Zel's Fleet Blog - BX, Jag XJ-S, Sinclair C5, Mercedes 208D & 230TE, AC Model 70.

[van ordinaire]

Yep, it's definitely not right. This is the only in-car photo I immediately found (albeit a small one).



Tricky bit of finding info is that it was only sold in Russia, so finding documents about it in English is a challenge. Seems that the power unit was mostly developed for tractors, generators etc (hence the very conservative power figure) but someone figured let's stick it in the Niva and Riva and see what happens.

The first one (the oil filler is accessible, right at the back of the cam cover) I reckon is likely another Fiat or derivative diesel that someone has retrofitted.

Edit: Looking at it again, that's not a Lada engine bay...reckon it's actually a Moscovich!

ofio

Pug diesels were the retrofit of choice; there were a few French firms turning them
out.

[CitroJim]

Excellent progress Zel Coming along a real treat now, the back of that job is definitely broken now... Well done!

Mike, what you say about the RX-8 and maintenance is true but that's only half of it... Ignition coils fail and as each rotor chamber has two plugs, both are required and a failure is not immediately obvious, the resulting poor combustion and bore-wash (rotor chamber wash?) quickly does very expensive damage...

What it needed more was a spark failure warning...

Keep an eye on them and treat them with care and 80 - 100K is just possible.... Still rubbish for a modern car... Fuel economy is awful too...

I'd still love one though despite all the above!

[Hell Razor5543]

What was it you and Chris570 say about those engines, Jim? The natural state is either they are about to fail, or have already failed?

[elma]

Fascinating engines though. The mechanics of a triangle rotating off center on a rotating circle is quite wonderful to watch when animated. I don't understand why they didn't become more common as motorbike engines.

[demag]

Norton did loads of development work on them in the 80's before they went under. They built an extremely powerful racer that won the IOM TT. There's stuff on YouTube about it, it was classed as a 600cc bike but it frightened the big factories and they kept insisting it was1200cc because of the engine configuration.

Sent from my Wileyfox Swift using Tapatalk

[Hell Razor5543]

Rolls Royce attempted to make a diesel Wankel engine. It did cost them quite a bit though;

http://retro-motoring.blogspot.co.uk/20 ... ankel.html
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ ... RR-R-6.jpg

[CitroJim]

What was it you and Chris570 say about those engines, Jim? The natural state is either they are about to fail, or have already failed?

That's right James

Never knew about the diesel one... Rather interesting... RR also tried to do diesel aero engines back just before jet engines took off (excuse the pun) and the coming of the jet brought a promising line of development to an end.. Ricardo were heavily involved in this... Well documented in Sir Harry's Biography 'Engines and Enterprise'

Norton did loads of development work on them in the 80's before they went under. They built an extremely powerful racer that won the IOM TT. There's stuff on YouTube about it, it was classed as a 600cc bike but it frightened the big factories and they kept insisting it was1200cc because of the engine configuration.

I remember that one... And the other rotary bike, the Suzuki RE5...

Were there any other Wankel-powered bikes? Some dim memory says there was - a German bike perhaps? DKW?

[demag]

Van Veen I think Jim was a Dutch bike using a rotary engine.

Sent from my Wileyfox Swift using Tapatalk

[CitroJim]

Van Veen I think Jim was a Dutch bike using a rotary engine.

That was the one Dave Well remembered!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_Veen_(motorcycle)

[elma]

I saw a ww2ish era Wankel bike in museum as a kid but I can't for the life of me remember what or where. If only my parents were into engines too, they were there but will not remember.

[ekjdm14]

Good work on the injection, sounds like you'll be done in almost no time now.

I know what you mean about the gear selector light. It didn't take me long to learn where the gears are on my Xantia but the letters not illuminating bugged the hell out of me. I don't even look but knowing they aren't lit is just unacceptable.

RX8s shouldn't really need an oil light anyway, they use about 1L every 2 tanks of fuel so the owner should be totally on top of the amount in the ?sump? Do Wankel engines have sumps? With that rate of use wrong oils wouldn't be in there for all that long.

Same here, I've driven a few autos in my time & it's second nature feeling the detents from P R N to D and don't need to look at the display, but it ain't right if it doesn't light up! Now, illuminated heater controls would actually be of more benefit as well as being right...

I think the Wankel engine uses a separate oil tank but fitted where a sump would be, and you're right any RX owner should be well aware of the oil levels based against fuel ups as the oil is injected via a metered pump just like a 2 stroke. No excuse for the guy that ran it out of oil, none at all!

[ekjdm14]

Van Veen I think Jim was a Dutch bike using a rotary engine.

That was the one Dave Well remembered!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_Veen_(motorcycle)

Hercules W2000 anyone? that's the German one, not the Brit maker of the same name (actually the more I look at the transverse configuration of that, a concept no doubt copied from BMW, the more I wonder if Honda took some inspiration from it for the CX/GL series a few years later)

I love the "bog roll" RE5s, with the cylindrical rear light & instrument pod

[elma]

That jogged my memory, something else I was told about rx8s is they have to be thrashed to lubricate correctly. Not sure on the truth of it but it makes sense to me if they meter like a 2 stroke.

[demag]

Yes its strange most of these bikes were considered commercial failures but you will need a lot of money to buy one now.

Sent from my Wileyfox Swift using Tapatalk

[ekjdm14]

Not sure on that, although I have heard of some serious power builds running on weak premix as well as the injected oil to prolong engine life. Same with some performance 2T bikes as well, some prefer to run a very light premix on top of the oiler.

I can imagine that they wouldn't survive very well on deceleration/engine braking (at least what there is of it on a rotary), at least not unless there was some electronic "work around" to inject oil based on more parameters than RPM/throttle position. Wasn't it SAAB who employed a freewheeling clutch on their 2T cars to avoid oil starvation on the overrun?