Norton Rotarys...

Where did they go?
I remember them vividly in BSB in the late 80's.
Watched a video of them at Snetterton, and they were ridicuasly faster than the 750cc IL4's down revitt straight.

Where did they go? Why does no-one produce a rotary bike engine anymore? What were the flaws? (heard they over rev really easily?).

I think they got banned from the race series. For being too fast.

I remember the old JPS nortons. Awseomely fast, embarassingly quicker than all the rest in a straight line.

I believe they were banned because no one factored in that most engineers believe rotaries are equivalent to a standard IL4 engine 2-3 time larger (IE the rotaries should have had a much lower CC limit than they did). Interesting bikes though...

See id have thought it was the other way around as the RX7 (Car rotary) runs two two 654cc chambers so in effect, its actually much less a cc than equvilant cars.

[Viney]

You are right Daimo. Tecnicaly the RX7 & 8 are 1.3l engines in capacity terms so no idea where they get the 2.3L (I believe) listing they get.

Just goes to show the power that can be achieved using rotay technology.

I always get confused by that.

2x 650cc makes a 1300cc in my books. Therefore under the 1.4 tax bracket.

But was classed as a 2.3. Sure it had two turbos, and 276bhp, but compare that to ANYTHING with the same original cc, and the figures are never as good.

Sure it needs an engine rebuild at 70k, but then if your using the engine properly, thats about right anyway

Just looking at them, even the stylings was a bit advanced for the time (areodynamical wise). I know they stopped racing after the bikes went white (is that right, was a while ago now), but then they dissapeared, and don't even see them on the road let alone the racetrack.

Such a shame, so many bikes, could be such a good race series.

All the jap IL4's
Benelli
MV
Ducati
Norton
KTM

IMagine the championship :!

FIA have a formula for Wankel engined cars (Something like 1.5-2 times the capacity)

Something to do with a Wankel engine producing more power strokes per revolution or something (Ohh look at me getting technical )

Also, they're not as efficient or clean as a four-stroke IL4 (for example)

Rotary engine's are for Wankels.

Originally Posted by Daimo

See id have thought it was the other way around as the RX7 (Car rotary) runs two two 654cc chambers so in effect, its actually much less a cc than equvilant cars.

Viney is correct, the Mazda rotaries are 1.3l. I was refering to the power output being equivalent to 2-3 times that of an equivalently cc'd IL4 engine.