Re: About the Wankle Engine

Greetings:

The first car to feature the Felix Wankle-designed rotary engine in 
production form was the NSU Spyder of 1963. Subsequently the major 
development of the rotary was left to the Japanese firm, Toyo Kogyo, who 
make Mazdas. But NSU, Mercedes, and GM have all built rotary engines and 
considered them for production. They have also been considered for powering 
light aircraft.

The definitive book on the Wankle is simply called "ROTARY ENGINE" by 
Kenichi Yamamoto published by Toyo Kogyo Co. Ltd. (Mazda) in 1969. This is 
a highly technical book chronicling the development of the Wankel by Mazda. 
Kenichi is an engineer and has risen to be the Chief Executive Officer 
(CEO) of Mazda. 

The History of the Automoblie is an interesting web site in Australia 
packed with interesting information:
 http://
www.pwaf.com.au/veteran/history/part8/page5.html

The following text answering your questions is quoted from the web site:

BEGIN QUOTE
"The rotary engine has two distinct advantages over the conventional 
reciprocating engine. Firstly it has fewer moving parts, a boon as far as 
maintenance and servicing are concerned. More importantly, the power which 
is produced does not need to be converted from one form of motion to 
another. With the conventional engine, the pistons which move up and down 
drive a crankshaft which converts the vertical motion
into a rotating motion. In the rotary this is not necessary. Thus in terms 
of power produced for the given weight and size of an engine the rotary is 
in front.

However, to date the rotary has been beset by a number of problems. It has 
always been something of a gas guzzler and there have been problems with 
engine life, many people finding that it has been necessary to carry out an 
engine rebuild around the 30,000 to 40,000 miles. The Toyo Kogyo 
organisation claim to have all the rotary problems licked and are quite 
confident enough to have staked their future upon it."
END QUOTE

The Hayes Rotary engine company rebuilds Wankle engines and you can find a 
photograph of one on their web site at:
 http://
www.hayesrotary.com/default.htm

Best regards, Your Mad Scientist
Adrian Popa