I meant radial. B*gger.
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These are my own opinions, and not necessarily those of all Toads.
www.private-eye.co.uk/innews
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Radial? I think it's where the cylinders are mounted as a series of cylinders surrounding the crankcase/shaft. They rotate when the engine runs so usually are enclosed in a cowl. See most US Air Force engines in WW2.. Pratt & Whitney specialised in them. Hence the bulbous front (and poor performance) of many US fighters before the Mustang. See also the FockeWulf 190.
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Radial? I think it's where the cylinders are mounted as a series of cylinders surrounding the crankcase/shaft. They rotate when the engine runs so usually are enclosed in a cowl.
Yeah! Still don't get how it works!
I guessed the yanks used them. Corsairs etc...
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These are my own opinions, and not necessarily those of all Toads.
www.private-eye.co.uk/innews
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Toad,
Try this link
www.enginehistory.org/
Should explain it all!
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Toad,
Sorry to be dull, but try
www.howstuffworks.com/radial-engine.htm
That has to be the best site in the world ever. Unless you know different.
While you're on, as a biker, you should send me an email (see my profile) for an MPEG of a beauty of a stoppie.
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If you have a spare day and are anywhere near to Newark or Cambridge, the splendid Air Museums have plenty of engines to look at, ie, rotary's, radials, and in line multi's like the Rolls Royce Merlin. Also, in London, the Science Museum have many vehicle engines on display including, I think, a Wankel. In the aircraft section, you can see a vast range of all types of aero engines, ie, rotary,radial and some of those massive Maybach and Daimler Benz, airship engines.
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Toad, Sorry to be dull, but try www.howstuffworks.com/radial-engine.htm That has to be the best site in the world ever. Unless you know different.
Brilliant! Should have gone straight there! No indication of where the engine oil goes though!
While you're on, as a biker, you should send me an email (see my profile) for an MPEG of a beauty of a stoppie.
I think I know the one you mean!
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These are my own opinions, and not necessarily those of all Toads.
www.private-eye.co.uk/innews
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"No indication of where the engine oil goes though!"
Toad, it goes in the engine.
For God's sake, Mark, is there any way we can raise the intelligence of this forum?
V
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"No indication of where the engine oil goes though!" Toad, it goes in the engine. For God's sake, Mark, is there any way we can raise the intelligence of this forum?
I think we should work on the quality of the humour first!!!!
;-) ;-) ;-)
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These are my own opinions, and not necessarily those of all Toads.
www.private-eye.co.uk/innews
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A Radial is an engine with a fixed circle of cylinders and a crankshaft that goes round(eg.Pratt & Whitney).A Rotary is where the crankshaft is fixed and the drive is taken from the cylinders that are whirling around-spewed out oil and fuel in all directions(Gnome le Rhone 1917).To my memory Wankels either had very good bhp/litre or very bad on the same engine because no-one could agree on a method of calculating the swept volume(cubic capacity).
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jc, I beg to differ very slightly.
I regard an engine with the cylinders arranged in a circle around the crankshaft as a Radial engine irrespective of whether the crankshaft or the cylinders do the rotating.
In a rotary engine, the gas compressing element (e.g the Wankel rotor) moves in a generally rotating direction -- as opposed to a conventional piston which reciprocates in a linear direction.
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I think you will find that because a wankel does not have pistons in cylinders it is difficult to measure a swept volume.
Radial engines are those with the cylinders radiating from the crankshaft as per most WW2 american aircraft.
Rotating engines are accepted as being those with the cylinders radiating but spinning around a fixed crankshaft as per lots of WW1 aircraft this application has the prop bolted to the cylinders and no throttle, the engine was either running at full chat or shut down. To land these aircraft one had to switch the magneto on and off!
Rotary engines are the same as wankel engines.
Wankel engines were not only used in Mazdas. There is an aircraft engine wankel for light aircraft in production at the moment. Motorbikes that have used this engine are: Suzuki RE5, Norton Rotary, and NSU.
Cars are: NSU RO 80 and Citroen GS. I once drove the GS and it was perfectly smooth and got quieter the faster it was driven.
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>I once drove the GS and it was perfectly smooth and got quieter the faster it was driven.
How jealous does that make me? I only discovered they existed a few months ago - not being old enough to remember them first time around (but old enought to remember my parents having 2 GS's)
Richard
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madman
Citroen GS? No, surely this didn't have a Wankel engine - IIRC it had an extremely smooth running flat-four of about 1.1 litres. I'm pretty sure of this as a work colleague had one many years back, and it spent plenty of time with the bonnet up!
Regards
John S
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John,
Yep, most GS's were fitted with the flat four. However there was a small production run of wankel engined beasts - the GZ Birotor:
www.citroen.mb.ca/citroenet/html/b/birotor.htm
I don't think many survive....
Richard
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It's curious that the, otherwise over-enthusiastic, swear filter didn't amend 'wankel'. Presumably the software is american and the cousins aren't familiar with that word.
Something to be added to the dictionary maybe, Mark?
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What are you on about? Stop babbling and get back to subject.
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I don't think many Ro80 survive ;all the ones I knew about had Ford V4/6 fitted.
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this link offers a very good non technical explanation and gif animation showing how it works
www.mazdarx8.co.uk/rotary/rotaryhow.asp?documentid...8
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Wankel engines burn oil as they go. Just no way to seperate it from the combustion areas as it operates unlike rings and seals in a piston engine. Oil is injected into the wankel cavity to lubricate the tips of the triangular blob rotating in the middle. (see how the level of technical knowledge disintigrates before your very eyes)
Very popular in the US, don't expect much life from any in the UK that has done more than 100K without a total rebuild. (e.g. Old RX7's no matter HOW cheap they are, watch out!)
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20,000 miles was the usual tip seal mileage of an NSU RO80 Wankel engine, a costly thing to put right. I'm sure the Mazda engines have improved on this a great deal but it must still be a weak point, thus the need to inject oil as Dan so eloquently explained.
Regarding an earlier comment about swept volume -- this can in fact be measured quite easily but confusion arises as to whether you take the volume swept by one of the lobes or all three in calculating engine size. If only one, the power output per cc is very high - but so is the fuel consumption!
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If you have ever had the chance to drive a Mazda Rotary you will know just how good they are.My 1st Mazda Rotary was a'73 RX3 coupe in 1977, my 1st car top speed in excess of 120 mph when all my mates Fords would struggle up to 90 mph but about 20 mpg on 2 star petrol.The most recent Mazda Rotary i have owned was a '95 RX7 twin turbo straight from Japan,top speed too fast for me but the sound and power along with the fact that you are driving something so different is quite satisfying.Fuel consumption probably in the late teens though.
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jc, I beg to differ very slightly. I regard an engine with the cylinders arranged in a circle around the crankshaft as a Radial engine irrespective of whether the crankshaft or the cylinders do the rotating. In a rotary engine, the gas compressing element (e.g the Wankel rotor) moves in a generally rotating direction -- as opposed to a conventional piston which reciprocates in a linear direction.
In aviation usage the Rotary engine was the species of radial like the gnome Rhone where the cylinders whizzed round. The Wankel with rotating compressing element came much later.
The oil from the rotary aero engine has the special capacity of finding any exposed bits of the pilot, failing which it is programmed to go for the goggles!!
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