A cool blast from the past

found these vids while surfing, seems like such an advanced bike, I dont know why it failed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SkPeB1rA ... ure=search

http://www.youtube.com/user/emissaryx#p ... iYUqHpOq9c

 

Interesting.
But that music and painfully slow pace of the narrator has to go

 

Because it was expensive, complicated and heavy. I don't think the designers did themselves any favours by following the rotary theme throughout the bike, although later bikes had conventional instruments and lights.

The rotary was probably quite a lot more to buy than the 2 stroke triples also shown at the start of the film. (I once owned a GT550 triple)

I did find it slightly amusing that they bought the design from NSU and at the end of the film described it as being "All Suzuki"!!!

 

It was a good idea, but poorly executed (mostly because it was ahead of its time) It used a super-complicated carb to send the fuel around to the side of the housing. Suzuki was doing this mechanically, while it took Mazda another 30 years to accomplish the same thing with fuel injection. They called it the "Renesis," all but ignoring the fact that Suzuki had already done the same thing so long before. Side port intakes do help quite a lot on a rotary, because it reduces the overlap of the exhaust/intake "strokes" when the rotor passes by the two openings. This is the reason why the early Mazda rotaries run so hot and are so bad on fuel.

I had an RE5, (I bought a non-runner and tried to bring it back to life.) and it is true, that it was really heavy and over-engineered. There's that crazy carb, the double-walled exhaust to keep temperatures down, and a radiator so big it wouldn't be out of place on a car. All that said, if properly maintained, they can last quite a while. Unfortunately, if the engine isn't started regularly, after a few years the apex seals (equivalent of piston rings) can become frozen in a particular position, completely ruining the engine. (Which is what was wrong with mine.)

They are a neat oddity, but Norton made rotary bikes up until the mid nineties that were fast, light, nimble, and award-winning. They don't come cheap though.

 

Honda had an idea that never really took off either. They developed V4 motorcycles with oval and elliptical pistons.

Honda NR Motorcycle

 

I found the idea of the cooled exhaust being pretty neat. That and having a oil cooler would be pretty awesome.

 

RE-5, hmm, let's see, heavy, pig on fuel, plug fouler,ugly, poorly understood technology, extremely hot running engine, motor that couldn't be rebuilt by any average mechanic you were likely to meet, all offered up in the middle of a gas crisis. The RE-5 nearly sank Suzuki, as the TX750/500 nearly sank Yamaha. The XS650 pulled Yamaha's chestnuts out of the fire by being a consistently good seller, while Suzuki hit one out of the park with the GS400/750, which overnight put them on the front lines of four stroke technology, with a little help from Kawasaki of course.

 

As a card carrying Rotorhead, I think I need to chime in. The mileage and emission problems with the 12A or 13B exist because the atomized fuel/air mixture doesn't stay atomized all that well in the trip it takes from the intake side to the ignition side. Piston engines have developed swirling techniques to help with this. Not possible with the rotary. Fuel injection has helped a bunch, but direct injection is the real answer. What I think is really cool is Mazda's rotary conversion to hydrogen. It's the perfect motor for hydrogen.

 

Thanks for sharing Schooter. Is it just me or did that first guy look like a snow cone?

 

no one mentioned the Hercules yet?