A thought just occured to me; what if you mated a rotary to a rotational induction motor, similar to that used in a Honda Insite? The torque of the electric motor would overcome the rotary's weakness of poor low-end torque, giving faster launches, as well as eliminating the starter and flywheel to offset any weight gain.

Combine this with regenerative braking, and suddenly the rotary drivetrain becomes more efficient - especially in a chassis as light as the SA & FB.

 

okay ... forgive my impression of a person with the IQ of pocket lint, but what do you do for a transmission? would it be one of those cog-coupler-thinga-ma-jigs, like what they use on R/C gas cars with sequential trannies?

sounds like a pretty cool idea, not sure if it would eqaute to much fun , but it does sound pretty cool.

 

The electric cars I've worked with (other people's projects) use automatic trannies with the torque converter removed.

I'd like to see it done with an Audiesque CVT (not the weaker CVTs used earlier, but the new chain type)

Of course in this instance you could use pretty much any kind of tranny as you have a conventional power pack (internal combustion engine)

As to fun, you still get the song of the rotary at high speed, no recharge worries, and high torque @ takeoff...

 

yeah, i kinda figured as much, but i just don't know enough to speak intelligently on the subject of electric cars. (not that that's any reason to keep my mouth shut )
anyway, i guess i should get off my duff and read the articles on the new Audi CVT's ... pretty interesting so far.

i don't know though, speaking only for myself, i just don't think i could go "enjoy" myself even with a "torquey" rotary and auto-MATAAK ... however, now you've got my head-gears turning. i'll try to see how the trannies work on those R/C cars ...

 

A good person on this forum to ask about electric cars is Aaron Cake over in the Canadian forum and Lounge.

 

The electric Delorian guy? lol

 

the guy making fun of the 'electric' DeLorean

 

LOL! That Delorean will only be viable if its flux capacitor really does what the guy says it does. I guess time and media exposure will take care of that.

Anyway, a 1st gen with part rotary, part electric motor and an auto sounds like the way to go. If I was a university student, that's the project I'd be working on.

 

I had the same idea. I will be attending Va. Tech in about a year for ME and this is a project that I am interested in developing. Why not fabricate a longer eccentric shaft that could run through the length of the engine the come to a modified side housing that would allow the custom shaft to extend into the center of the Motor. This way you could leave the original tranny in place. Maybe you could even use that same motor to power a zero lag turbo. ;o). I would also like to help to advance the designing of crop fueled engines that will help to minimize our reliance on foreign feuls.

 

There was an electric (battery powered) Rx-7 on eBay a while ago. There's also a guy named Rich Brown who took an SE and converted it from gas to electric powered.

 

I too had this idea of a rotor hybrid. Sounds like it would be a great project if you had loads of time, money, and experience. I'm not quite there yet.

 

key word there 'money'. for the batteries u cant just wire 10 12v car batteries in series to give u there min 120v use to power the electric car motors, ur gona need fule cells and these aint cheep and avalibe at any supermarket..
and the auto tranies used in the hybrid cars are variable tranies meaning they have infiniat gear ratios..

very cool idea but.. the rotary would be good for this just basicly for its size. a small motor could fit with out to many problems..

a motor could even be encorperated into the rear diff and housed in the boot.

 

Hybrids like the Prius and Insite don't carry large battery pallates like the GM Impact (dumb name for a car - sounds like it's destined to be in collisions) OR fuel cells. They recharge the energy cells through regenerative braking and alternator output... although I confess I'm not certain if the circular induction motor systems even use conventional alternators on the gas engine. If they did, it would be a waste as the induction motor itself could also be used as generator when cruising.

 

I'm pretty sure the Honda and Toyota Hybrids still have a more elaborate battery setup than just a standard automotive 12V. A 12V system would need to put out something around 950 Amps to power a 15hp electrical motor.

It looks like it's already been done.

http://www.freedom-motors.com/hybrid.html

 

Speaking of CVT's, Nissan has one that'll take 240lbft of torque. It's in the Murano cross-over thingy.

 

Nuts. They used a Honda

Hey, his rotary is only 30 HP. I wonder what a 135 HP rotary would do

 

would be a great idea if we lived in a world without power loss... your takeing a rotary produceing power from a generator... loseing power... to a battery... loseing power going to a electric motor... = LOTS OF MONEY=DOO DOO....

 

Use a lot more fuel. LOL

 

It's been far too long since we've heard from your special brand of ignorance. Perhaps we can get you a job on the Board of Directors for GM and Honda so you can illuminate them on why their production vehicles are really just a waste of money.

 

How 'bout a hybrid without transmission? Just use the rotary to drive a generator to charge batteries. Run the wheels pure electric with individual motors (which reverse for brake-gen power). Sorta like replaceing the EV2 batteries with a small engine, tank, and fewer batteries.

B

 

Not to put a damper on your optimism, but doing this in a Rx-7 would be my last choice ever. It would add excessive weight-BIGGEST enemy of acceration and good precise cornering. And not easy to place the extra weight exactly were you want it to be without totally altering the chassis. And transfering energy from one form to another causes losses through the tranfer process...making a electric hybrid rotary even more in-efficent, unless the rotary was VERY VERY SMALL, like less then 15cu in displacement, remember you want the engine to run steady state rpm near full load to recharge the batterys to be most efficient. Not to mention the computer system to regulate how the engine and electric motor is used precisely to move the car in city/traffic/highway conditions.

I'm not saying at all that a electric hybrid with rotary wouldn't work, but it would give cleaner and more efficient impressive result with a small piston engine instead like how the insight and toyota did it, they are not stupid.

I'd rather just have a hydrogen powered rotary which would be very VERY clean running with only water exhuast with a little oil burned with it since its a rotary.

We just have to wait till fuel cell fueling stations are established universally and adapt a H2 fuel tank and EHI(electronic Hydrogen injection) to a rotary powered car. Rotaries will probably become performance alternative engines to fuel cells 15-20years from now because they are 400% safer to run H2 in compared to a piston engine because of the seperation of intake region from the combustion area in a rotary.

 

hehe my brain hurts....
this sounds too much like school
for me to keep readin

peace

 

running a rotary on hydrogen via a fuel on demand system... now that would be the ****

 

meaning fill a tank with water and separate the hydrogen and oxygen via electrolisis... for those who were wondering

 

Well thats one way to do it, but that would take a lot of electricity to do, via coal, other fossel fuels, or nuclear power. Or possibly wind power and solar cells which aren't very powerful at levels needed to provide for very many cars out there.

What will happen is a reforming process from crude oil. There is already a process underway to use a "on board" reformer for early Fuel Cell vehicles because a hydrogen fueling network will not be estabished for many years yet obviously. Just be patient, its coming in 10-15years when fuel cells start going mainstream. That may sound far-out, but thats the next logical step in vehicles since they are about 60-70% efficient use of the energy in gasoline compared to 18% efficient in current heat combustion-engines.

However fuel cells don't work quite the same way as regular engines since they take 5-10minutes to build full voltage/current and require a huge coolant system that needs to be regulated FAR more critically then a combustion engine to prevent permanently damage to them. Fuel Cells have been used in space for years and have the pitfall that they can't be started the way cars need them to yet.