Quote from Jakg :

( 5.4 / 0.5 ) * 180

10.8 * 180 = 1,944

(That's 1,944 HP btw)

Well i did say it was over 900 bhp

But no. Going on George's claim that a 2.6 Wankel is like a 2 stroke engine, meaning it's equivalent to a 5.4lt capacity. So a 500cc GP bike with a 2 stroke engine would be like a 1lt 4 stroke engine (it's not, but, who the hell cares ?). Meaning, you extrapolate up to a 2.6 for the 500, but up to a 5.4 for a 1lt....ermm . Nah, confused myself there. It's all bollocks to be honest...

You really can't work it out - but the point is that in the past people have got over 1,000 HP from a 1500 cc engine (admitedly turbo'ed), and with modern technology more power (or more reliability / fuel economy) could be derived.

now, do the two of you understand why i called such calculations 'weird' ?

lol

a good measure is HP per liter of fuel CONSUMED.

f1 engines are tEH BESTEST in that area, at least for n.a. engines

Quote from Jakg :

but the point is that in the past people have got over 1,000 HP from a 1500 cc engine (admitedly turbo'ed).

Yeah, i mentioned that very fact earlier in this thread.

Some interesting facts for those interested:

The most powerful F1 engine was the BMW turbo engine used in the Brabhams back in the 80's. In qualifying trim they were alleged to produce a maximum output of 1,500bhp. And thats from a 1.5lt capacity !. But these weren't exactly state of the art lumps of metal straight off the production line of some microscopically clean F1 laboratory like todays engines. It was a 1969 4 cylinder BMW production engine taken from one of these. They had to reduce the capacity down from 2.0lt to 1.5, and they only ever used ones that had done over 100,000 miles. And apparently they used to leave them outside in the wind, rain and snow to case harden the cylinder heads as this was the only way they could be made strong enough to take the intense pressures they were put under. One quote from a BMW engineer was" they were like well hung meat". And, they had to use a special 'heavy' synthetic petrol (that was originally patented by the Nazi's for "war purposes") otherwise the engine would have been blown to bits.

These engines were used in cars with no traction control or any other fancy electronics. And in cars with skirts and without skirts.

You can see why some folk say todays F1 is a bit tame by comparison

Quote from Mazz4200 :

You can see why some folk say todays F1 is a bit tame by comparison

and they would be off the mark, because then they didn't have to sustain 6g at bends or 5g when braking

The F1 analogy doesn't work. F1 cars' designs are hardly comparable to mass produced consumer cars.

Yes, it isn't, but it was an anology to this, which is hardly a mass production engine either

Quote from M3THANOL :

Rotarys suck , what u mean. Lets take the 1991 LeMans winner the Mazda 787b, powered by the pinnacle of all rotaries, the Mighty R24B 4 rotor rotary engine. A 2.6L engine that was naturally aspirated and kicked out 700Hp!, how can u say they suck, they are unique, sound great and when tuned propperly, will destroy nearly anything that get in their way

So where's the 1.3L piston analog to the Renesis or whatever?

Quote from Breizh :

So where's the 1.3L piston analog to the Renesis or whatever?

www.revetec.com

About the R26B... The fact that when they opened the engine after the race and it was almost intact and could have ran for another 48 hours straight proves that they are somewhat reliable... or not?

Another thing, a 1.3L rotary is equivalent to a 2.6L 'normal' piston engine, so yeah they are a bit lower on horsepower and their torque is not much better. And as someone talked about the sound, the sound of a tuned rotary is incredible (not to talk about the R26B..) and if you treat them right there should be no reliability problems (street use).

well
if i had a race prepped car, driven by a race driver, under controlled conditions, and looked after by dedicated engineers... yeah. i would expect it would be quite reliable.

Quote from M3THANOL :

Rotarys suck , what u mean. Lets take the 1991 LeMans winner the Mazda 787b, powered by the pinnacle of all rotaries, the Mighty R24B 4 rotor rotary engine. A 2.6L engine that was naturally aspirated and kicked out 700Hp!, how can u say they suck, they are unique, sound great and when tuned propperly, will destroy nearly anything that get in their way

Out of curiosity, why is it called a R24B when its a 2.6L. Isn't the number in the engine code usually the engine displacement (in decilitres)?

eg K20A = 2L
RB26DETT = 2.6L

Quote from george_tsiros :

well
if i had a race prepped car, driven by a race driver, under controlled conditions, and looked after by dedicated engineers... yeah. i would expect it would be quite reliable.

Is that the reality of the mass produced rotary engine? Accounting for the disproportionate development time that the piston configuration has had, compared to the rotary.

Quote from LewX :

Out of curiosity, why is it called a R24B when its a 2.6L. Isn't the number in the engine code usually the engine displacement (in decilitres)?

eg K20A = 2L
RB26DETT = 2.6L

It is called R26B not 24.

Quote from LewX :

Isn't the number in the engine code usually the engine displacement (in decilitres)?

Most manufacturers do not have displacement in the engine code.

Sorry, I did mean R26B, dont kno why I said 24, ha ha. And with those scarilly powerful F1 of the 80's, u need to also look at the pressure they were boosting at, 5 bar on flash readings, thats stupidly high, and with the rotarys, as someone said earlier, there isnt nearly as much time or money spent on perfecting them, mazda was really the only one. In F1 you have many different manufacturers fighting to be top dog

5 BAR WORTH OF BOOST????!!!! man engines were super tough back then!!!

Sorry to do answer something early on but as it went unanswered ...

Quote from IlGuercio :

Oh come on.You know that wankel is banned from lemans right? And guess why? Because it gives an amazing power to weigh and size ratio just on the engine itself.

Not totally right.

Rotary engines were banned for 1992 not because the 787B was to good, but to steer teams towards the new 3.5 litre option which was part of a megalomaniacal global engine formula that was going to include indycars as well.

They were always banned from F1 (or no-one ever thought of it), never were allowed in tintops and are currently an unused option for Le Mans Prototypes (IIRC).

M3THANOL, was that 5 bar in a race or qualifying? Supposedly engines were pushing out circa 1500 horsepower in qualifying at the height of the turbo era. However, you would be talking about just under two thirds that that in a race as it would probably blow up. Remember that qualifying engines were allowed then. An engine taking 5 bar of boost for three laps and then being rebuild after it is one thing, 5 bars of boost for much more than that ... BOOM!

Quote from duke_toaster :

Stuff about wankels

But they are allowed in F3!!! Nobody would bother, as they'd get raped, but it's nice to know they're allowed to.

Quote from tristancliffe :

But they are allowed in F3!!! Nobody would bother, as they'd get raped, but it's nice to know they're allowed to...

... get raped?

Quote from george_tsiros :

... get raped?

yes

fornicated by a reciprocating piston

I think wankel is really in a very early stage.You can say everything about it,but its just because no one cares about it.Car industries cant leave reciprocating engines and offer wankel as an option on a car.It qould be too expensive for them to produce and to develop in order to assure good reliability.Bear in mind piston engines have gone thru a long series of little improvements that ended up in the engines we have today.The engines on the ford T model weren't supposed to have all the clever stuff and all the performances of today's ones.F3 cars cant have engines like this because no one would risk their money,and Tristan well knows what risk teams are going into when trying something different.Audi got it right with TDI in Le Mans,but it has lots of money to spend in research...

Quote from IlGuercio :

I think wankel is really in a very early stage.

why do you think that? i think that whatever research is done on this type of engine, due to its very nature, will never 'give back' the effort. Too much fuss for little gain. For example: you want high-power low-weight engines? look at bike engines... you don't have to go rotary. (the last kawa 1l gives 170 at the wheel.)

With regards to the 5 bar reading yes it was for qualifying, but they still boosted around 4 bar in race conditions. Those engines were just FREAKIN strong, once again, lots of time and money invested in it. And about the F3 rotary car getting vialated, im not so sure. Those Formula cars weigh nothing and a rotary engine weighs nothing, yes there isnt a huge amount of torque but the torque curve is constant, it doesnt stop pulling, were as reciprocating engines tend to run out of steam, not all, but generally speaking.

Quote from M3THANOL :

Those engines were just FREAKIN strong, once again, lots of time and money invested in it.

what distance did those engines cover, before a rebuild/servicing ?

Quote from M3THANOL :

the torque curve is constant, it doesnt stop pulling, were as reciprocating engines tend to run out of steam, not all, but generally speaking.

generally speaking, they don't run out of steam (compared to wankels, that is). look at honda's engines, modern motorcycle engines (15K for 600cc, 13Krpm for 1000cc). most performance-oriented engines are like that.