Something other than a DFV..

[Robin Plummer]

In the 1961-1965 1.5 era. The 1966-1984 3 Lire era and the 1977-1988 Turbo era's what were your favouite engines and why? Do you know of any in existance today or being used in a difffernt type of motorsport?. Before most of you cry a DFV for 66-84 period!! Most teams had them so Cosworth had a head start. I am intersted in rare engines such as the Matra V12 and Alfa Flat 12 etc, or what about the Zakspeed In line 4 Turbo, the BRM V16 etc...

[This message has been edited by Robin Plummer (edited 30 January 2000).]

[Peter Mallett]

An interesting question because we all tend to forget engines until we think V12 Ferrari.

For me the Brabham Alfa flat 12 or the Honda V6 turbo were the engines of their particular eras. Its a noise thing.

[Michael M]

For sure a lot of these engines are still existing today, because also a lot of the cars are still there. As far I know some of the 1.5 litres had also used in sports cars, either as 1.5, or increased to 2.0. I remember that Lotus, Cooper, and Elva used the 1.5 ltr Coventry-Climax engine in sports cars, from 1100 cc up to 2200 cc, and one overbored 2.6 or 2.8 (?) ltr Climax engine has even used by Lotus for Indianapolis. Ferrari used the 6-cylinder in 2 ltr spec for their smaller sports cars, until they introduced the V8.

Similar the story during the 3 ltr era. The FIA changed the rules for sports cars (WC incl. Le Mans) to 3 litres for prototypes, only to allow constructors to use their 3 ltr F1 engines also in other categories. With some minor changes (increase of reliability) this has been done by Ferrari, Alfa-Romeo, and Matra. I remember also a Ford prototype with 3 litres, most probably using a version of the famous Cosworth.

By the way, anyone out there who can confirm the story how FIA changes F1 engine size from 1.5 to 3.0? Some years ago somebody told me that FOCA (or precursor organization) tried to convince FIA that 2 ltr engines are necessary to make F1 more attractive, and as FIA usually gives less than than they had been asked for, a 3 litre had been required. All constructors had been totally surprised when FIA really went to 3 litres, and nobody had a suitable engine at hand, because all engineers worked heavily on new 2 litre power plants!

In the 60s and 70s no constructor - even not Ferrari - had enough money to build an engine exclusively for F1. This changed in the turbo era, when more of the big majors joined the game, and more sponsorship money was poured over the scene. I do not know one single engine out of this era which has been used also for other categories. Most amazingly was the Zakspeed 4 cylinder turbo engine, which has been developed and built totally in-house by this small team! It never gained any real success, but to get it running at all I believe is more astonishing than any win of one the big names!

My favourite out of this whole era? No question, the Coventry-Climax! It started life as a simple fire-engine, and dominated motor sports for nearly a full decade. F1, F2, sports car WC, Le Mans, Indianapolis, you name it! Today you need 100 million bucks per year, and a staff of 200 "engineers" to have at least a shade of competitiveness, but in that good old times you only needed a sound and clear constructed fire-engine, a standard machined work shop, and some straight technical thinking in order to win races or even championships! And exactly that is the secret of historic racing (or racing history?) which is fascinating all of us so much?!

[yelwoci]

[CROPPED
My favourite out of this whole era? No question, the Coventry-Climax! It started life as a simple fire-engine, and dominated motor sports for nearly a full decade. F1, F2, sports car WC, Le Mans, Indianapolis, you name it!
#####
Isn't the Triumph Stag 3.0L V8 based on a Climax F1 engine design?
IanC

CROPPED

[Peter Mallett]

Ian,

Welcome to the forum.

U only like that engine cos it sounds like a Mazda rotary on speed!!!

You might like to enlighten us as to the dominance of the engine in the sportscar and indy categories because as far as I recall the Lotus won indy with a Cosworth.

The Le mans wins were Lotus class wins with (I believe) an A series engine.

Why not start a new topic?

[Michael M]

Peter, frankly spoken I never heard a RX7 rotary, is this really a failure?
May be the word "dominating" was not chosen correctly by me, as English is not my mother language. I don't meant winning, because of course you cannot beat a Ferrari or C-Type at Le Mans with an 1100 cc engine. What I wanted to say is that no engine in this period - as far I know - was so widespread and universal with concern to number of constructors who used it and the different championship categories where cars with Coventry engines had been put in the starting field. I'm still looking for the right expression - but sorry, I give up!

Concerning Indianapolis, I talked about participation, not about winning. However, you are partly correct. I checked it out, it was no Lotus, but a Cooper with Jack Brabham at the wheel, and the engine was a Coventry-Climax FPF with 2.75 litres, and in 1961 9th place was gained. Lotus in fact used a Ford engine, but Cosworth was still to come. In 1963 they used a modified aluminium-block 2-cam Fairlane V8, which was changed to 4 cams in 1964 and 1965. Construction of the Cosworth DFV started only in 1966, and as far I know it was based on doubling the Cortina 120E block, so I doubt any relation to the Ford Fairlane Indy engine.

[yelwoci]

Peter,
Sorry if you felt I was deviating, Michael M was refering to F1 engines that made their way into normal cars. Though never an enegine that was used in anger, the Stag engine was based on an intended Climax F1 engine (I think they changed the rules from 3 to 3.5L and CC gave up)

Michael, the sound of a tame RX2 is: http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homep...elwoci/rx2.wav
I'll try and record mine this year
Ian Cowley

[Michael M]

Hello Ian, so much interesting comments today that I cannot stop writing, also in the TC forum. No soundcard here, will check it out during weekend at home. I don't expect too much from the tame version, as I know quite well the rotary grandfather, famous Ro80.

Concerning engines, you are not correct, sorry. The theme was not F1 engines into normal cars, but into other competition categories. This was Robin's initial topic.
By the way, a very interesting and informative page about Coventry-Climax engines and their use in racing and road cars can be found at http://users.bart.nl/~franka/tech/cov_clim.html

Last CC F1 engine was the FPF 2.5 litre of 1967, the same the ran 1961 at Indianapolis with 2.75 litres, obviously overbored. So they never reached the 3 litres for F1, and even if, no chance to compete against Cosworth. Additionally, CC was bought by Jaguar in 1963, and Walter Hassan - the brain behind CC's performance engines - was finally back home at Jaguar. From 1968 on all was then part of British-Leyland, and I cannot imagine that anybody there had any interest in motorsport activities of that small doughter company at Coventry.

The BL connection would make sense with concern to the stag engine, however, I doubt this, as already in racing spec they never reached the 3 litres. Interesting item, which may be transferred to another (non-motorsport) forum.

[Peter Mallett]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by yelwoci:
Peter,
Sorry if you felt I was deviating, Michael M was refering to F1 engines that made their way into normal cars. Though never an enegine that was used in anger, the Stag engine was based on an intended Climax F1 engine (I think they changed the rules from 3 to 3.5L and CC gave up)
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

No critism intended Mr Coy Weli. I merely thought you might like to tell us about the history of Mazdas in world racing. Or just talk about noisy engines or racing history in general.

As a moderator I could easily remove your post if you get into any deviancy

[Robin Plummer]

Does anyone here know of any Rotary's in use in any form of motorsport today?

Also how do you work out the capacity of a Rotary engine? I noticed that multiple rotors affect this measurment?

Wha'ts the bigest and smallest made, and has anyone other than Mazda done any?

And last at not least don't forget Gas Turbine's what ever happened to them?

[Michael M]

Peter, any non-motorsport answers allowed??
Or will you drop my reply?

[This message has been edited by Michael M (edited 04 February 2000).]

[DAVID PATERSON]

Rotary engines are very popular in Australia in Club and State level racing. Particularly Club Cars (improved production saloons and Sports Sedans (Thunder saloons).

Many manufacturers built rotary engined concept cars including Nissan, Toyota and GM. I'm not sure how to measure the capacity of a rotary, I assume you measure the swept volume of each chamber and multiply by the number thereof. Mazda has built rotaries of 1.0, 1.2, 1.3 and 2.0 litres for road use. For racing purposes, they are multiplied by a factor of 2.0.

[yelwoci]

Mazda is the only auto maker still using ****els and all auto ****els were based on the NSU/****el patent and housing shape.
The difference in volume is created by the width of the rotor housing, making it probably the only engine you can its internal dimensions from outside.

The capacity is measured the same as for a piston engine, difference between min and max volume (=stroke*bore in boinger).
They then workout how much air is drawn in for every chamber to have fired.
The 12A (nominal 1200 or 1136cc) becomes a 2.3L for road taxation purposes (x2) and for racing 2.056L (x1.8 FIA)
10A, 12A and 13B (the letter kinda refers to No.of distributors A2, B1 so later 12A engines should be 12B) are twin rotor, the 20B is a 3-rotor based on 13B.

There are a couple of single rotor engines, notably on Norton and Susuki motorcyles, and the company that actual made the Norton engines makes them for military pilotless aircraft.

There are also some questionable new rotary designs if you seach the web.

OX2 http://ocnow.com/partners/autos/spec...enginebig.html
Quasiturbine: http://quasiturbine.promci.qc.ca/

[Peter Mallett]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Michael M:
Peter, any non-motorsport answers allowed??
Or will you drop my reply?

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Non motorsport abswers are valid Mr M. We don't delete posts for the fun of it.

Post away.

LOL. The Autosensor thinks that Mr Weli's favourite engine is a swear word. The name is W A N K E L.

[Peter Mallett]

Didn't the RX3 precede the RO80?

[This message has been edited by Peter Mallett (edited 05 February 2000).]

[Gary,U.S. Fan]

Thanks for clearing that up!

I believe U.S. Formula Continental open wheel cars all use Mazda rotary engines.

[Michael M]

Of course not for fun, Peter, but because they have nothing to do with the general topic of this forum.

Now, most has been said in the meantime by yelwoci, I would like to add the following.
The first car offered to the public was the small NSU W a n k e l Spider with 500 cc and 50 HP, followed by the NSU Ro80, with a double chamber rotary. The engine world got so enthusiastic over this principle that in total 25 licences had been sold by NSU all over the world, starting from Graupner (for mini engines destined for airplane models) up to Rolls-Royce (for real-size aircraft engines). This answers Robin's question concerning size, however, I'm not sure whether even prototypes had been built.

The biggest car engine really running in practice most probably was that of the Mercedes C111 experimental car, which had 4 chambers and 400 HP. Anybody interested in more details and complete list can visit http://www.millville.org/Workshops_f.../vehicles.html

[This message has been edited by Michael M (edited 05 February 2000).]

[This message has been edited by Michael M (edited 05 February 2000).]

[Michael M]

The licence to Toyo Kogyo as already granted in 1961, but it took Mazda 6 years to introduce the first production car, the Cosmo 110 in 1967. The RX-3 acc. to my info followed the RX-2 only as late as 1978.
The NSU Ro80 made ist debut also in 1967.

Found the absolutely perfect rotary site at http://www.monito.com/****el/****el.html


oops, the missing letters are of course:
w a n k



[This message has been edited by Michael M (edited 05 February 2000).]

[yelwoci]

Sorry about the 'selfabuse'el deletion!

The largest 'rotary' engines I know of are the 4 rotor Le mans car (last one I think) which was an awesome combination of Wkle technology.

Ceramic Coatings
3 sparkplugs per rotor
variable length induction/inlet pipework
variable turbo orifices
It was nominally a 26B, being based on two 13B's, I think rather than the 20B from the cosmo Exec saloon.

Hurley Engineering in Coventry have made 3 rotor RX-7s (RX-777) like mine and have built and installed a 6 rotor (3x13B) in an XJ6! Eh Hurley has a few housing bolts short of a full engine!

Unfortunately HE RX-777 is not homolgated for Grp1!!

:-)
IanC

[Chris Griffin]

Have you actually seen "The Thing" Ian. Wonder what the fuel consumption is like? How big would the tank in that have to be to cope with Spa 1 hour?

Chris

[Peter Mallett]

NASTY