CARinfo3D – The rotary or Wankel engine
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Readers!
My annual February birthday fund-raising drive for Behind the Black is now over. Thank you to everyone who donated or subscribed. While not a record-setter, the donations were more than sufficient and slightly above average.
As I have said many times before, I can’t express what it means to me to get such support, especially as no one is required to pay anything to read my work. Thank you all again!
For those readers who like my work here at Behind the Black and haven't contributed so far, please consider donating or subscribing. My analysis of space, politics, and culture, taken from the perspective of an historian, is almost always on the money and ahead of the game. For example, in 2020 I correctly predicted that the COVID panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Every one of those 2020 conclusions has turned out right.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
I remember the commercials still.
https://youtu.be/ElkuWqhL9V8?feature=shared
“This Car Is Running On Nothing But Hopes And Dreams”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGk1LOTxA6M
(1 minute)
I love that motor.
But it did have a few problems. It used oil badly. The apex seals needed changing too often. And the tires wore out even faster.
But they had a very high rmp limit and more than enough power.
I had a used Mazda for about a year back in the day. That thing moved. (And it was a girl magnet)
I can still hear John Cleese’s lascivious pronunciation of “Wankel “ from Mony Python back in the day,
It annoys me that there is more than one kind of engine that is described as ‘rotary.’ In addition to the Wankel Engine, there’s the variation on the radial engine where the drive shaft is mounted to the engine block while the cam shaft is fixed to the frame.
As far as I know, the only time it was used regularly was in WWI fighters, where they leveraged the gyroscopic forces from the spinning engine block for extra maneuverability. It also had a tendency to kill inexperienced pilots, because turning the wrong way on liftoff could tilt the nose down, leading the plane to fly into the ground.