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Does anyone know if there has ever been an attempt made to make a bike with a Wankel (Rotary Engine)? Just curious, it just sounds like it would be cool. My RX-7 was great, well til I crashed it anyhow.

well there's this

http://www.canadatrader.com/result/deta ... 090&pgno=1

just found it the other day

google

i think those parts are made of unobtainium.

Oh man, now I have to persuade my wife to let me have a rotary bike, this is going to be tough.

Randy wrote:Does anyone know if there has ever been an attempt made to make a bike with a Wankel (Rotary Engine)? Just curious, it just sounds like it would be cool. My RX-7 was great, well til I crashed it anyhow.

I too owned RX-7s. A '79 Series-1 (12B engine) and then a '90 Series-2 (13B engine). Lots of torque, quite nice.. bit heavy and GT-like... i preferred my early model MR-2 for a light, quickhandling sportscar, but my '90 RX7 rev'd sooooo smoothly it was odd not realizing how high I was revving and the rotary had such a linear torque curve that you didnt really need to rev it up, although there was that 'hit' at about 5500 or so upto redline. a neat car with that cool sounding turbine/drill engine

anyway, back to the bike thing... the most recent rotary engined bike is, i believe the Norton from about 10 years ago. It was called a 588 or something. In race trim, it kicked butt in British SBK for awhile, up against 750cc inline-4 4-strokes, and they did make a street version which was used by the police force in the UK, but Norton's financial problems were too large to fix. That Player's Special Rotary Superbike was pretty awesome, beltching flames and such, just like the Mazda GT race cars, very compeititive engine, but as with the RX7 cars, a bit too thirsty for fuel. I think in the auto-series the sanctioning body changed the rules and eventually added enough weight penality to the Mazda rotary racers that after a couple seasons they were overtaken by other cars (Audi AWD sportscars and other AWD cars next dominated)...

Here's the norton (via google):
http://www.monito.com/wankel/norton.html#F1

i don't recall it being named the "F1" but the engine is 588cc so i guess that's why that number was stuck in my head.

here's the street model:
http://www.motosolvang.com/bike_windows/1988_nr.html

ahh haa! here's the racer: the RCW588 and a later version NRS588
http://www.jpsnorton.com/racebikes.asp

I think you'll find it's called a 12A and a 13B. I know there was a 13A, but that wasnt ever released past prototype stage from memory.

I own a 1975 RX3, with a 13b. Moves pretty well, and when I'm finished putting it back together, it should beat most bikes on the road



As for the rotary bike idea, I like it!

http://www.monito.com/wankel/norton.html

Norton made a couple

I have thought for a long time that this would be a great idea.

You could have the wheels plus the engine acting like a gyroscope.