I was talking to a guy that said he co-developed the original rotary engine with Dr. Wankle himself at a VW show down in LA. (I have a rotary in my bug thats why we were talking) Anyway, I thought this story was pretty interesting , so I'll share.


He said that one of the the original prototype rotary engines was an aircooled single rotor engine with a peripheral port. The intereting part was that this engine did not use apex seals, no corner seals, and no side seals. and thi engine DID run! He said that because there was no seals, the engine ran at really high rpms. How high? well, the starter motor had to spin the engine a 10,000 rpm to get the engine to start. Idle was around 15,000. The engine would make its max power at around 30,000 rpm! It would have make more power but this guy said that this RPM was at the point where the oil would break down and sieze the motor. Imagine an engine running at 30k and siezing! I forgot how much power this thing made (but I am thinking 100hp).

I think this guy was telling the truth, first because he was pretty old, and second, he pulled out a very old looking rotary model of the first engine. he showed me that the prototype engine had the rotor housings spinning (instead of stationary housings like all current rotories) around along with the rotors, and eccentric shaft was fixed (I belive) .

Crazy stuff.

 

Yes, that was the original Wankel design.

The design we know today, with an orbiting rotor, was designed pretty much behind Dr. Wankel's back. He hated it, wanted nothing to do with it, and practically disowned it. "My racing horse has been turned into a cart horse"

 

Have maybe a pic?? This sounds very interesting....

 

yeh, the dkm vs the kkm, the origonal motor was scraped cus you had to disassemble it to change spark plugs, amoung other impracticalities.

 

Freaky monkey, look in your signature - he's holding a rotor/shaft from the "original" design. Notice that the rotor is part of the shaft.

I think the major flaw in the original design was that the "rotor housing" rotated inside a larger stationary housing. I couldn't begin to imagine the sealing difficulties, let alone the cooling difficulties!

 

See the DKM engine, top right:
http://www.der-wankelmotor.de/Motore...toren_nsu.html

 

Zenjoe,

what kind of motor did you run in your bug and what kind of tranny? also, how much power were you able to put out without stressing out the tranny? is there a rotary bug site by any chance?

 

Click on the link in my signature, I put up a rotary bug site and message board. I only have an estimated 150-160hp with my stock port 12a. The tranny was built and is handling the power fine. My tranny setup is good for approx 250hp. Stock trannys don't hold up very well, like shearing 4rth gear off of third (which is a $40 fix) and killing teeth off of second. If you need a built tranny to hold up to this amount of power, you will have to pay a whopping $600 for a fully built trans! (I love old vw's, everthing is cheap!)

 

Appreciate the link evil...

It would be nice if they would take a clue from the past and try and make a engine w/o seals. Mr. Wankel i believe said this could be done with a cermic(Im sure thats not right) engine. IDK seams like a good idea to me but then again im just a kid..

 

Wow. I never knew about the intended design of th engine. Now I am gonna be thinking about this for days. That design is just crazy. How in the world did he plan on sealing that thing? Not to mention cooling it.