a small rotary development effort after the Chevy program was discontinued.
I'm of the opinion it was mostly window dressing..."

********************************************

I was also told that GM injected transmission fluid as the combustion seal lubricant rather than the engine oil as used by Mazda to make life easier for the emissions control devices. Perhaps one of the origins for the ATF trick??

###

Please keep this thread alive by sharing all the wonderful wealth of domestic rotary history out there!!!

--Dave Foster

http://www.dave-n-cindi.com/cars/rx7/2rotor39.jpg

What about them??
We want pic's of them ...
//magnus

how did u get the GM rotor?

Part of the reason behind GM's decision to not produce the rotary-powered Monza was that Mazda was suffering under the perception that the rotary was unreliable, due to the early failures of the carbon-seal motors, and for a US maker to put one in a car would lend credibility to the design. -WG

very nice thread. :bigthumb:

I actually heard that it was a propaganda campaign by the "big 3" that was saying that the rotarys were unreliable and worthless, and it was all because they couldent get it right.
Damn American car companies....

I heard that as well, and it wasn't on this forum, so i guess such a claim (the one made by us about propaganda, not that made by the big 3) isn't totally unsubstantiated.

Another interesting thing, is that, looking at the two rotors, one would tend to think that better spin-up could be achieved by making the generating radius smaller, but having the rotor be thicker to take up the slack in displacement, thereby decreasing the overall rotational moment of inertia of the engine. Just a thought. Port design might become a problem, though, with a really thick rotor.

Thanks for all the great responses!!

to OC: Let's just say it was a Christmas gift from someone 'on the inside' that I know real well.

Happy New Year...

I also heard something about a rotary powered Mercades?? does anyone know anything about this???

Not to sound funny, but the Monza was my 2nd choice. :P The Vega, Monza and Pontiac Astre are corporate cousins so I guess I was pretty close. :)

Yesireee.

Here is a pic of the non-production C111.

http://www.der-wankelmotor.de/Motore...111-II_Z_2.jpg

It was powered by a 4 rotor 300+hp Wankel.

http://www.der-wankelmotor.de/Fahrze...cedes/KE70.jpg

This engine is similar to what was installed in Felix Wankel's personal SL. Cool eh?

http://www.der-wankelmotor.de/Motore...des/SL_400.jpg