Welcome back to Warped Perception.
This is one of the most anticipated.
And exciting episodes that we have filmed to date.
The see-through rotary engine.
This Is episode 1 of the see-through rotary series.
The purpose of this episode.
Is to introduce you to what.
The Wankel rotary engine is.
And show you how it works.
Before moving on to the more complex rotary designs.
That I'm going to feature in upcoming episodes.
If you don't really know what the rotary engine is.
The Wankel rotary engine.
Is most well known for being used.
In the Mazda RX7.
RX8.
As well as a more Antiquated Mazda RX vehicles.
It has quite a huge and dedicated following.
Amongst many groups of Automotive enthusiasts around the world.
the Wankel rotary engine has also been used.
In various aircraft And helicopter applications.
Snowmobiles.
Motorcycles.
And all sorts of stuff.
I brought in a friend of mine Alex.
From the YouTube channel legit streetcars.
To give us his Automotive opinion on the Rotary.
Since he is neck-deep in the automotive world.
And this is what he had to say.
The rotary engine is an internal combustion engine.
Accomplishing the same task as a piston engine.
But using a different process.
The main difference between a rotary and a piston engine.
Is that the rotary engine doesn't need to convert the up and down.
Reciprocating motion of the Pistons into a rotational Force.
The main advantage of the rotary engine.
Is how much power it can make for its size.
Take for example the latest Mazda RX-8.
It was only a 1.3 liter.
But it made 232 horsepower.
And we're not just talking displacement here.
We are talking physical size of the engine.
These engines are very small compared to a typical four-cylinder.
And this is how the engine looks that I'm going to use for this episode.
This is a Wankel rotary model aircraft engine.
It's really simple which is why I chose to use it.
And this is the engine with the front taken apart so we can see inside.
This is the simplest Wankel rotary engine that I know of.
This has no ignition.
No cooling passages it's air-cooled.
But the principle Remains the Same.
If we take a look at the components here we can see that.
There are two main moving components which is the rotor.
That triangular shape thing.
And there is The Eccentric shaft.
Which is the crankshaft equivalent in a piston engine.
Apart from that we have the rotor housing right here.
And in this case a glow plug.
Carburetor and the exhaust Port right here.
And if we spend this and the direction of operation.
It pulls the air-fuel mixture in through the carburetor.
Compresses it.
It gets ignited.
Then we have the power stroke Which pushes that rotor.
Then we have the exhaust stroke.
Which is kind of combined with the power stroke.
We can see there's only a couple of moving components inside this engine.
In comparison to the piston engine.
Where we have a piston.
Valve's.
Crankshaft.
Connecting rod.
Camshaft, valve lifters, valve springs and other moving parts.
And there's a couple more complex designs.
But this is the one that I'm going to use to show you the basic principle.
Now first I'm going to start this up.
To show you just how crazy this little engine sounds.
Now that you've seen the engine run on the bench.
It's time for me to get to work and build a functional.
See Through Wankel rotary engine.
Okay so this is where I'm at.
I have my see-through rotary engine built ready to start for the first time.
So let's get this thing started up so we can see what the inside of a rotary engine looks
like while it's running.
Wow that was super cool, I shut it off before anything happened.
Let's take a look at the high-speed footage
and see what is going on inside that combustion chamber.
That was pretty cool but it was kind of hard to see the combustion cycle.
So for this next run I painted the propeller nut and the bracket black.
So we don't have any distractions and hopefully we can see it a little bit better.
Now that looked pretty cool but it was kind of hard to see the combustion process.
So I'm going to run this engine again.
But this time I'm going to lace the intake air with pure acetylene gas.
This should beautify the combustion process and give us a really nice light show.
The engine didn't start here but.
This is a good example of how the combustion pressure.
pushes that rotor and creates rotational Force.
I could swear that happened in another see-through Engine episode.
I'm going to try it with the torch a little bit closer and see what happens.
I don't think there's engine is going to start right up while injecting acetylene.
I'm going to get it started on Nitro first.
And then open the acetylene.
I hope that I made that simple enough for everybody to understand, but still entertaining
enough for those who already know how it works.
That concludes this episode of the see-through rotary series.
I thought that was pretty amazing that we were able to see inside the rotary engine
as it's running.
And I figured this was a great opportunity to show everybody.
Mainly how the combustion process works in the Wankel rotary engine.
That's mainly what I was focused on here.
And again This Is episode 1 of the series.
I'm not going to tell you which rotary I'm going to feature next.
But make sure you subscribe so you get notified.
So that's about it let me know what you think in the comments below.
Are you still here?.
Well if you got this far you're all the way at the end of the video.
And I figured I would share a fun fact with you.
That last scene of the see-through rotary burning acetylene.
Took 226 takes.
I literally just finished shooting that.
My hands have blisters.
From pulling this string over and over and over again.
I changed the string about 10 times.
Finally I got it to start and I got the mixture just perfect.
And I guess that's what you call dedication.
Because I think it was worth it.
Yeah I've never seen a see-through rotary run before.
And I've never seen a rotary burn acetylene.
See you in the next episode.
I can't wait to do the next rotary episode.
See you guys next time.