Return of the rotary engine to Le Mans, closer than you’d think

Discussion in 'Motorsports Chat & Race Preparation' started by Steve, Aug 7, 2014.

  1. Steve

    Steve Administrator
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    Here's a Le Mans 24H Garage 56 entry that is, unfortunately, not even slightly like the glorious 787B program. But it does look like a clever way to use the best aspects of a rotary engine without the down sides.

    Return of the rotary engine to Le Mans, closer than you’d think (press release)
     
  2. WolfGTI

    WolfGTI Active Member

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  3. Steve

    Steve Administrator
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    This is sort of like a racing version of what Mazda said they were working on to bring the rotary back to road cars one day. They said they were thinking about a rotary hybrid but the way I remember it they said the car would be a typical gas-electric, though using a rotary on the gas side. This one is apparently an all electric drive racer with the rotary running only to charge batteries. Though I can't imagine why you'd use a 545hp engine to just charge batteries.....
     
  4. DneprDave

    DneprDave Well-Known Member
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    545 hp = 406.4 kw.

    That's a lot of juice! Batteries only couldn't keep up.
     
  5. mrntd

    mrntd Well-Known Member
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    Maybe that's the power of the electric motors. Rotaries have been use as aux power for aircraft for a long time just running generators. A couple of years back Audi showed a motor just like this.
     

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