The way the paper lands perfectly on the seat at 7:58 was either unplanned or this was take 23. Either way, the fact that Ryan seemed not to notice was the best part.
I live in the town where Felix Wankel had his workshop and lived while engineering the rotary engine. My mother knew him. Had a small dog apparently. He also developed a boat which could dive under waves. That's why his workshop is a few feet away from lake constance. The facility is owned by Audi today.
@@MrMrMrMrMrT Hitler invaded poland in september kicking off ww2...and its a bike from Germany. Hes saying dont get carried away like him...and Wankel was a "Not-See"
Rumour has it that Mazda has never actually stopped developing their rotary in their secret labs deep down underground. As a former RX8 owner, I sold before seal failure, I love the rotary and would love to have another….
you are right they are going to put a rotary engine in the extended range electric car they have now it going to run a generator to recharge the battery .
There might be truth to that! I've heard rumours of Mazda developing Wankel generators for use as range extenders in hybrid cars. They work pretty well at steady rpm! ~RF9
He is very good indeed. However when he stops playing Jeremy Clarkson he would be even better. But that is not mandatory, I have no problem with 2 Clarksons on this planet)
My parents were a Hercules dealer in the late 70's. Couldn't sell any of the 3 bikes initially sold to them by the company. So, the oil injector model(yes there was one you didn't have to pre-mix for) went to a business partner/investor. The 2 pre-mixers, dad road raced. One was a sprint race bike, the other the endurance bike. Never won anything, but never finished last. He ran them until about 1983.
Thats super rireous.my dad raced also but more like late 70s into early 80s.true hardcore kinda shit right there.i mean they had metal everything.and 4 wheelers were still bein tried out with 3 wheels for whatever reason.stupid lookin but do i still wanna try it out ? Damn well know it
there was one of them rotting for at least a decade outside a house (in athens greece) that as kid I would pass by it every day on my way to school (in the 90's), I guess the engine was dead and nobody could fix it.
They say the last 200 (or so) produced right when 1975 became 1976 had oil injection. They are easy to spot as there is *a visible "tube" indicating the level of the oil tank* on the side panel directly beneath the *second 'E'* in HERCULES that's painted on the gas tank. th-cam.com/video/1bni-fir4A8/w-d-xo.html
"I once went to Poland in September, It was lovely! you just can't get carried away" lines like this are an example of great writing! some of the best out there
This is about as funny as naming a motorcycle „Fat Boy“ and painting it in colors of the first US nuclear bombs, which this channel called „tasteless even for 80s standards“!
@@TR850 If you're past the age of 12 you should understand the MONUMENTAL difference between the two things. One is a joke, and fucking clearly so, while the other one is a massive wink to pro-war and pro-nuke motherfuckers, which amerikkka was and still is full of.
In 1974 I was in the Army, station in What was West Germany, and I remember the Hercules rotary engine motorcycle. I was fascinated by it but I couldn’t figure out how it worked. It was a nice looking bike and I still remember this weird motorcycle like it was yesterday. Thanks for doing a show on it, it made me fill young again.
I saw my first 1 in Spain, was amazed by it, plus my uncle had an early 1900s converted barge with a single rotory engine, which my father had to fiddle with to get running
"I visited Poland in September. You just can't get carried away."--Ryan, as much as I howled in laughter, you are definitely going to the special hell for that one!
These videos are some of the best on this platform. I'm not even a motorcycle guy and I can't get enough of these videos. They're amazingly well done. Keep up the great work!!
Rolls Royce made the compression problems and also the efficiency problems go away by using a two stage rotary. It made enough compression to work as a Diesel generator. In essence a supercharger/turbocharger hybrid. with a big compression rotary and a small rotary that used the compressed air from the big one and spat the remains of its combustion back on to the big one too. They were geared together. That still doesn't solve the lubrication issue, but it does solve the problem of how to get it to bang hard enough.
Seems like it would be more efficient to just use a supercharger as a first stage compressor instead of two wankels in a row? I’m quite sure that a Wankel rotor is far from the the ideal compressor.
You forgot the Henry Ford quote " The answer to the question no-one ever asked ! " i`m a Brit-expat living just down the road from the old NSU Werk who knows quite a few Ro80 owners, who would probably find this video a bitter pill to swallow. Am enjoying your work , well done. Nick
When the Suzuk RE5 was contemporary, the Australian Motorcycle racing rules counted the capacity as twice the single-rotor-face capacity, so for the RE5, it was rated as a 1,000 cc. Bit more reasonable than counting 3/3, or 1/3. RE5 was of limited practicality, but that didn't stop me from riding from Melbourne to Darwin and back again, one fine month, about 5,000 odd miles. I have one sitting in the shed, waiting for me to move into a residence with a garage (or should I say: into a garage with attached residence). Good vid, I enjoyed it.
Great. The RE5 wasn't bad ride at all (I was a mechanic for a Suzuki/Kawasaki shop in New York) but had some peculiarities that just wouldn't be overcome. The styling of the first incarnation was a bit off what was pleasing the market but on the road, it was pretty nice. There were some odd stories coming down the pike about servicing them, one: don't put one on a dyno or you'll stand the chance of melting the aluminum exhaust manifold attached to the engine. Synching the two carburetor throats was tricky but once dialed in, it didn't vary enough to cause trouble.
@@whalesong999 The RE5 seems really interesting, but if I'd walked into a Suzuki dealership to look at one, I think I'd have probably ridden out on a GT550. Even today I'd love to have a Suzuki triple. Park it right next to my Kawasaki triple.
@@JETZcorp So refined, the Suzuki triples. I liked them too. The 550 did have an issue for a time with the starter clutches engaging and disintegrating the starter motor during operation but the factory covered that well.
Long bloody ride mate, was it all bitumen? I (drove) from Adelaide to Darwin a few times.. from memory I rekn there was over 770ks of corrugated dirt..mate it shook my bus to bits.. How'd your kidneys go? Another note.. weren't Wankels & Rotax donks really successful in sidecars.. like for years? Loved revs, low COG & flew...
The greatest mystery from the ancient bath houses of Rome, “who’s Wenkel am I touching?” This has got to be one of the best lines I’ve ever heard. Omg, you need your own syndicated television show.
I only saw this machine once. It was extremely expensive, compared to similar bikes and I didn't have the money for it. I still remember the sales brochure with the very Teutonic models posing with the bike. It was a very handsome machine with extremely high build-quality standards. It's a shame it did not succeed but I remember it as one of the bikes "that got away."
I don't agree. Yes it was handsome but the really big Company Hercules went out of Business because it did not work and the development was so expensive. All Wankels, except Mazdas were shit, because the Odea of Wankel is shit.
I used to ride its nemesis, the Suzuki RE5 Wankel in the late seventies. Enjoyed your presentation so much I'd forgotten how first class you are your craft. Informative and entertaining, most others on YT don't get anywhere close.
I like how Ryan doesn't ask the viewers to subscribe and like his video. The viewers subscribe and like the video because they feel compelled to by the quality of the content and don't need to be pushed to do it.
If he did he would have more subs. TH-camrs do that because that motivates people to do it mostly unconsciusly. Because his content is Highest top tier material he get the subs anyway but if he do that then he would get better numbers.
Missing the most important feature of the Hercules. At the motorcycle shop I worked at, we had a couple of Hercules advertising posters that clearly showed that if you purchased a Hercules, topless Scandinavian models would happily jump on the back of the seat. I still have no idea why it failed. That should have been the biggest feature.
I don't know how you always keep this crazy good standard. I swear your videos are better than 70% superhero movies, they are like little stories with mythology history science. Thank you man.
I think Ryan & Co. (Ltd.) go for quality over quantity. I'm sure they could probably churn out a video every week, but I think the quality might suffer, and I'd hate to see that.
I've just "discovered" your channel and I'm absolutely in love with it! even tough I am not a fan of motorcicles the aesthetics are just plainly perfect
Only to the generations who do not know much. That engine, with out a energy eating rotating counter balance, (which both type engines have used), shakes a lot. Back in the day, I rode my buddies 1972 Artic Cat Panther snowmobile with Wankel engine and no counter balance. It shook like a paint shaker at Home Depot. You, the next generation, would not know that. But he is wrong---and that can easily be called a masterpeice if you don't know the difference. What story will a person speak, if they don't know? Nothing you can prove wrong.
@@eugene7518 Well, I never fell into the trap of buying a cell phone, and still I did not ride my bikes last summer. If many people prefer texting instead of riding,---mankind is doomed.
Back in the '70s I had an Artic Cat snowmobile with the same Sachs rotary engine, the engine size was called a 303 though. It was a good, torquey motor, and was able to power up hills that the more powerful 440s would spin their tracks on. I always wanted to try a Hercules with that motor. Reciprocating engines have had over 100 years of development by almost every car and motorcycle manufacturing company to get them to the high level of refinement they now enjoy. By comparison, the rotary has had only a handful of companies even get to the point of building development mules, and only one has made a serious production engine. I've always wondered where we would be if the rotary had been invented first. Imagine trying to convince a rotary engine manufacturer that they need to replace their engine with something that had 100 times more parts and vibrated like a paint shaker.
NSU made Wankel. Sachs Mazda Suzuki Many others . All came to the same end. Norton made them and it took them down the dead end to bankruptcy ( or they were dead anyway and clutched at this straw) AIE makes them today and is aiming at the Drone market .I have a sneaking suspicion that they have Norton roots. While an attractive idea it is inherently full of compromise to make the concept work.
in the automotive industry, Mazda used a rotary engine for it's RX-7 and I've heard they we're really nice cars. I think the oil and gas combination is always a pretty big turnoff, but I also think two stroke engines have charisma despite of it... You've got a good point with the historical development of both engines
@@Leotheleprachaun yeah, what I meant by mentioning the two-stroke engine was only using it as a comparison to a rotary which also burns oil inside the ignition chamber. But thanks! I really didn't know they used a two stroke earlier
It's been such a long time since I've even thought about Hercules bikes. Thanks for taking me down a trip through memory lane. I was always fascinated by these after seeing one for a ridiculous price in a magazine.
Hercules bikes is so way back then. As a kid I had one similar to this, a KTM with a Sachs two-stroke. Basically the same thing as all the others, just not Hercules
I owned a 1973 Hercules Wankel 2000 in the early 1980's. All spare parts came out of Quebec, Canada. You had to *WRITE A LETTER* with a list of parts (including part #) you wanted. They replied with prices for each item. You then responded with which parts you wanted to buy and included a check. You accepted it because it was the only way to get them!!! I can't count the number of times people asked me if it was a jet engine!
there was one of them rotting for at least a decade outside a house (in athens greece) that as kid I would pass by it every day on my way to school (in the 90's), I guess the engine was dead and nobody could fix it OR they couldn't get the parts... :-(
Wow, didn't they have Telephones in your Town? Or didn't they speak English?...... Did you have to translate your letters in to French first? Lol......
@@nickmaclachlan5178 They had a phone but wouldn't take orders over it. Probably too many mistakes writing down what another person said. Also, it may have been Montreal, not that it matters, and most French Canadians are bilingual. The parts for that bike were not high-turnover items and only one guy there knew them well enough to pull the orders.
Ah the good old days of pen and paper. . . Kids today don't know what they're missing. . . . Two days for your letter to arrive at its destination, one day for the reply followed by two days for that reply to reach you. It made for very drawn out conversations.
@@mark3427 I just this second realized why I've been so patient with my Amazon Prime shipments taking a week to arrive instead of a day or 2. It's because I was born in a time of, *"It'll arrive when it arrives. A tracking number? What's that?"*
Wankels are still going strong! I own a selflaunching glider (ASH 31 Mi) The engine is manufactered by Austro. I think it is developed from the Norton wankel. It is light, no vibrations and quieter than a twostroke. It is fuelinjected and has 57 hp. It works very well in this application. It has a separate oiltank, and mixes itself, and can run on 95 leadless car petrol. I have so far had no troubles with it.
The Austro AE50R only exists for special circumstances where high power to weight is extremely critical and fuel consumption and emissions are relatively unimportant. Powered gliders are a classic example as are milatary drones. This engine's fuel economy is pretty horible and its emissions are even worse. Fortunately it's not an issue in a glider because they have such small engines and they run for relatively short periods of time compared to their overall flight times.
@@nessie42786 When I was in my early20s there was a commercial sort of Go Kart track, they had suspension, that used an air cooled rotary engine. I loved that place. It was all timed laps. They went under pretty quickly.
I bought a new CBR500R the other week. Yesterday, a driver ran into it when I was in a roundabout. Now it’s in the shop getting repaired. I’m binging all of your videos until it’s fixed. You’re a legend, thanks mate.
"Ya just, can't get carried away" /me: has to rewind the last 30 seconds that I missed through laughing. That is some *quality* deadpan right there Ryan.
@@tahaks He says he went to Poland in September and basically didn't do anything crazy. Echoing the Nazi invasion of Poland in September 1939, except they "got carried away" and started World War II.
@@Zeebad101 Ryan means the Nazi's "started WWII" and the Poles were "carried away, " LITERALLY, to concentration camps, as victims of Nazi aggression.
@@1TruePatriot While I don't dispute that that happened, I think you are over-reading Ryan's joke because 1) It doesn't make sense that way, and 2) It's pretty tough to make that level of detail funny in this case.
@@chrispekel5709 Really? I have 42,000 VERY HARD km's on my 2017 939 SP, other than a chain, sprockets, and the regular service intervals it's had nothing done to it.
@Lassi Kinnunen 81 There was one big service around 30k that I did, they changed the timing belt and plugs, I think they checked the valves there too. Desmo valves are pretty much the best in the business in my opinion, much less to go wrong. That sevice was hefty enough though, I think around $800. I ride it very hard though, it's seen it's fair share of abuse.
Ryan, Sachs produced a Wankle engined dirt bike with leading link front suspension in the early seventies. It was a strange beast. A family friend kept his in my father's shop. It was an interesting ride.
The Wankel and it's many derivatives fail vs the conventional piston engine because of its very inefficient combustion chamber. It's cursed with a large wetted area to volume ratio so the heat of combustion is soaked up by the sides of the chamber instead of doing work. The best shape for efficient combustion would be a sphere which, of course, has the most volume to surface area. Nobody has yet figured out how to couple mechanical energy out of a sphere so we are stuck with the second best shape: the cylinder. The Wankel has good mechanical efficiency (but so does a two-stroke piston engine). The Wankel excels at getting a lot of hp out of a small size but that trochoidal combustion chamber makes it uncompetitive with piston engines whenever fuel efficiency counts.
we had an Re5 rotary ZOOK ! at our shop in Co Usa..10 years ago. Amazing. but i liked ( loved ) my dads Gt750 Buffalo MORE! I still flip my shitt when I seen one ( both)..Notice: The Herc W2000 has CO plates>? how am I NOT stalking this Bike ?? How did i not know it was HERE>? LOL RF9 might have it in BC Duhhh. Dave Longmont CO
Talking of " getting a lot of hp out of a small size " I was reading that MAZDA wanted to use a small Wankel fro Hybrid cars. Because of the size/hp ratio the idea was to mount a small Wankle to produce the energy needed by the main elctrical powertrain (or maybe for the batteries, so if you have an engine which reload the battieries, it increases your driving range). Which makes sense IMHO. Yes.. fuel efficiency of the Wankle is poor BUT not so relevant because of its size and scope.. I don't know how is this idea going.
@@x_mau9355 a big advantage to using an engine as a generator is that it can have a very narrow powerband, so it can be tuned for great efficiency and power output. Traditional car/bike drivetrains are limited by the need to have a very wide powerband.
I rented a v-strom 650 2nd gen from BC Cycle maybe 5-6 years ago. Great shop, professional, right in Van, great riding the BC coast, and now I'm about to roll over 100,000 clicks on my own beloved 3rd gen. Nice to see the joint again.
Felix Wankel and Oskar Heil were two German engineers who had an outsized impact on my early life. I'm 47 and had a modified 2nd gen RX-7 (non-turbo) from about 1997 to 2001. And I inherited ESS AMT-1 speakers back in high school that blew me away ("sound as clear as light").
The paper landed so smoothly on the seat, it's like even the laws of physics know your videos are perfect The ongoing tease to the crescendo amongst every piece other of pristine editing 😍 we do not deserve this for free Thankyou for putting out some of the best documentaries Ive seen
I own 4 sachs 303 wankel snowmobile engines, and honestly that was the perfect application for them. They aren't just air cooled, but are also cooled by the fuel mixture, which solves both the oiling and cooling problems which shortened the life of other rotary designs. One of mine has well over 4000 miles which is a lot for a 70s snowmobile, and it still starts and runs like new. In fact, very one I've found will run awesome after it gets fresh crank seals and a good week long ATF soak to break up carbon deposits. It was really the fuel crisis that killed them more than anything else. They suck down gas but make amazing and smooth power for their weight.
Wankel engines were not popular at all in snow machines, sold very poorly and were fairly quickly discontinued. Sachs abandoned all development Wankel engines in 1977 and sold most of the tooling and rights to Norton... who lost a fortune and went bankrupt.
Bull. Cat sold 10,000 Panther 303s in one year alone. They ran great when tuned right and we sold a boat load in the 1970s. Time moved on they got expensive and the Kawasaki twins took over for Cat.
Yep, it was mostly the fuel economy that killed them with the gas crisis. Phenomenal power density but poor fuel economy. I recently got my hands on a 75 cheetah 295 Wankel, it has a mikuni slide carb instead of the tillotson diaphragm, makes a night and day difference in the tuning. The tollotsons are temperamental on the roatries, but even swapping a 303 over to a mikuni slide carb makes the engine far more stable. @@glenmallory9982
I almost bought the Suzuki when it was new. Beautiful bike, a tamed tiger. I know it was a sales failure, but I rode that bike and there wasn't a thing wrong with it. One of the first water cooled bikes I ever saw. While Air cooled bikes were shutting down in traffic jams in the summer heat, this thing was purring right along. It came before it's time.
The RE5 was an epic failure that bankrupted Suzuki.. It's performance was horrible to compareable bike of the day. The Wankel engine is inherently unsuitable for motorcycle applications..
You are one of my favourite channels, and I'm not even a big gearhead, I just think you have a really good way of sucking me into your narrative and keeping me watching till the end.
Having owned an RX3 from new I had a completely satisfactory experience with the engine. Small, well laid out. Easy to work on. Smooth. Very powerful. Lacking in low end torque. Not efficient at low throttle settings but quite comparable with other powerful machines when the power was being used. It had antipollution equipment fitted before it was normal on other cars. The manual warned against rapid warm up. Be gentle and let it reach operating temperature before getting to gung ho. A good idea with any motor I might add. The engine was heavier than it looked so I did have troubles with getting bogged. Too much weight up front and not enough at the rear.
Engine weight was not the reason for the RX3s handling troubles, it was chassis design. The handling of the RX3 was so poor it made Mazda look back at chassis design and make it the core of every car they made after that.
@@lobsterbark Mazda has never been a high performance marque... it is still primarily a cheap entry-level car for young first time buyers. Mazda no longer has any factory motorsports programs.
@@sandervanderkammen9230 That has nothing to do with it's chassis design though. Every car they make, they actually put time and effort into making them good to drive and handle well. Most manufacturers do not give a shit, they have zero respect for their customers and think they are too stupid to notice when their car drives like shit. And they are hardly "entry level". Mazdas are noticeably more expensive and nicer than their competitors.
@@lobsterbark Yes, it does absolutely... as a rule, cheap cars have rudimentary chassis design. Mazda has always been a cheap entry-level car. Mazda's attempts to move into a up scale luxury cars have been complete and utter failures... Eunos, Amati and efini were all failures.
My old RX-7 used to run so smooth, the tach redline featured a loud warning buzzer to try and ensure you didn't spin the rotors right out the engine 'block'
I don't think that would actually happen, not at that lower rpm. One guy I was chatting with had 4x of those engines stacked (I believe with the stock turbos though), and he had it set for something like 12k rpm redline. Apparently stacking those is easy, but he didn't know for the RX-8 (which is what I have and would love a quad rotor, let alone a beast of an octa-rotor like he made). On mine you get this barely audible little "beep" I don't even hear 99% of the time because it's so soft compared to the engine screaming, but they have a rev limiter at 9.5k rpm anyways. It is incredibly smooth, I once drove like half an hour down the highway and didn't realize it was in 3rd gear instead of 6th (just purring away 7-8k rpm), oddly didn't seem to affect fuel economy...
@@jakegarrett8109 Mazda's first commercial for a rotary engined car had a song that went something like "A piston engine goes boing boing boing, but a Mazda goes hmmmmmm!" th-cam.com/video/oHzeGEHWMjo/w-d-xo.html
About 25 years ago when I was an auto tech we had a customer who had one of those 3rd generation RX-7s with the twin rotor turbo engine (twin turbos? I can't remember). That thing was amazingly smooth and fast. Driving it felt like the closest thing to riding a big-bore sport bike. Wouldn't want to own it and have to pay the repair bills though.
@@jfess1911 It should be more like "brap, brap, ptu-pOW!". I like how they brag about the quite noise, lol, though mine does have an exhaust mod probably a little louder than stock. I'd compare them more to a rolling gang or warzone on wheels with the occasional gunshot sounds after getting to 9.5k rpm and shifting with some nice flames coming out the tailpipes.
As a RX-7 "mechanic", I have PTSD to this day about the seals that ... don't. Not really. Unless spinning at a steady RPM... a single good RPM. I think Wankel's make for great generator engines ...
And when it only works with one good RPM, that is what you use. That is why Wankel's are used on generators and such that does not need a range of speeds. Other uses is being coupled with Continuously variable transmissions like in a snowmobile.
I had a buddy buy a dead RX-7 and we got it going with split fire plugs - the smoke was so blue and sweat smelling... I just patted him on the back and shook my head. 'let it go, buddy.' was my advice. he was like ' what does this mean? what does this mean?'
Definitely a fun engine design. I think a lot of people are drawn to it simply because it is different and unique. I had a couple of first generation rx7s. Actually they were relatively reliable. Never had any significant problems with him and both of them went past 150,000 miles. I think the 13B with fuel injection was probably the sweet spot on the engine. Fuel injection made it run a lot better, but yet was still early enough that emissions regulations weren't causing problems. Not long after that I think it just became a lost cause. There was no way you were going to get that thing to pass stricter emissions regulations. Without significantly increasing the complexity which kind of defeats the purpose. At the same time reciprocating piston designs got better and better forced induction increase the power to displacement ratio. And it kind of became pointless. I do think there is a definite place for rotaries. People have mentioned possible generators for hybrids. They do work very well for stationary power and constant RPM.
i reackon the carbon footprint of these engines might have an angle (pardon the pun) due to far lower manufacturing costs and components? you could get around the emission issue by using castor bean oil (a couple of oil manufacturers make some good products) there is a big rotary pop culture here in Australasia.
As for use as generator in series hybrid cars, 2 stroke Free Piston Linear Generators are promising. They have a common problem with the wankle. Oil needs to be premixed. Toyota might even be trying to run this engine on hydrogen.
@@GbMuthu You can have an oil tank and do direct oil injection.. many 2 strokes and the previous Mazda rotary's worked this way.. you can have low oil warnings for refilling the tank. I think the Mazdas had a reservoir built into the engine.. so when you did an oil change.. and poured in the oil.. it first filled that section... Then overflowed into the crankcase... And had a warning light for low oil. Been a while since I worked on one..
@@kens97sto171 pre mix or direct fuel injection, oil was always left to burn with the fuel. Not sure about wankle but recon might have been the case too.
Wow! I saw one of these Hercules at the hot rod show in Daytona Beach Yesterday and it was in about the same shape as this one. I was a Suzuki factory service rep when the RE5 rotary was introduced and one of my duties was to fix problems the dealer couldn't fix. I think I worked on every RE5 that was sold in my territory. I was never so happy to see a model dropped from our product line.
Yeah, for a lot less money you could buy a very similar Suzuki but with a proven and reliable 3-cylinder 2-stroke 750 engine that would out run the RE-5 and use less fuel doing it and run forever. So why did anybody buy the RE-5? Just to be different? Did former RE-5 owners move on to Tempters?
we had an Re5 rotary ZOOK ! at our shop in Co Usa..10 years ago. Amazing. but i liked ( loved ) my dads Gt750 Buffalo MORE! I still flip my shitt when I seen one ( both)..Notice: The Herc W2000 has CO plates>? how am I NOT stalking this Bike ?? How did i not know it was HERE>? LOL RF9 might have it in BC Duhhh.
I was lucky enough to begin my motorcycle mech apprenticeship not long after the RE5 had been shot in the skull. Amazingly the tech college i was sent to had one gifted to them, we ran it up on the colleges dyno one day and despite not really making any real horsepower it still managed to set fire to the ducting attached to the muffler.
7:56 you threw the paper and it landed perfectly on the bike, how many times did you do that take, or did that just happen?!?! Always enjoy your videos and how you present information!
I suffer from Chronic back pain and depression due to that, it’s currently 1am and as usual I’ve been woken due to the pain but these videos are a godsend, especially at this hour of the morning! Love your work man
I rebuilt a Mazda RX 3 rotary once (in the 80's); never seen so many "rings" (the compression seals do the same thing but are not round) in my life. It was very fiddly but quite fast since the "segments" bolted together in a jiffy and the bloody thing went like a robbers dream but did not like corners or stopping much, and you needed an audible warning siren to go off to tell you when to change gears as it was impossible to "hear" any revvs and when you did there was a rubber screech on every gear - even top (!) - until (I couldnt see the speed as I was terrified to take my eyes off the road) the thing felt like it was disintegrating and I wondered where the parachute was...Later in life I was a MC Mech also and worked on the Suzuki and the Norton so I'm cursed too...
This is a wankel rotary, initial-d made me fall in love with engine, and i did some research about this engine, and according to my research, wankel failed to replace the conventional engine we use today for a couple of reasons, number-1 it has an insane fuel and oil Consumption, number-2 the seals are Not robust, and number-3 the heat that the engine generates, is Not equally being distributed in the combustion chamber causing metal to Not expand equally thus shortening its life
The fuel and oil consumption isn't really that high. Regular oil consumption for the 13B, an engine designed to burn oil, is sometimes even lower than the advertised oil consumption of some Audi's and BMW's. The fuel consumption isn't really that bad for a sports car that makes some power. The seals aren't robust, but then again, neither are timing belts. It's just something you've got to deal with after a 100k miles. If you buy a rotary that was abused by it's previous owner, you'll probably have to replace the seals. But even that's not so bad. Fixing a regular piston engine with bad compression takes some effort as well. You know the issue, and know how to fix it. Take the engine out, replace those seals, clean her up and put 'er back in. The engine heat is not a problem so long as you've got proper cooling. Yes, if the engine actually overheats you've got some issues, but so long as it doesn't, the lifetime is fine. A rotary will run fine and reliably so long as you keep up with maintenance. You can slam the accelerate all you want as long as it's gotten up to temperature without reducing it's lifetime, in fact it'll extend it by removing carbon buildup. Maintain her well, like you would with any sports car, and the engine will treat you nicely. An LS7 isn't going to have a great time either if you slack on maintenance.
@@joost1120 i think the reason why mazda even bothered to make a wankel rotary sports cars despite the fact that the current conventional engine that we all use is already doing a good job on racing, is because they want a car with a really good "power-to-weight-ratio" to clear race track corners really fast and could withstand more abuses than the conventional engine we all use, and unfortunately they didn't do a good job achieving this, the best i could rate them for doing this is 5/10
@@joost1120 That is completely false and misleading. Wankel engines are horribly unreliable and much less durable than reciprocating engines. Bullshit, if they were cheap and easy to repair we would see alot of Wankel engines still running. Wankel engines are obsolete technology today because they cannot compete with reciprocating engines.
@@zackrider3708 Not really true, Toyo Kogyo Cork ltd (now Mazda) was a bottle cap and cork maker before it made motorized scooters using engines bought from other manufacturers. When they became a Wankel-NSU licensee they had no engine technology of its own, Mazda was betting on the Wankel to give them a competitive edge in sales without having to develop its own new engines in-house. Unfortunately in 1970s with the OPEC Oil Crisis Mazda has no fuel efficient engines and went bankrupt, Ford Motor Company bought Mazda from a Japanese bankruptcy court auction and began selling Ford designed reciprocating engines in Japan and for export.
Suzuki lost a lot of money on each RE5 they sold, but I once read that their development of apex seals ended up being what mazda needed to fix their own problems, so paid suzuki royalties for their designs for many years. So in the end it did work out for both companies. Rotaries were the engine of the future in the late 60's and into the early 70's until the problems with building and especially reliability were too big to deal with. Add to that poor economy and high emissions and everyone but Mazda gave up. Mazda may have yet another rotary powered car in the works, and anyone who drove their cars for a while will tell you the rotary is a real experience, and good one. They're actually a lot of fun and quite powerful, and easy to tune for more. I fell in love with the Rx8, almost bought one, but 16 MPG on premium was too high a price to deal with. The chassis and driveline of that car are amazing though.
@@todydn Mazda's rotaries had a pump that added engine oil to the intake the whole time. So yeah, adding oil was normal. Early ones had an interesting cold start system that pumped antifreeze into the intake as well. I never saw the couple people with old RX's use that though.
@@sandervanderkammen9230 Mazda is still around and often talks about a new generation rotary. I drove and almost bought an Rx8, the test drive was amazing, one of the best little cars I have driven, and i still love rotary engines. Everyone else that tried building rotaries eventually failed except mazda.
The Wankel is an interesting engine, I used to have a 1984 Mazda RX-7. The engine was only good for about 100,000 miles, but that little engine could turn the RPM. I ran mine at around 10,000 RPM in 2nd gear for about a mile and backed off because I was running out of road, as I was delivering it to a dealership for trade.
Lol far from truth my 85 gsl has 200k+ and still going strong and that's out of the original 12a that unreliable rumor is bullshit, little more maintenance than a Honda civic but it's not a Ferrari . Absolutely love rotary engines, I own an 85 Gsl and the base model Gs, along with a second gen turbo ll, both the first gens ran well past a 100k, I only built the GS because I had some port work and clearancing done, to match my intake and exhaust work. Cheers to any fellow rotary enthusiasts
@@2strokejunkie686 Its not a rumor, it is a well-known and understood thar the Wankel engine is inherently unreliable and inferior to reciprocating engines it failed to replace. Mazda abandoned all development of Wankel engines in May 2009 after going bankrupt over the RX8 fiasco.
@@sandervanderkammen9230 was mainly because emissions and fuel economy, half of you who say this nonsense, have never even owned one, there is less to go wrong with far fewer moving parts, only weak points were the many seals the rotors require..my Rx7s have outlasted many of mine aswell as friends piston engines, even in high performance applications....only good for 100,000 my ass go sell that to someone else, cause I dont buy it. They only sold them since the 70s into the 2000s lol pretty damn successful, mazda capitalized on the design so to speak and is a big part other makes didn't go the rotary route. So much success they were even Deemed over efficient just like 2 strokes with unfair advantage in a racing sense, I agree much more suited for such use, but the whole unreliable rumor is absolutely bullshit.
@@2strokejunkie686 You sir are a big fat liar, the Mazda RX8 met or exceeded the strictest emissions regulations in the world right up until production ceased due to lack of sales.
My dad owns a Hercules W2000, after regretting selling his Suzuki RE5 earlier. It doesn’t run but we’ve made it a pet project to get it rebuilt and working again. It’s so much fun working on something unconventional!
Another unusual use of the Wankel design I've heard about is in an explosive actuated seatbelt tensioner. In a crash a small charge goes off which spins a Wankel rotor that winds up the belt. I don't recall which make and model(s) used or may still use them. It would be interesting to see if one could be adapted to running on air or steam.
I’ve watched a LOT of your videos, and I think I can put my hand on my heart and say THIS IS THE MOST ENTERTAINING one you’ve done!!! Love the humour, love the tech talk, and completely fascinated about where you dug that bike up from, you don’t see things like that here in the land of Oz. Thanks for making my day!
Have never riden a motorcycle in my life and I have no intentions of changing that. I watch this show because of the quality presentation. This could easily be in line as the "Top Gear" of motorcycles. "I went to Poland once in September, just don't get carried away". ~ Priceless
Not priceless, but rather embarrassing! The Nazis were Germans who invaded Poland in 1939, then made concentration camps and began killing Jewish, Polish and other nations. So this "joke" is misleading and very inappropriate!
@@quijadriss7650 Maybe I overreacted, but the point is that if someone does not know that the Nazis were Germans, this "joke" may mislead that they were more or less connected with Poles.
@@PabloKatassi I get that for some this humor may be taboo. Keeping in mind there was no idealization of what the Germans did, nor anything at the expense of the Poles or Jews, I interpreted it as as clever historical reference. I can certainly see how recent events may stir up a lot of emotions around such topics and can understand strong reactions. I think it is clear though that such a slight was not the intent of the presenter.
I loved the Honda Sabre 600 I had. It was almost as smooth as an electric motor compared to the 250 and 550 singles I had. And my one memory that really showed me how smooth it was, was trading bikes while riding a friend that had a Kawasaki 1100. And riding along at 65 or so and thinking I need to shift up one more time based on vibrations I was feeling. And when it would shift up anymore looking down an seeing I was doing a couple thousand less rpm but it just felt so much rougher!
My first bike was a Hercules k125 BW V1 and it also ran on 1:25 Oil/Fuel. My mates asked if I could wait a little after the end of the school day before riding home because of the plumes of smoke that bike created and they didn't want to be behind me.
I rode the K125 while in the army as a dispatch rider. Smoked as hell and had a tendency to overheat and piston seizures, plus the front moved up on braking due to the weird fork construction.
This video is so well put together, it‘s a piece of art and a pleasure to watch. Also gives me a hometown vibe, counting 16 years in Austria and being from North Vancouver. Thanks for the awesome content!
Rotaries were only simple in parts count not production considerations. Remember this was also the era of the great two strokes which were far easier to modify for more hp and so easy to top end overhaul it was casually done in the pits between races.
Plus Germany at the time had limited world resources thus having to invent items that were limited parts and easy to work on but still work. Everyone they did in wwII was pretty much that way out of necessity.
@@Ja2808R The Wankel in any modern sense is not about WWII. Production considerations favor cutting and turning cylinders not trochoids whose sealing considerations are more demanding than those of piston engines. Rotaries are cute but severely limited so they lost in manufacturing and the marketplace. Rotaries are difficult to remachine when worn vs cylindrical bores a decent hobby machinist can produce on manual tooling at home (many early engines were prototyped in shops inferior to what a decently equipped modern hobbyist takes for granted). I can take a brass era T Model Ford engine block and have it bored to spec on modern equipment or anything between the early 1900s and 2022. Not so for worn Wankel wear surfaces. To put it bluntly the Wankel sucks and is much more exciting in theory than practice. Wankel was exhaustively evaluated then abandoned as it's barely even a niche engine. (Ultralight aircraft are easily powered by more maintainable engine designs so most are.) Wankels just aren't very good engines but were seductively close until reality set in.
A Sachs engine with a Bing carb, nostalgia overload! 12 year old me had so much fun with a Crescent Compact powered by a 50cc Sachs two stroke with a Bing carb :) Never saw a Wankel version though so truly enjoyed this vid!
8:05 Of course in Germany insurance does not depend on engine size, it therefore does not matter if the engine is a 294 or 882cc engine. What does determine insurance group is power and one cut off point is 27hp which accounts for the W2000s relatively low output. The thing that killed it in Germany is the fact that Wankel engines are very, very thirsty and 7.2L of 2stroke mix for 100km is a LOT for a 27hp bike. You forgot the first commercial application of the Wankel by car maker NSU. Their rotary proved so unreliable that drivers greeted each other by holding up the number of fingers which corresponded to the engine replacements they had received under warranty. NSU went bust, got bought by VW and then reborn as Audi sans Wankel engine.
Citroen further developed the rotary engine of the NSU Ro80 but offered them for two years; only around 850 Citroen GS were built before they dumped that motor.
Old friend had an NSU. It was turbine smooth, even at very high speed. Beautiful build quality for the time period. Solenoid operated clutch, worked by button/switch on top of the stick shift. Three speed I think. He had a second one with a Ford V4 Transit engine in it. Rough as a bears harris. Put the original into long term storage in the 80s. Wonder if he still has it🤔
@@PrimoStracciatella Even without the engine the Ro80 was way ahead of it's time. If you look at it in profile the '68 Ro80 looks remarkably similar to the '92 Citroën Xantia, just adjust the size of the light clusters a bit (smaller in front and larger rears). It also had a smooth underside which even created a little bit of downforce at high speeds.
Hi Ryan! Your videos are the BEST thing on the internet. Everything about them is pure gold. I usually watch videos at 1.5X speed but I watch yours at regular speed to savor every second of them. Please never stop making them!!
If a person listens you give all the facts are delivered with humor. I have that exact motorcycle. I bought it at auction from a Triumph dealer that went bankrupt in 1989. It has 120 miles on it. I have tried to sell it but nobody wants it. It is in my "barn" and I forgot about it until I saw your video. I rode it a couple times after I bought it, was not impressed. Been parked for 30 years. I sold most the Triumph's and Norton's I bought at same auction. Some I keep and ride.
Clicked on the video out of curiosity, got interested when you mentioned wankel engine since I love Mazda's, then ended up staying and watching the whole video because of how good the story telling was. I have now liked and subbed!
@@PedroPioLopes Mine still runs, it's light weight, easy maintenance, and so smooth I once ran it 7-8k rpm for over a half hour on the highway before I realized it was in the wrong gear (didn't seem to affect my fuel economy either). I go by Smiles Per Gallon, not MPG, and almost nothing puts such a huge smile on my face that it's actually painful and I actually have stretch marks on my face now (and I'm 26)
@@PedroPioLopes Well yes, its a baby sub-250 pound engine that fits in an 18" cube that's NA. I think they should have came with turbos, otherwise its barely beating the GSX-R 1000cc bike I'm looking at in terms of power/size, also they set a very low rpm limit at 9.5k rpm stock instead of something more reasonable like 12k. Mine I've had to do very little maintenance, the most unreliable thing are the headlights... Why can't they make headlights last as long as the ones on my 30 year old Mercedes? Trying some LEDs now, otherwise headlights would die every 6 months (and I don't do much night driving). Second most unreliable thing are coil packs, you basically want to change those every time you change a sparkplug! Why do stores only carry 1x coil pack? I had to bike over to several stores just to replace 2 of them, you can't even get a matching set without ordering them (maybe the mixed brands is part of it having 4 different brands of coil packs, but I'm sure they are same assembly line). That's basically it, for maintenance I try to remember to change the oil relatively on time (also don't follow the suggested oil, use heavier), change the oil filter every other time, and I dump a random amount of 2 stroke oil in the tank when I'm filling up (a good portion always ends up on the side of my car, meh, whatever, clean it off when it gets on the brake disks). I also make sure to redline it every time I drive it, you do that and you're golden, drive it like you stole it (burns out the carbon from the cold side), its quite easy and make sure to thrash it and you won't have much issue!
I remember as a grade-schooler hearing the AM radio spots for Mazda cars and pickup truck (singular, they only had one p/u model on offer at the time). The radio ads really ripped into the shortcomings of the piston engine but, as their tagline at the time stated, " . . . the Mazda goes h'mmmm . . .". I recall Mazda transitioned to piston engines with a new pickup truck model, which was introduced in the U.S. market as the Ford Courier, and shortly afterward sold the same truck under their own badge in the U.S. as well. Interesting bit of information about the drone engines. I wonder if the relatively lower noise and vibration were factors in selecting rotary engines for military drones. I guess I could check out if there are rotary model airplane engines to give an idea.
Wankel engines are very poorly suited to aviation applications. They are significantly louder than reciprocating engines and have less payload and loiter time because of high fuel consumption. The U.S. military, the largest user of UAVs no longer buys any drones with Wankel engines due to poor performance and reliability problems.
Mazda launched a new line of car models in the 1970s all powered by Wankel engines, they imediately flopped and Mazda went completely bankrupt. In 1979 FORD bought Mazda from a Japanese bankruptcy court auction. Ford owned Mazda until 2008.
Back in high school I lost a drag race to a guy in a Mazda pickup running a turbo RX-7 motor. Those pickups are really rare. I'm 50 and that's the only one I have ever seen. Those motors get horrible mileage for the power they produce. A friends NA RX-7 got 12mpg. It had a header and glasspack "muffler" on it but it was not a good sounding motor.
Liquid Piston made rotary engine which looks line inside-out Wankel which apparently has much better fuel efficiency and power than Wankel engine. What is interesting is that Wankel himself also was considering shape Liquid Piston made, but wasn't able to seal it properly. Who knows, maybe if he would succeed all engines now would be Wankel engines.
Due to the fact the points of the 'triangle' are where the combustion chambers are, they can make that quite a bit more efficient. you still have apex seals too (twice as many of them in fact!) but they can be much bigger and chunkier because they're not moving. So it does have some promise. it's also freaking *tiny* for how much power it makes.
Liquid piston made the combustion chamber triangular and the rotor oval the inverse of traditional rotors which allows three combustions for every one revolution as opposed to one combustion per one revolution. This solved the efficiency part of the problem the fatal flaw with any rotary engine is the sheer amount of surface area that has to be sealed and lubricated at the same time.
Liquid piston's solution fixes some problems and aggravates others. E.g. they can get better combustion chamber geometry and maybe fewer issues with apex seals, but the flipside is that the porting situation is a bit bonkers (air and exhaust have to pass through the inside of the rotor) and the asymmetric heating problem that caused lots of issues in early rotaries is made even worse because the same side of the rotor faces every explosion... and unlike the housing of a normal wankel, you can't put a water jacket there to soak up the worst of the heat. It seems that their solution to this is to blow extra cooling air through the inside of the engine, which is probably needed for it to work at all, but air never cools as well as water.
@@DFX2KX The fact that the apex seals are stationary also means you can run regular gas and thus fuel injection, and have the oil sitting happily OUTSIDE the engine, not being spewed out the exhaust. Also, blowing extra cooling air + just running air to gas = this engine will turbocharge like a madman. Wankel's nail in the coffin was emission standards anyway. Two-strokes will suffer the same fate.
LOL, pretty good. I attend the Vintage Festival at Barber Motorsport Park every year and there has been both Hercules and Suzuki Wankels displayed there. Ryan did a good job of explaining why the engine was a failure.
Back in the late 70s there was a race team that had a fairly fast racing sidecar on the motorcycle and sports car tracks. Don't remember the team name but, they were liked by fans. I think it was a Mazda rotary engine in it. Rotary for sure, though.
You mean back in the 70s and 80s when races were like war! You got them all, foreign and domestic! Even if you didn't have cable! Especially tracks that were in your state! Now no one covers any of the non circular US racing events w/o special expensive channels! Shame!
I grew up in Yorkshire (UK) in the 70's and there was a chap on our road who raced a Norton sidecar with a 750cc engine (he would give the kids a ride up and down the street) then swapped it out to a ex Police Norton Rotary in the mid eighties. Only at club level but he seemed to do okay and definitely spent less time rebuilding the rotary than the Commando.
Look up: Inventor: "Nikola Tesla", Name of Invention: "Bladeless Rotary Turbine Engine", approximate date of U.S. Patent: 1890. One moving part, ZERO vibration, can be made to run as an "Internal Combustion Engine", also works with high or low-pressure steam, compressed air, gases, etc. (It's roughly based on his patent of ~1870, a water pump.)
It produced incredible rpm but no real torque, the basis of molecular interaction with the surfaces of flat disks is not sticky enough even with steam. You can stack CD's and make one.
It works well as a pump for viscous liquids bit is not as efficent as a blade turbine. It also has trouble with steam as the discs warp due to the temperature gradient caused by the expanding steam. This gets worse the more you scale it up.
The history and complexity you present on your channel is nothing short of amazing. Thanks for your constant digging and hard work to bring us all of these gems.
I had a Mazda RX7 (also with a rotary engine) and it was an awesome ride in its day. Engine burned a bit of oil (by design) but it was otherwise great. The interior panels and automatic windows kept falling apart, but the drivetrain and suspension were solid. If someone made a rotary motorcycle I’d happily use it.
@@jif4639 No I just meant that the engine doesn’t have isolation between fuel and oil, so like a two stroke engine, it must have oil in the combustion chamber. I’m not disagreeing with what you said about dirty oil, just that oil and fuel (mixed) is a requirement. I just meant that the engine MUST burn oil to function.
@@keithanderson6358 The point of adopting the superior method of metered oil injection on the 4-Stroke Wankel engines is so the oil is not burned with the air/fuel charge, if the oul is burned in the chamber its not available to lubricate the apex seals.
Our family had a 1972 Artic Cat 303 Panther with an air-cooled 2-stroke Sachs Wankel engine. That thing sat all year long in the woods and fired every time in two pulls with old crappy gas. Slow as a farm tractor but we had that thing until 2001 and never did a thing to the engine. The sled constantly needed rollers or some other crap but the engine never needed anything. The started recoil broke two years after we got it but we used a piece of clothesline for 30 years. Brap Brap Brap.
The way the paper lands perfectly on the seat at 7:58 was either unplanned or this was take 23. Either way, the fact that Ryan seemed not to notice was the best part.
Totally caught that. Had to be some sort of editing magic.
@@JCrozier1 next tilktok challenge. Forget bottle flips... we're on to 3 hole binder paper tossing now.
Agreed... plus did you note none of the paper he tossed while walking was visible behind him?
Thats what stuck out the most in this vid...was it PFM or , cut...retake
@@kyphilburg extra points if you manage it on the seat of one of those, as common as they are
You're not a reviewer, you're a story teller, and that's amazing!
Unless its a story about an electric bike
and a litter bug
Your pfp seems like giga but from Walmart
both
@@owenbaxendale540 there is nothing funny to say about electric bikes... they're just sad.
I live in the town where Felix Wankel had his workshop and lived while engineering the rotary engine. My mother knew him. Had a small dog apparently. He also developed a boat which could dive under waves. That's why his workshop is a few feet away from lake constance. The facility is owned by Audi today.
That's amazing
BC could really use that submersable tech right now!🌧️
Interesting! I did come across his hydrofoil-ish things: de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gleitkufenboot ~RF9
Wait. Is it that small Audi thing inbetween Bregenz and Lindau?
@@FortNine spelling Gleitfukenboot is more better
"I once went to Poland in September. It was lovely! You just...can't get carried away"
OMG
😂😂😂
I wonder if he was in Ackron Ohio🙂 nice this time of year
Man, I really tried, but I don't get it!
@@MrMrMrMrMrT My guess is don't invade it
@@MrMrMrMrMrT This was a line from the Harvey movie😁
@@MrMrMrMrMrT Hitler invaded poland in september kicking off ww2...and its a bike from Germany. Hes saying dont get carried away like him...and Wankel was a "Not-See"
“The scariest philosophical question born in the bathhouses of Ancient Rome. Who’s wankle am I touching…. “
F9 is truly a wordsmith and a poet
liked for this phrase alone. hilarious!
Who’s wankle am I touching...?
A question that needs to be asked more often I suppose....😅
*whose
Word
@@JCBigCat Are you absolutely certain the correction shouldn't be: "Who is Wankle? Am I touching...?"
Rumour has it that Mazda has never actually stopped developing their rotary in their secret labs deep down underground. As a former RX8 owner, I sold before seal failure, I love the rotary and would love to have another….
They are awesome when they aren’t broken, lol.
Same! Bought my RX-8 at 12k miles and loved every day of it until 55k. It was a thrill to ride at 8k RPM.
you are right they are going to put a rotary engine in the extended range electric car they have now it going to run a generator to recharge the battery .
There might be truth to that! I've heard rumours of Mazda developing Wankel generators for use as range extenders in hybrid cars. They work pretty well at steady rpm! ~RF9
@@FortNine The Mazda MX-30 should be soon available with a Wankel range extender. As you said, it'll work at fixed operative condition
This is a Netflix series for motorcycle lovers. Period.
Was not expecting to see you here. :)
Unless you like electric motorbikes
I thought from listening to the video that it was part of a series for rock music lovers. We don't get to hear the motorcycle properly at all.
No you're on your period. Also so is the fem bot in the chat.
I don’t even like motorcycles but I like to watch for the entertainment value and beautiful videos overall
This guy is truly a great presenter. Not sure if he’s the writer as well but both writing and presentation are extremely entertaining.
He is a writer
Can we all agree that Ryan from Fortnine is a freaking living legend in the motorcycle community.
I want to ride his Wankel!
Don't forget the video team, the quirky edits are part of the charm
Living legend.
He is very good indeed. However when he stops playing Jeremy Clarkson he would be even better.
But that is not mandatory, I have no problem with 2 Clarksons on this planet)
Just on. TH-cam all together
My parents were a Hercules dealer in the late 70's. Couldn't sell any of the 3 bikes initially sold to them by the company. So, the oil injector model(yes there was one you didn't have to pre-mix for) went to a business partner/investor. The 2 pre-mixers, dad road raced. One was a sprint race bike, the other the endurance bike. Never won anything, but never finished last. He ran them until about 1983.
Thats super rireous.my dad raced also but more like late 70s into early 80s.true hardcore kinda shit right there.i mean they had metal everything.and 4 wheelers were still bein tried out with 3 wheels for whatever reason.stupid lookin but do i still wanna try it out ? Damn well know it
there was one of them rotting for at least a decade outside a house (in athens greece) that as kid I would pass by it every day on my way to school (in the 90's), I guess the engine was dead and nobody could fix it.
Hardcore, Wow....I love the "ROTons.. " aka Rotary NORTONS..that Trevor NATION, and Ron The Rockets raced in uk..90s..Your story? Just. wow.
What ever happened to the three Hercules bikes bike mon
They say the last 200 (or so) produced right when 1975 became 1976 had oil injection. They are easy to spot as there is *a visible "tube" indicating the level of the oil tank* on the side panel directly beneath the *second 'E'* in HERCULES that's painted on the gas tank. th-cam.com/video/1bni-fir4A8/w-d-xo.html
The episodes about weird and extinct bikes/technologies are my favourites.
Thanks guys 🙂
multiverse crossover. I started watching both these channels in the last month.
Today on BCpov...we watched a cool video of a vintage bike!❤️
I'll never forget people telling me I'm crazy for saying that the rotory was used in some bikes.
you're welcome
Intersting piece of history. I hope more to come.
Had a boss who swore by rotary engines....he drove his wifes car most of the time cause his mazda was always broken
A Mazda 929 I guess😂
"I once went to Poland in September, It was lovely! you just can't get carried away" lines like this are an example of great writing! some of the best out there
Explain me, how you can compare Natzi Germany to Polish September??? No taste at all, no funny at all.
@@Jan-eh7nf I'm pretty sure he's making a joke about invading Poland
@@Jan-eh7nf For a quick lesson, please listen to "40:1" by Sabaton.
This is about as funny as naming a motorcycle „Fat Boy“ and painting it in colors of the first US nuclear bombs, which this channel called „tasteless even for 80s standards“!
@@TR850 If you're past the age of 12 you should understand the MONUMENTAL difference between the two things. One is a joke, and fucking clearly so, while the other one is a massive wink to pro-war and pro-nuke motherfuckers, which amerikkka was and still is full of.
In 1974 I was in the Army, station in What was West Germany, and I remember the Hercules rotary engine motorcycle. I was fascinated by it but I couldn’t figure out how it worked. It was a nice looking bike and I still remember this weird motorcycle like it was yesterday. Thanks for doing a show on it, it made me fill young again.
Cool memory! Thanks for sharing, and thank you for your service.
I saw my first 1 in Spain, was amazed by it, plus my uncle had an early 1900s converted barge with a single rotory engine, which my father had to fiddle with to get running
"I visited Poland in September. You just can't get carried away."--Ryan, as much as I howled in laughter, you are definitely going to the special hell for that one!
Lol can you explain? It went over my head!
Invasion of Poland sept 1939, basically the beginning of world war two. طه خليل
Come on. I laughed hard, even though I am a Pole. :) Nice one!
Classic understated Fortnine humor. Love it.
Comes remotely close to Clarkson's "Berlin to Warsaw in one tank" Scirocco commercial.
These videos are some of the best on this platform. I'm not even a motorcycle guy and I can't get enough of these videos. They're amazingly well done. Keep up the great work!!
You should join us, it is way cooler here in the dark side
FortNine video! Yeah! I don't even read what it's about anymore. I simply know I can trust Ryan to make an outstanding experience no matter what
Your production value is through the roof. Love your work.
Netflix series grade
Bro this shits corny 😂
Rolls Royce made the compression problems and also the efficiency problems go away by using a two stage rotary. It made enough compression to work as a Diesel generator. In essence a supercharger/turbocharger hybrid. with a big compression rotary and a small rotary that used the compressed air from the big one and spat the remains of its combustion back on to the big one too. They were geared together.
That still doesn't solve the lubrication issue, but it does solve the problem of how to get it to bang hard enough.
The issue comes when you bang too hard without lubrication, only bad things come from that ;)
@@sandwichmaker1289 When I bang with lubrication there is a change of pants that follows. ; )
AIE from UK has a Wankel engine with proper lubrication.
As said above swapping the Dorito and egg-shapes with a spark at each corner solves the poor blow down stroke and the excessive flame quenching.
Seems like it would be more efficient to just use a supercharger as a first stage compressor instead of two wankels in a row? I’m quite sure that a Wankel rotor is far from the the ideal compressor.
You forgot the Henry Ford quote " The answer to the question no-one ever asked ! " i`m a Brit-expat living just down the road from the old NSU Werk who knows quite a few Ro80 owners, who would probably find this video a bitter pill to swallow. Am enjoying your work , well done. Nick
When the Suzuk RE5 was contemporary, the Australian Motorcycle racing rules counted the capacity as twice the single-rotor-face capacity, so for the RE5, it was rated as a 1,000 cc. Bit more reasonable than counting 3/3, or 1/3.
RE5 was of limited practicality, but that didn't stop me from riding from Melbourne to Darwin and back again, one fine month, about 5,000 odd miles.
I have one sitting in the shed, waiting for me to move into a residence with a garage (or should I say: into a garage with attached residence).
Good vid, I enjoyed it.
Great. The RE5 wasn't bad ride at all (I was a mechanic for a Suzuki/Kawasaki shop in New York) but had some peculiarities that just wouldn't be overcome. The styling of the first incarnation was a bit off what was pleasing the market but on the road, it was pretty nice. There were some odd stories coming down the pike about servicing them, one: don't put one on a dyno or you'll stand the chance of melting the aluminum exhaust manifold attached to the engine. Synching the two carburetor throats was tricky but once dialed in, it didn't vary enough to cause trouble.
@@whalesong999 The RE5 seems really interesting, but if I'd walked into a Suzuki dealership to look at one, I think I'd have probably ridden out on a GT550. Even today I'd love to have a Suzuki triple. Park it right next to my Kawasaki triple.
If I rode from Melbourne to Darwin,, I would have definitely not gone back to Melbourne!!!
@@JETZcorp So refined, the Suzuki triples. I liked them too. The 550 did have an issue for a time with the starter clutches engaging and disintegrating the starter motor during operation but the factory covered that well.
Long bloody ride mate, was it all bitumen? I (drove) from Adelaide to Darwin a few times.. from memory I rekn there was over 770ks of corrugated dirt..mate it shook my bus to bits.. How'd your kidneys go?
Another note.. weren't Wankels & Rotax donks really successful in sidecars.. like for years? Loved revs, low COG & flew...
The greatest mystery from the ancient bath houses of Rome, “who’s Wenkel am I touching?”
This has got to be one of the best lines I’ve ever heard. Omg, you need your own syndicated television show.
I just choked on my breakfast. Easy play on words but effective.
I only saw this machine once. It was extremely expensive, compared to similar bikes and I didn't have the money for it. I still remember the sales brochure with the very Teutonic models posing with the bike. It was a very handsome machine with extremely high build-quality standards. It's a shame it did not succeed but I remember it as one of the bikes "that got away."
how high can the quality standard be for an engine that spits out gasoline and smoke?
@@rosemaryus-ct6151 all of these types of engines like to run "wet". It's not just this machine, all rotaries.
@@rosemaryus-ct6151 Two strokes are brilliant but also spit out smoke
I don't agree. Yes it was handsome but the really big Company Hercules went out of Business because it did not work and the development was so expensive. All Wankels, except Mazdas were shit, because the Odea of Wankel is shit.
@@markusnellen1599 The idea is not shit, it is genious. If only some companies had tried to develope it to the better ...
I used to ride its nemesis, the Suzuki RE5 Wankel in the late seventies. Enjoyed your presentation so much I'd forgotten how first class you are your craft. Informative and entertaining, most others on YT don't get anywhere close.
I like how Ryan doesn't ask the viewers to subscribe and like his video. The viewers subscribe and like the video because they feel compelled to by the quality of the content and don't need to be pushed to do it.
Real talk!
If he did he would have more subs. TH-camrs do that because that motivates people to do it mostly unconsciusly. Because his content is Highest top tier material he get the subs anyway but if he do that then he would get better numbers.
Your comment made me scroll to subscribe but then saw that I had already did before lol.
I subscribed just for that reason
I've watched and laughed and commented these stupid masterpieces but only just now subbed that someone mentioned it.
Missing the most important feature of the Hercules.
At the motorcycle shop I worked at, we had a couple of Hercules advertising posters that clearly showed that if you purchased a Hercules, topless Scandinavian models would happily jump on the back of the seat.
I still have no idea why it failed. That should have been the biggest feature.
Made me think of dumb and dumber with the busload of Swedish models
Can confirm. Toples Scandinavian women are very, very attracted to me when I ride the Herc.
@@bashkillszombies - I totally knew it! My 850 Goose didn't have that accessory.
Hence the success of the Italians.
Now to have a Hercules as well......a man could die happy, exhausted, but happy.
no vibrations no interest from females
I don't know how you always keep this crazy good standard. I swear your videos are better than 70% superhero movies, they are like little stories with mythology history science. Thank you man.
just wishing they were 2 hours long and a new one each week
Absolutely
I think Ryan & Co. (Ltd.) go for quality over quantity. I'm sure they could probably churn out a video every week, but I think the quality might suffer, and I'd hate to see that.
I've just "discovered" your channel and I'm absolutely in love with it! even tough I am not a fan of motorcicles the aesthetics are just plainly perfect
You just make a Masterpiece EVERY time don't you.
Texting killed the motorcycle. Not the quality of the motorcycle or price.
Only to the generations who do not know much. That engine, with out a energy eating rotating counter balance, (which both type engines have used), shakes a lot.
Back in the day, I rode my buddies 1972 Artic Cat Panther snowmobile with Wankel engine and no counter balance. It shook like a paint shaker at Home Depot.
You, the next generation, would not know that. But he is wrong---and that can easily be called a masterpeice if you don't know the difference. What story will a person speak, if they don't know? Nothing you can prove wrong.
@@eugene7518 Well, I never fell into the trap of buying a cell phone, and still I did not ride my bikes last summer. If many people prefer texting instead of riding,---mankind is doomed.
Motorcycle riding is too dangerous now.
Great presentation. Should have mentioned the problem of wear to the rotor tips though. Another major Achilles heel there.
Back in the '70s I had an Artic Cat snowmobile with the same Sachs rotary engine, the engine size was called a 303 though. It was a good, torquey motor, and was able to power up hills that the more powerful 440s would spin their tracks on. I always wanted to try a Hercules with that motor.
Reciprocating engines have had over 100 years of development by almost every car and motorcycle manufacturing company to get them to the high level of refinement they now enjoy. By comparison, the rotary has had only a handful of companies even get to the point of building development mules, and only one has made a serious production engine. I've always wondered where we would be if the rotary had been invented first. Imagine trying to convince a rotary engine manufacturer that they need to replace their engine with something that had 100 times more parts and vibrated like a paint shaker.
NSU made Wankel.
Sachs
Mazda
Suzuki
Many others .
All came to the same end.
Norton made them and it took them down the dead end to bankruptcy ( or they were dead anyway and clutched at this straw)
AIE makes them today and is aiming at the Drone market .I have a sneaking suspicion that they have Norton roots.
While an attractive idea it is inherently full of compromise to make the concept work.
@@billycaspersghost7528 NORTON were ripped off by criminals.
The later F1s were amazing...
in the automotive industry, Mazda used a rotary engine for it's RX-7 and I've heard they we're really nice cars. I think the oil and gas combination is always a pretty big turnoff, but I also think two stroke engines have charisma despite of it... You've got a good point with the historical development of both engines
@@yo.nomas123 only the very first rx7s had 2 strokes. They stopped that shit real fast.
@@Leotheleprachaun yeah, what I meant by mentioning the two-stroke engine was only using it as a comparison to a rotary which also burns oil inside the ignition chamber. But thanks! I really didn't know they used a two stroke earlier
It's been such a long time since I've even thought about Hercules bikes.
Thanks for taking me down a trip through memory lane. I was always fascinated by these after seeing one for a ridiculous price in a magazine.
Hercules bikes is so way back then.
As a kid I had one similar to this, a KTM with a Sachs two-stroke. Basically the same thing as all the others, just not Hercules
The scene of you just coughing in the lobby of that bike shop was priceless. Pure gold. Keep on doing whatever this is.
I owned a 1973 Hercules Wankel 2000 in the early 1980's. All spare parts came out of Quebec, Canada. You had to *WRITE A LETTER* with a list of parts (including part #) you wanted. They replied with prices for each item. You then responded with which parts you wanted to buy and included a check. You accepted it because it was the only way to get them!!! I can't count the number of times people asked me if it was a jet engine!
there was one of them rotting for at least a decade outside a house (in athens greece) that as kid I would pass by it every day on my way to school (in the 90's), I guess the engine was dead and nobody could fix it OR they couldn't get the parts... :-(
Wow, didn't they have Telephones in your Town? Or didn't they speak English?...... Did you have to translate your letters in to French first? Lol......
@@nickmaclachlan5178 They had a phone but wouldn't take orders over it. Probably too many mistakes writing down what another person said. Also, it may have been Montreal, not that it matters, and most French Canadians are bilingual. The parts for that bike were not high-turnover items and only one guy there knew them well enough to pull the orders.
Ah the good old days of pen and paper. . . Kids today don't know what they're missing. . . .
Two days for your letter to arrive at its destination, one day for the reply followed by two days for that reply to reach you. It made for very drawn out conversations.
@@mark3427 I just this second realized why I've been so patient with my Amazon Prime shipments taking a week to arrive instead of a day or 2. It's because I was born in a time of, *"It'll arrive when it arrives. A tracking number? What's that?"*
Wankels are still going strong! I own a selflaunching glider (ASH 31 Mi) The engine is manufactered by Austro. I think it is developed from the Norton wankel.
It is light, no vibrations and quieter than a twostroke. It is fuelinjected and has 57 hp. It works very well in this application. It has a separate oiltank, and mixes itself, and can run on 95 leadless car petrol. I have so far had no troubles with it.
The Austro AE50R only exists for special circumstances where high power to weight is extremely critical and fuel consumption and emissions are relatively unimportant. Powered gliders are a classic example as are milatary drones. This engine's fuel economy is pretty horible and its emissions are even worse. Fortunately it's not an issue in a glider because they have such small engines and they run for relatively short periods of time compared to their overall flight times.
Can I put it on a go kart?
@@nessie42786 Sure, as long as you are happy to spend $20k+ on a go kart engine.
@@nessie42786 When I was in my early20s there was a commercial sort of Go Kart track, they had suspension, that used an air cooled rotary engine. I loved that place. It was all timed laps. They went under pretty quickly.
*Wankel engines are inherently unreliable and cannot meet the minimum PFTR reliability standards for passenger aircraft.*
I bought a new CBR500R the other week.
Yesterday, a driver ran into it when I was in a roundabout. Now it’s in the shop getting repaired.
I’m binging all of your videos until it’s fixed. You’re a legend, thanks mate.
Oh man, I hope your bike's fixed soon!
Nice bike, it's a shame. I had a '75 CB100 when I was a kid, but my ma made me get rid of it before someone ran into me.
You deserve an award for your work these past few years. Incredible job. 👏👏
“I once went to Poland in September… you just can’t get carried away.”
Awesome.
What you mean by this?
@@szymonk4861 Nie dać ponieść się emocjom ;)
@@szymonk4861 I was commenting on something the presenter said that I found historically amusing.
I did not think it was possible to actually joke about this and have it be funny, but FortNine pulls it off!
I fell of my chair
His jokes land so soft it takes you a second to comprehend
but he just said
"Ya just, can't get carried away" /me: has to rewind the last 30 seconds that I missed through laughing. That is some *quality* deadpan right there Ryan.
Lol I didn't get it - can you explain?
@@tahaks He says he went to Poland in September and basically didn't do anything crazy. Echoing the Nazi invasion of Poland in September 1939, except they "got carried away" and started World War II.
@@tahaks I needed the clarification too. Thx
@@Zeebad101 Ryan means the Nazi's "started WWII" and the Poles were "carried away, " LITERALLY, to concentration camps, as victims of Nazi aggression.
@@1TruePatriot While I don't dispute that that happened, I think you are over-reading Ryan's joke because 1) It doesn't make sense that way, and 2) It's pretty tough to make that level of detail funny in this case.
Wankel, for those who think that Ducatis service intervalls are to far between and are cheap.
"I once went to Poland in September.." 😂
Wankles are easier to rebuild than pistons though.
@@sl600rt ...And you'll get a lot more experience doing it too!
My Ducati has cost way more money than my old RX7 ever did on maintenance haha
@@chrispekel5709 Really? I have 42,000 VERY HARD km's on my 2017 939 SP, other than a chain, sprockets, and the regular service intervals it's had nothing done to it.
@Lassi Kinnunen 81 There was one big service around 30k that I did, they changed the timing belt and plugs, I think they checked the valves there too. Desmo valves are pretty much the best in the business in my opinion, much less to go wrong. That sevice was hefty enough though, I think around $800. I ride it very hard though, it's seen it's fair share of abuse.
Great videos! I appreciate the effort that you put into planning and filming these. The videography is awesome. Well done!
„I went once to Poland in september - it was lovely. You just can’t get carried away” - a true masterpiece 👏
Ryan,
Sachs produced a Wankle engined dirt bike with leading link front suspension in the early seventies. It was a strange beast. A family friend kept his in my father's shop. It was an interesting ride.
Wild! Hercules also had an off-road variant with this engine - the 502GS. Super rare, I gather. ~RF9
The Wankel and it's many derivatives fail vs the conventional piston engine because of its very inefficient combustion chamber. It's cursed with a large wetted area to volume ratio so the heat of combustion is soaked up by the sides of the chamber instead of doing work. The best shape for efficient combustion would be a sphere which, of course, has the most volume to surface area. Nobody has yet figured out how to couple mechanical energy out of a sphere so we are stuck with the second best shape: the cylinder. The Wankel has good mechanical efficiency (but so does a two-stroke piston engine). The Wankel excels at getting a lot of hp out of a small size but that trochoidal combustion chamber makes it uncompetitive with piston engines whenever fuel efficiency counts.
we had an Re5 rotary ZOOK ! at our shop in Co Usa..10 years ago. Amazing. but i liked ( loved ) my dads Gt750 Buffalo MORE! I still flip my shitt when I seen one ( both)..Notice: The Herc W2000 has CO plates>? how am I NOT stalking this Bike ?? How did i not know it was HERE>? LOL RF9 might have it in BC Duhhh.
Dave Longmont CO
See the gas turbine helicopter engine. Most power to weight ratio
Try looking up liquid piston rotary engine
Talking of " getting a lot of hp out of a small size " I was reading that MAZDA wanted to use a small Wankel fro Hybrid cars.
Because of the size/hp ratio the idea was to mount a small Wankle to produce the energy needed by the main elctrical powertrain (or maybe for the batteries, so if you have an engine which reload the battieries, it increases your driving range).
Which makes sense IMHO.
Yes.. fuel efficiency of the Wankle is poor BUT not so relevant because of its size and scope..
I don't know how is this idea going.
@@x_mau9355 a big advantage to using an engine as a generator is that it can have a very narrow powerband, so it can be tuned for great efficiency and power output. Traditional car/bike drivetrains are limited by the need to have a very wide powerband.
I rented a v-strom 650 2nd gen from BC Cycle maybe 5-6 years ago. Great shop, professional, right in Van, great riding the BC coast, and now I'm about to roll over 100,000 clicks on my own beloved 3rd gen. Nice to see the joint again.
Felix Wankel and Oskar Heil were two German engineers who had an outsized impact on my early life. I'm 47 and had a modified 2nd gen RX-7 (non-turbo) from about 1997 to 2001. And I inherited ESS AMT-1 speakers back in high school that blew me away ("sound as clear as light").
The paper landed so smoothly on the seat, it's like even the laws of physics know your videos are perfect
The ongoing tease to the crescendo amongst every piece other of pristine editing 😍 we do not deserve this for free
Thankyou for putting out some of the best documentaries Ive seen
I own 4 sachs 303 wankel snowmobile engines, and honestly that was the perfect application for them. They aren't just air cooled, but are also cooled by the fuel mixture, which solves both the oiling and cooling problems which shortened the life of other rotary designs. One of mine has well over 4000 miles which is a lot for a 70s snowmobile, and it still starts and runs like new. In fact, very one I've found will run awesome after it gets fresh crank seals and a good week long ATF soak to break up carbon deposits. It was really the fuel crisis that killed them more than anything else. They suck down gas but make amazing and smooth power for their weight.
Wankel engines were not popular at all in snow machines, sold very poorly and were fairly quickly discontinued.
Sachs abandoned all development Wankel engines in 1977 and sold most of the tooling and rights to Norton... who lost a fortune and went bankrupt.
You don't mention that in 1989 the the Norton rotary had a good success on the tarmac in the British road racing Cup beating the factory Yamaha's
Bull. Cat sold 10,000 Panther 303s in one year alone. They ran great when tuned right and we sold a boat load in the 1970s. Time moved on they got expensive and the Kawasaki twins took over for Cat.
Yep, it was mostly the fuel economy that killed them with the gas crisis. Phenomenal power density but poor fuel economy. I recently got my hands on a 75 cheetah 295 Wankel, it has a mikuni slide carb instead of the tillotson diaphragm, makes a night and day difference in the tuning. The tollotsons are temperamental on the roatries, but even swapping a 303 over to a mikuni slide carb makes the engine far more stable. @@glenmallory9982
I almost bought the Suzuki when it was new. Beautiful bike, a tamed tiger.
I know it was a sales failure, but I rode that bike and there wasn't a thing wrong with it.
One of the first water cooled bikes I ever saw. While Air cooled bikes were shutting down in traffic jams in the summer heat, this thing was purring right along. It came before it's time.
The RE5 was an epic failure that bankrupted Suzuki..
It's performance was horrible to compareable bike of the day.
The Wankel engine is inherently unsuitable for motorcycle applications..
You are one of my favourite channels, and I'm not even a big gearhead, I just think you have a really good way of sucking me into your narrative and keeping me watching till the end.
Having owned an RX3 from new I had a completely satisfactory experience with the engine. Small, well laid out. Easy to work on. Smooth. Very powerful.
Lacking in low end torque. Not efficient at low throttle settings but quite comparable with other powerful machines when the power was being used.
It had antipollution equipment fitted before it was normal on other cars. The manual warned against rapid warm up. Be gentle and let it reach operating temperature before getting to gung ho. A good idea with any motor I might add. The engine was heavier than it looked so I did have troubles with getting bogged. Too much weight up front and not enough at the rear.
Thank you for revealing that you know absolutely nothing about cars...
Engine weight was not the reason for the RX3s handling troubles, it was chassis design. The handling of the RX3 was so poor it made Mazda look back at chassis design and make it the core of every car they made after that.
@@lobsterbark Mazda has never been a high performance marque... it is still primarily a cheap entry-level car for young first time buyers.
Mazda no longer has any factory motorsports programs.
@@sandervanderkammen9230 That has nothing to do with it's chassis design though. Every car they make, they actually put time and effort into making them good to drive and handle well. Most manufacturers do not give a shit, they have zero respect for their customers and think they are too stupid to notice when their car drives like shit.
And they are hardly "entry level". Mazdas are noticeably more expensive and nicer than their competitors.
@@lobsterbark Yes, it does absolutely... as a rule, cheap cars have rudimentary chassis design.
Mazda has always been a cheap entry-level car.
Mazda's attempts to move into a up scale luxury cars have been complete and utter failures... Eunos, Amati and efini were all failures.
My old RX-7 used to run so smooth, the tach redline featured a loud warning buzzer to try and ensure you didn't spin the rotors right out the engine 'block'
Yeah, and forget about hearing it idle at a traffic light.
I don't think that would actually happen, not at that lower rpm. One guy I was chatting with had 4x of those engines stacked (I believe with the stock turbos though), and he had it set for something like 12k rpm redline. Apparently stacking those is easy, but he didn't know for the RX-8 (which is what I have and would love a quad rotor, let alone a beast of an octa-rotor like he made). On mine you get this barely audible little "beep" I don't even hear 99% of the time because it's so soft compared to the engine screaming, but they have a rev limiter at 9.5k rpm anyways.
It is incredibly smooth, I once drove like half an hour down the highway and didn't realize it was in 3rd gear instead of 6th (just purring away 7-8k rpm), oddly didn't seem to affect fuel economy...
@@jakegarrett8109 Mazda's first commercial for a rotary engined car had a song that went something like "A piston engine goes boing boing boing, but a Mazda goes hmmmmmm!" th-cam.com/video/oHzeGEHWMjo/w-d-xo.html
About 25 years ago when I was an auto tech we had a customer who had one of those 3rd generation RX-7s with the twin rotor turbo engine (twin turbos? I can't remember). That thing was amazingly smooth and fast. Driving it felt like the closest thing to riding a big-bore sport bike. Wouldn't want to own it and have to pay the repair bills though.
@@jfess1911 It should be more like "brap, brap, ptu-pOW!". I like how they brag about the quite noise, lol, though mine does have an exhaust mod probably a little louder than stock. I'd compare them more to a rolling gang or warzone on wheels with the occasional gunshot sounds after getting to 9.5k rpm and shifting with some nice flames coming out the tailpipes.
I know this is old but it was good. I have no idea why I learn so much from ure stuff. Your goretex video was a life changer for me!
The title really resonates after the conclusion. Another piece of masterful storytelling. Thank you!
As a RX-7 "mechanic", I have PTSD to this day about the seals that ... don't. Not really. Unless spinning at a steady RPM... a single good RPM. I think Wankel's make for great generator engines ...
And when it only works with one good RPM, that is what you use. That is why Wankel's are used on generators and such that does not need a range of speeds. Other uses is being coupled with Continuously variable transmissions like in a snowmobile.
I had a buddy buy a dead RX-7 and we got it going with split fire plugs - the smoke was so blue and sweat smelling... I just patted him on the back and shook my head. 'let it go, buddy.' was my advice. he was like ' what does this mean? what does this mean?'
@@leadbadger9543 Please tell me you didn't manage to convince him. They're supposed to do that. If he saw what they go for these days....
@@somejerk1520 the Kiwis know that: th-cam.com/video/WSCX9IBtCDI/w-d-xo.html
@@somejerk1520 Boat Schmoat, airplane engines, constant speed, weight even more important
Definitely a fun engine design. I think a lot of people are drawn to it simply because it is different and unique.
I had a couple of first generation rx7s. Actually they were relatively reliable. Never had any significant problems with him and both of them went past 150,000 miles.
I think the 13B with fuel injection was probably the sweet spot on the engine. Fuel injection made it run a lot better, but yet was still early enough that emissions regulations weren't causing problems. Not long after that I think it just became a lost cause. There was no way you were going to get that thing to pass stricter emissions regulations. Without significantly increasing the complexity which kind of defeats the purpose.
At the same time reciprocating piston designs got better and better forced induction increase the power to displacement ratio. And it kind of became pointless.
I do think there is a definite place for rotaries. People have mentioned possible generators for hybrids. They do work very well for stationary power and constant RPM.
i reackon the carbon footprint of these engines might have an angle (pardon the pun) due to far lower manufacturing costs and components? you could get around the emission issue by using castor bean oil (a couple of oil manufacturers make some good products) there is a big rotary pop culture here in Australasia.
I feel like rotaries get a bad rap because people dont leave them stock....
As for use as generator in series hybrid cars, 2 stroke Free Piston Linear Generators are promising. They have a common problem with the wankle. Oil needs to be premixed. Toyota might even be trying to run this engine on hydrogen.
@@GbMuthu
You can have an oil tank and do direct oil injection.. many 2 strokes and the previous Mazda rotary's worked this way.. you can have low oil warnings for refilling the tank.
I think the Mazdas had a reservoir built into the engine.. so when you did an oil change.. and poured in the oil.. it first filled that section... Then overflowed into the crankcase... And had a warning light for low oil. Been a while since I worked on one..
@@kens97sto171 pre mix or direct fuel injection, oil was always left to burn with the fuel. Not sure about wankle but recon might have been the case too.
Wie genial ist das denn! Tolle Reportage mit vielen interessanten Informationen. Danke schön und hallo from old Germany. Well done
Wow! I saw one of these Hercules at the hot rod show in Daytona Beach Yesterday and it was in about the same shape as this one. I was a Suzuki factory service rep when the RE5 rotary was introduced and one of my duties was to fix problems the dealer couldn't fix. I think I worked on every RE5 that was sold in my territory. I was never so happy to see a model dropped from our product line.
God what a horrible task to be entrusted with. I'm glad you never lost your mechanical interest after that design quagmire.
Yeah, for a lot less money you could buy a very similar Suzuki but with a proven and reliable 3-cylinder 2-stroke 750 engine that would out run the RE-5 and use less fuel doing it and run forever. So why did anybody buy the RE-5? Just to be different? Did former RE-5 owners move on to Tempters?
we had an Re5 rotary ZOOK ! at our shop in Co Usa..10 years ago. Amazing. but i liked ( loved ) my dads Gt750 Buffalo MORE! I still flip my shitt when I seen one ( both)..Notice: The Herc W2000 has CO plates>? how am I NOT stalking this Bike ?? How did i not know it was HERE>? LOL RF9 might have it in BC Duhhh.
I was lucky enough to begin my motorcycle mech apprenticeship not long after the RE5 had been shot in the skull. Amazingly the tech college i was sent to had one gifted to them, we ran it up on the colleges dyno one day and despite not really making any real horsepower it still managed to set fire to the ducting attached to the muffler.
@@barryervin8536 ohhh! I so remember that triple 2 stroke. That thing was scary fast…an absolute hoot to ride!
Ah yes, the ol' Rotary.
it's like a genius kid to divorced parents, there's so much potential, but it all hides under heaves of hardships and trouble.
Perfect analogy.
Lots of rape, copious amounts
A fascinating failure now just a footnote in history.
Texting killed the motorcycle. Not the quality of the motorcycle or price.
That's a very elegant, albeit very sad, way of stating it.
Awesome episode
Fantastic even.
He is the best motorbike channel period. He should get a TV series. His production values are first class. He has a great sense of humour
7:56 you threw the paper and it landed perfectly on the bike, how many times did you do that take, or did that just happen?!?!
Always enjoy your videos and how you present information!
The highlight of the video for me haha.
@@walterb2091 samee
C’mon Ryan! Inquiring minds want to know! 360 and counting!!
It is so… so… Ryan, now isn’t it?
@@OnerousEthic you already know it just happened first try because he's awesome
Obviously done in collaboration with the graphics department at Lucas' Industrial Light and Magic Co!
I suffer from
Chronic back pain and depression due to that, it’s currently 1am and as usual I’ve been woken due to the pain but these videos are a godsend, especially at this hour of the morning! Love your work man
Stay strong man
Keep up the spirit man! Stay strong 💪
Oof! That's tough! I can sort of relate having broken both of my legs. Have you tried acupuncture? Got me off the narcotics
Get this book, it will change your life: Back Mechanic by Dr. Stuart McGill
I rebuilt a Mazda RX 3 rotary once (in the 80's); never seen so many "rings" (the compression seals do the same thing but are not round) in my life. It was very fiddly but quite fast since the "segments" bolted together in a jiffy and the bloody thing went like a robbers dream but did not like corners or stopping much, and you needed an audible warning siren to go off to tell you when to change gears as it was impossible to "hear" any revvs and when you did there was a rubber screech on every gear - even top (!) - until (I couldnt see the speed as I was terrified to take my eyes off the road) the thing felt like it was disintegrating and I wondered where the parachute was...Later in life I was a MC Mech also and worked on the Suzuki and the Norton so I'm cursed too...
This is a wankel rotary, initial-d made me fall in love with engine, and i did some research about this engine, and according to my research, wankel failed to replace the conventional engine we use today for a couple of reasons, number-1 it has an insane fuel and oil Consumption, number-2 the seals are Not robust, and number-3 the heat that the engine generates, is Not equally being distributed in the combustion chamber causing metal to Not expand equally thus shortening its life
The fuel and oil consumption isn't really that high. Regular oil consumption for the 13B, an engine designed to burn oil, is sometimes even lower than the advertised oil consumption of some Audi's and BMW's. The fuel consumption isn't really that bad for a sports car that makes some power. The seals aren't robust, but then again, neither are timing belts. It's just something you've got to deal with after a 100k miles. If you buy a rotary that was abused by it's previous owner, you'll probably have to replace the seals. But even that's not so bad. Fixing a regular piston engine with bad compression takes some effort as well. You know the issue, and know how to fix it. Take the engine out, replace those seals, clean her up and put 'er back in. The engine heat is not a problem so long as you've got proper cooling. Yes, if the engine actually overheats you've got some issues, but so long as it doesn't, the lifetime is fine.
A rotary will run fine and reliably so long as you keep up with maintenance. You can slam the accelerate all you want as long as it's gotten up to temperature without reducing it's lifetime, in fact it'll extend it by removing carbon buildup. Maintain her well, like you would with any sports car, and the engine will treat you nicely. An LS7 isn't going to have a great time either if you slack on maintenance.
@@joost1120 i think the reason why mazda even bothered to make a wankel rotary sports cars despite the fact that the current conventional engine that we all use is already doing a good job on racing, is because they want a car with a really good "power-to-weight-ratio" to clear race track corners really fast and could withstand more abuses than the conventional engine we all use, and unfortunately they didn't do a good job achieving this, the best i could rate them for doing this is 5/10
@@joost1120 That is completely false and misleading.
Wankel engines are horribly unreliable and much less durable than reciprocating engines.
Bullshit, if they were cheap and easy to repair we would see alot of Wankel engines still running.
Wankel engines are obsolete technology today because they cannot compete with reciprocating engines.
@@zackrider3708 Not really true, Toyo Kogyo Cork ltd (now Mazda) was a bottle cap and cork maker before it made motorized scooters using engines bought from other manufacturers.
When they became a Wankel-NSU licensee they had no engine technology of its own, Mazda was betting on the Wankel to give them a competitive edge in sales without having to develop its own new engines in-house.
Unfortunately in 1970s with the OPEC Oil Crisis Mazda has no fuel efficient engines and went bankrupt,
Ford Motor Company bought Mazda from a Japanese bankruptcy court auction and began selling Ford designed reciprocating engines in Japan and for export.
Suzuki lost a lot of money on each RE5 they sold, but I once read that their development of apex seals ended up being what mazda needed to fix their own problems, so paid suzuki royalties for their designs for many years. So in the end it did work out for both companies. Rotaries were the engine of the future in the late 60's and into the early 70's until the problems with building and especially reliability were too big to deal with. Add to that poor economy and high emissions and everyone but Mazda gave up. Mazda may have yet another rotary powered car in the works, and anyone who drove their cars for a while will tell you the rotary is a real experience, and good one. They're actually a lot of fun and quite powerful, and easy to tune for more. I fell in love with the Rx8, almost bought one, but 16 MPG on premium was too high a price to deal with. The chassis and driveline of that car are amazing though.
Got 20 plus mpg in mine for 225k, loved it but michigan winter rusted it away, way fun car.
The RX8 was a $3 billion dollar disaster that bankrupted Mazda and killed off the entire RX brand for good.
Not to mention every third tank you need to add oil even the best built rotories burn oil like a still chainsaw
@@todydn Mazda's rotaries had a pump that added engine oil to the intake the whole time. So yeah, adding oil was normal. Early ones had an interesting cold start system that pumped antifreeze into the intake as well. I never saw the couple people with old RX's use that though.
@@sandervanderkammen9230 Mazda is still around and often talks about a new generation rotary. I drove and almost bought an Rx8, the test drive was amazing, one of the best little cars I have driven, and i still love rotary engines. Everyone else that tried building rotaries eventually failed except mazda.
5:19: Small correction, hamsters don’t get drunk. They have the highest tolerance for alcohol of any vertebrate animal.
The Wankel is an interesting engine, I used to have a 1984 Mazda RX-7. The engine was only good for about 100,000 miles, but that little engine could turn the RPM. I ran mine at around 10,000 RPM in 2nd gear for about a mile and backed off because I was running out of road, as I was delivering it to a dealership for trade.
I have lifetime memories of the Mazda at leMans. Ear splitting scream at 2am. That engine was indestructible.
Lol far from truth my 85 gsl has 200k+ and still going strong and that's out of the original 12a that unreliable rumor is bullshit, little more maintenance than a Honda civic but it's not a Ferrari . Absolutely love rotary engines, I own an 85 Gsl and the base model Gs, along with a second gen turbo ll, both the first gens ran well past a 100k, I only built the GS because I had some port work and clearancing done, to match my intake and exhaust work. Cheers to any fellow rotary enthusiasts
@@2strokejunkie686 Its not a rumor, it is a well-known and understood thar the Wankel engine is inherently unreliable and inferior to reciprocating engines it failed to replace.
Mazda abandoned all development of Wankel engines in May 2009 after going bankrupt over the RX8 fiasco.
@@sandervanderkammen9230 was mainly because emissions and fuel economy, half of you who say this nonsense, have never even owned one, there is less to go wrong with far fewer moving parts, only weak points were the many seals the rotors require..my Rx7s have outlasted many of mine aswell as friends piston engines, even in high performance applications....only good for 100,000 my ass go sell that to someone else, cause I dont buy it. They only sold them since the 70s into the 2000s lol pretty damn successful, mazda capitalized on the design so to speak and is a big part other makes didn't go the rotary route. So much success they were even Deemed over efficient just like 2 strokes with unfair advantage in a racing sense, I agree much more suited for such use, but the whole unreliable rumor is absolutely bullshit.
@@2strokejunkie686 You sir are a big fat liar, the Mazda RX8 met or exceeded the strictest emissions regulations in the world right up until production ceased due to lack of sales.
My dad owns a Hercules W2000, after regretting selling his Suzuki RE5 earlier. It doesn’t run but we’ve made it a pet project to get it rebuilt and working again. It’s so much fun working on something unconventional!
The thought that goes into these videos, the delivery, and production value blows my mind a bit each time. Good on ya, F9!
Another unusual use of the Wankel design I've heard about is in an explosive actuated seatbelt tensioner. In a crash a small charge goes off which spins a Wankel rotor that winds up the belt. I don't recall which make and model(s) used or may still use them. It would be interesting to see if one could be adapted to running on air or steam.
Mercedes
I’ve watched a LOT of your videos, and I think I can put my hand on my heart and say THIS IS THE MOST ENTERTAINING one you’ve done!!!
Love the humour, love the tech talk, and completely fascinated about where you dug that bike up from, you don’t see things like that here in the land of Oz.
Thanks for making my day!
I was thinking pretty much everything you said. I haven't seen any around here in Amish country either.
Have never riden a motorcycle in my life and I have no intentions of changing that. I watch this show because of the quality presentation. This could easily be in line as the "Top Gear" of motorcycles.
"I went to Poland once in September, just don't get carried away". ~ Priceless
Not priceless, but rather embarrassing! The Nazis were Germans who invaded Poland in 1939, then made concentration camps and began killing Jewish, Polish and other nations. So this "joke" is misleading and very inappropriate!
@@PabloKatassi that's what makes it priceless.
@@quijadriss7650 Maybe I overreacted, but the point is that if someone does not know that the Nazis were Germans, this "joke" may mislead that they were more or less connected with Poles.
@@PabloKatassi I get that for some this humor may be taboo. Keeping in mind there was no idealization of what the Germans did, nor anything at the expense of the Poles or Jews, I interpreted it as as clever historical reference. I can certainly see how recent events may stir up a lot of emotions around such topics and can understand strong reactions. I think it is clear though that such a slight was not the intent of the presenter.
I loved the Honda Sabre 600 I had. It was almost as smooth as an electric motor compared to the 250 and 550 singles I had. And my one memory that really showed me how smooth it was, was trading bikes while riding a friend that had a Kawasaki 1100. And riding along at 65 or so and thinking I need to shift up one more time based on vibrations I was feeling. And when it would shift up anymore looking down an seeing I was doing a couple thousand less rpm but it just felt so much rougher!
I don't know what they're paying you Ryan.....but it's not enough! Ask Novacap for a raise. Great content as usual.
My first bike was a Hercules k125 BW V1 and it also ran on 1:25 Oil/Fuel. My mates asked if I could wait a little after the end of the school day before riding home because of the plumes of smoke that bike created and they didn't want to be behind me.
I rode the K125 while in the army as a dispatch rider. Smoked as hell and had a tendency to overheat and piston seizures, plus the front moved up on braking due to the weird fork construction.
This video is so well put together, it‘s a piece of art and a pleasure to watch. Also gives me a hometown vibe, counting 16 years in Austria and being from North Vancouver. Thanks for the awesome content!
Rotaries were only simple in parts count not production considerations. Remember this was also the era of the great two strokes which were far easier to modify for more hp and so easy to top end overhaul it was casually done in the pits between races.
Plus Germany at the time had limited world resources thus having to invent items that were limited parts and easy to work on but still work. Everyone they did in wwII was pretty much that way out of necessity.
@@Ja2808R The Wankel in any modern sense is not about WWII. Production considerations favor cutting and turning cylinders not trochoids whose sealing considerations are more demanding than those of piston engines. Rotaries are cute but severely limited so they lost in manufacturing and the marketplace. Rotaries are difficult to remachine when worn vs cylindrical bores a decent hobby machinist can produce on manual tooling at home (many early engines were prototyped in shops inferior to what a decently equipped modern hobbyist takes for granted). I can take a brass era T Model Ford engine block and have it bored to spec on modern equipment or anything between the early 1900s and 2022. Not so for worn Wankel wear surfaces.
To put it bluntly the Wankel sucks and is much more exciting in theory than practice. Wankel was exhaustively evaluated then abandoned as it's barely even a niche engine. (Ultralight aircraft are easily powered by more maintainable engine designs so most are.)
Wankels just aren't very good engines but were seductively close until reality set in.
@@Ja2808R The Wankel KKM57 didn't exist until the 1957... during an economic boom in Germany
Excellent comments
A Sachs engine with a Bing carb, nostalgia overload! 12 year old me had so much fun with a Crescent Compact powered by a 50cc Sachs two stroke with a Bing carb :) Never saw a Wankel version though so truly enjoyed this vid!
Best of times......great read 😉
Best I've seen........
You have the skills of a movie director, the wit of a stand-up comedian, the editing skills of Stanley Kubrick and the looks of Marlon Brando...
I’m not a motorcycle guy but this channel is just superb
Ryan, your show has the interest and production values of the old top gear. A national treasure you are (Canadian apparently, hehehe)
Ryan Top Gear Moto?
8:05 Of course in Germany insurance does not depend on engine size, it therefore does not matter if the engine is a 294 or 882cc engine.
What does determine insurance group is power and one cut off point is 27hp which accounts for the W2000s relatively low output.
The thing that killed it in Germany is the fact that Wankel engines are very, very thirsty and 7.2L of 2stroke mix for 100km is a LOT for a 27hp bike.
You forgot the first commercial application of the Wankel by car maker NSU. Their rotary proved so unreliable that drivers greeted each other by holding up the number of fingers which corresponded to the engine replacements they had received under warranty. NSU went bust, got bought by VW and then reborn as Audi sans Wankel engine.
That game would have gotten significantly more dangerous when you got to engine six.
Nsu later solved the engine problems but the reputation stayed.
Citroen further developed the rotary engine of the NSU Ro80 but offered them for two years; only around 850 Citroen GS were built before they dumped that motor.
Old friend had an NSU. It was turbine smooth, even at very high speed. Beautiful build quality for the time period. Solenoid operated clutch, worked by button/switch on top of the stick shift. Three speed I think.
He had a second one with a Ford V4 Transit engine in it. Rough as a bears harris.
Put the original into long term storage in the 80s. Wonder if he still has it🤔
@@PrimoStracciatella Even without the engine the Ro80 was way ahead of it's time.
If you look at it in profile the '68 Ro80 looks remarkably similar to the '92 Citroën Xantia, just adjust the size of the light clusters a bit (smaller in front and larger rears). It also had a smooth underside which even created a little bit of downforce at high speeds.
Hi Ryan! Your videos are the BEST thing on the internet. Everything about them is pure gold. I usually watch videos at 1.5X speed but I watch yours at regular speed to savor every second of them. Please never stop making them!!
Bah
Texting killed the motorcycle. Not the quality of the motorcycle or price.
Same here
If a person listens you give all the facts are delivered with humor. I have that exact motorcycle. I bought it at auction from a Triumph dealer that went bankrupt in 1989. It has 120 miles on it. I have tried to sell it but nobody wants it. It is in my "barn" and I forgot about it until I saw your video. I rode it a couple times after I bought it, was not impressed. Been parked for 30 years. I sold most the Triumph's and Norton's I bought at same auction. Some I keep and ride.
I would love to see Ryan could do with other content. I feel like he is one of the best creators on TH-cam. Every damn video has an underlying story.
Clicked on the video out of curiosity, got interested when you mentioned wankel engine since I love Mazda's, then ended up staying and watching the whole video because of how good the story telling was. I have now liked and subbed!
As an RX-8 owner I'm so happy
You shouldn't, the RX-8 was the worse way to end an era of Mazda Wankel engines...
@@PedroPioLopes Mine still runs, it's light weight, easy maintenance, and so smooth I once ran it 7-8k rpm for over a half hour on the highway before I realized it was in the wrong gear (didn't seem to affect my fuel economy either).
I go by Smiles Per Gallon, not MPG, and almost nothing puts such a huge smile on my face that it's actually painful and I actually have stretch marks on my face now (and I'm 26)
@@jakegarrett8109 The RX-8 is extremely un-reliable and underpowered
@@PedroPioLopes Well yes, its a baby sub-250 pound engine that fits in an 18" cube that's NA. I think they should have came with turbos, otherwise its barely beating the GSX-R 1000cc bike I'm looking at in terms of power/size, also they set a very low rpm limit at 9.5k rpm stock instead of something more reasonable like 12k.
Mine I've had to do very little maintenance, the most unreliable thing are the headlights... Why can't they make headlights last as long as the ones on my 30 year old Mercedes? Trying some LEDs now, otherwise headlights would die every 6 months (and I don't do much night driving). Second most unreliable thing are coil packs, you basically want to change those every time you change a sparkplug! Why do stores only carry 1x coil pack? I had to bike over to several stores just to replace 2 of them, you can't even get a matching set without ordering them (maybe the mixed brands is part of it having 4 different brands of coil packs, but I'm sure they are same assembly line).
That's basically it, for maintenance I try to remember to change the oil relatively on time (also don't follow the suggested oil, use heavier), change the oil filter every other time, and I dump a random amount of 2 stroke oil in the tank when I'm filling up (a good portion always ends up on the side of my car, meh, whatever, clean it off when it gets on the brake disks). I also make sure to redline it every time I drive it, you do that and you're golden, drive it like you stole it (burns out the carbon from the cold side), its quite easy and make sure to thrash it and you won't have much issue!
@@jakegarrett8109 exactly
I remember as a grade-schooler hearing the AM radio spots for Mazda cars and pickup truck (singular, they only had one p/u model on offer at the time). The radio ads really ripped into the shortcomings of the piston engine but, as their tagline at the time stated, " . . . the Mazda goes h'mmmm . . .". I recall Mazda transitioned to piston engines with a new pickup truck model, which was introduced in the U.S. market as the Ford Courier, and shortly afterward sold the same truck under their own badge in the U.S. as well.
Interesting bit of information about the drone engines. I wonder if the relatively lower noise and vibration were factors in selecting rotary engines for military drones. I guess I could check out if there are rotary model airplane engines to give an idea.
Wankel engines are very poorly suited to aviation applications.
They are significantly louder than reciprocating engines and have less payload and loiter time because of high fuel consumption.
The U.S. military, the largest user of UAVs no longer buys any drones with Wankel engines due to poor performance and reliability problems.
Mazda launched a new line of car models in the 1970s all powered by Wankel engines, they imediately flopped and Mazda went completely bankrupt.
In 1979 FORD bought Mazda from a Japanese bankruptcy court auction.
Ford owned Mazda until 2008.
Back in high school I lost a drag race to a guy in a Mazda pickup running a turbo RX-7 motor.
Those pickups are really rare. I'm 50 and that's the only one I have ever seen.
Those motors get horrible mileage for the power they produce. A friends NA RX-7 got 12mpg. It had a header and glasspack "muffler" on it but it was not a good sounding motor.
I gotta say it, every F9 video is a work of art. Keep up the great work guys!
Liquid Piston made rotary engine which looks line inside-out Wankel which apparently has much better fuel efficiency and power than Wankel engine. What is interesting is that Wankel himself also was considering shape Liquid Piston made, but wasn't able to seal it properly. Who knows, maybe if he would succeed all engines now would be Wankel engines.
Due to the fact the points of the 'triangle' are where the combustion chambers are, they can make that quite a bit more efficient. you still have apex seals too (twice as many of them in fact!) but they can be much bigger and chunkier because they're not moving. So it does have some promise. it's also freaking *tiny* for how much power it makes.
Liquid piston made the combustion chamber triangular and the rotor oval the inverse of traditional rotors which allows three combustions for every one revolution as opposed to one combustion per one revolution. This solved the efficiency part of the problem the fatal flaw with any rotary engine is the sheer amount of surface area that has to be sealed and lubricated at the same time.
Liquid piston's solution fixes some problems and aggravates others. E.g. they can get better combustion chamber geometry and maybe fewer issues with apex seals, but the flipside is that the porting situation is a bit bonkers (air and exhaust have to pass through the inside of the rotor) and the asymmetric heating problem that caused lots of issues in early rotaries is made even worse because the same side of the rotor faces every explosion... and unlike the housing of a normal wankel, you can't put a water jacket there to soak up the worst of the heat. It seems that their solution to this is to blow extra cooling air through the inside of the engine, which is probably needed for it to work at all, but air never cools as well as water.
@@DFX2KX The fact that the apex seals are stationary also means you can run regular gas and thus fuel injection, and have the oil sitting happily OUTSIDE the engine, not being spewed out the exhaust. Also, blowing extra cooling air + just running air to gas = this engine will turbocharge like a madman.
Wankel's nail in the coffin was emission standards anyway. Two-strokes will suffer the same fate.
LOL, pretty good. I attend the Vintage Festival at Barber Motorsport Park every year and there has been both Hercules and Suzuki Wankels displayed there. Ryan did a good job of explaining why the engine was a failure.
Back in the late 70s there was a race team that had a fairly fast racing sidecar on the motorcycle and sports car tracks. Don't remember the team name but, they were liked by fans. I think it was a Mazda rotary engine in it. Rotary for sure, though.
You must be confused, Wankel engines were an epic failure in motorsports
You mean back in the 70s and 80s when races were like war! You got them all, foreign and domestic! Even if you didn't have cable! Especially tracks that were in your state! Now no one covers any of the non circular US racing events w/o special expensive channels! Shame!
I grew up in Yorkshire (UK) in the 70's and there was a chap on our road who raced a Norton sidecar with a 750cc engine (he would give the kids a ride up and down the street) then swapped it out to a ex Police Norton Rotary in the mid eighties. Only at club level but he seemed to do okay and definitely spent less time rebuilding the rotary than the Commando.
@@liveinaweorg If it hadn't been for the Wankel engine Norton would still be in business...
@@sandervanderkammen9230 ummmm Mazda won LeMans
Look up: Inventor: "Nikola Tesla", Name of Invention: "Bladeless Rotary Turbine Engine", approximate date of U.S. Patent: 1890.
One moving part, ZERO vibration, can be made to run as an "Internal Combustion Engine", also works with high or low-pressure steam, compressed air, gases, etc.
(It's roughly based on his patent of ~1870, a water pump.)
the tesla turbine?
It produced incredible rpm but no real torque, the basis of molecular interaction with the surfaces of flat disks is not sticky enough even with steam. You can stack CD's and make one.
Nikola Tesla - ABSOLUTE GENIUS!
It works well as a pump for viscous liquids bit is not as efficent as a blade turbine. It also has trouble with steam as the discs warp due to the temperature gradient caused by the expanding steam. This gets worse the more you scale it up.
The history and complexity you present on your channel is nothing short of amazing. Thanks for your constant digging and hard work to bring us all of these gems.
The amount of effort you put into each episode is worth the wait. Thank you RF9
I recently came across this astonishing channel! No doubt - the best motorcycle-related content on the web. Keep on going, I am staying.
The "Engineering Explained" channel has some good videos on the pros and cons of rotary engines, with a great explanation of how they work.
gentlemen.. we are brought back together again to witness a masterpiece.
I had a Mazda RX7 (also with a rotary engine) and it was an awesome ride in its day. Engine burned a bit of oil (by design) but it was otherwise great. The interior panels and automatic windows kept falling apart, but the drivetrain and suspension were solid. If someone made a rotary motorcycle I’d happily use it.
@@jif4639 all rotary engines burn oil with gas by design. Whether it’s premixed or metered doesn’t matter.
@@jif4639 No I just meant that the engine doesn’t have isolation between fuel and oil, so like a two stroke engine, it must have oil in the combustion chamber. I’m not disagreeing with what you said about dirty oil, just that oil and fuel (mixed) is a requirement. I just meant that the engine MUST burn oil to function.
@@jif4639 You have to be monumentally stupid to pour the wrong oil down the wrong filler hole..
But if you bought a Mazda RX? im not really surprised!
@@keithanderson6358 The point of adopting the superior method of metered oil injection on the 4-Stroke Wankel engines is so the oil is not burned with the air/fuel charge, if the oul is burned in the chamber its not available to lubricate the apex seals.
@@jif4639 Do you know how to read a service manual or the label on a bottle of oil?
Why would you put the wrong oil down the fuel filler pipe???
Our family had a 1972 Artic Cat 303 Panther with an air-cooled 2-stroke Sachs Wankel engine. That thing sat all year long in the woods and fired every time in two pulls with old crappy gas. Slow as a farm tractor but we had that thing until 2001 and never did a thing to the engine. The sled constantly needed rollers or some other crap but the engine never needed anything. The started recoil broke two years after we got it but we used a piece of clothesline for 30 years. Brap Brap Brap.