OMC's 4-Rotor Wankel Racing Engine - The Real Story

**Rotary John** · 07-28-2009, 02:02 PM

Originally Posted by powerabout

Great story
Any photos of the 1 and 2 rotor stuff?

Cheers
Powerabout

Unfortunately no. That was before the dayof digital camaras.
John

**Old fiberglass** · 07-29-2009, 12:25 PM

Originally Posted by Rotary John

[B][SIZE=5][FONT=Times New Roman]In ’76 OMC decided to curtail its rotary program and the water cooled engines were put on the shelf.

Why did OMC can the project again ?? Sounds like the design that fit under the 70 HP would have been a get commercial package.

**E-tec1** · 07-29-2009, 12:35 PM

I have pictures of the Infinite Engines first and second proto engines in a boston whaler, polaris jet ski and the final running model in a sea doo GTS, the first one was basicly the two rotor outboard mounted on end.........when i get done fixin a crashed race boat, maybe ill search.............

**powerabout** · 07-29-2009, 01:18 PM

The inboard would have been a jump from the v4 version......
and the packaging ( as mentioned ) great!

Same guys that did the Sea Drive i guess...all that great work and the bloody trim motor went through the transom....DOH!

I was told that the project was given to the stern drive team and hence the idea of changing the height was unknown ot them.

The Sea Drive had so many great design features......

**Rotary John** · 07-29-2009, 01:49 PM

Originally Posted by E-tec1

I have pictures of the Infinite Engines first and second proto engines in a boston whaler, polaris jet ski and the final running model in a sea doo GTS, the first one was basicly the two rotor outboard mounted on end.........when i get done fixin a crashed race boat, maybe ill search.............

The Infinite Motor was the 650cc engine (single rotor) developed by OMC research. It was sold to Infinite and when they went broke, Moller bought all thier assets.
John

**Rotary John** · 07-29-2009, 01:53 PM

Originally Posted by Old fiberglass

Why did OMC can the project again ?? Sounds like the design that fit under the 70 HP would have been a get commercial package.

I agree whole heartly, but OMC was afraid of emission regulations from the EPA banning the 2 stroke. Doesn'take a whole lot of sense, but thats what happened. It meet all the endurance requirements established for outboards at the time and was one sweet machine.
John

**Old fiberglass** · 07-29-2009, 05:31 PM

Originally Posted by Rotary John

I agree whole heartly, but OMC was afraid of emission regulations from the EPA banning the 2 stroke. Doesn'take a whole lot of sense, but thats what happened. It meet all the endurance requirements established for outboards at the time and was one sweet machine.
John

They made a major mistake on that one....it's easy to be a Monday morning quarterback though.

Why did the rotary EGT get so high ??? A/C turbine APU's could get up to 1800F on start up on some applications, but usually max EGT at full load was 1000~1200F.

We did a lot of development work on a passive non-mechanical oil cooler for aircraft turbine APU's. It is called a eductor and took the exhaust airflow creating a vacuum to pull air through the oil cooler. It got rid of the mechanical cooling fan. I always wondered if that could somehow work in other applications.

**Mark75H** · 07-29-2009, 05:38 PM

eductor, aka venturi pump

A very sophisticated device, a minor spelling error

**E-tec1** · 07-29-2009, 08:18 PM

it was the twin rotor 1300 cc or so...........i ran three of them i know.......110 hp with water cooled exhaust.......made a triple wall ex system to keep the inner pipe hot in the sea doo....that was the infinite cast motor....i dont remember the dyno numbers on that....

**E-tec1** · 07-29-2009, 08:22 PM

OMC castings.........there was a 70 hp sea drive prototype running before they canned it, i believe it was all the leftover parts from that project.......

**E-tec1** · 07-29-2009, 08:32 PM

after getting their IPO.............lets see what were we told, oh yeah, its too much of a risk to proceed any farther.........i wont go into where all the money really went...........

**E-tec1** · 07-29-2009, 08:33 PM

ruff day,, by the way, theres a few guys still around i talk to, they say to say hey...................

**Old fiberglass** · 07-29-2009, 09:30 PM

Originally Posted by E-tec1

after getting their IPO.............lets see what were we told, oh yeah, its too much of a risk to proceed any farther.........i wont go into where all the money really went...........

Oh, please do.....

**Rotary John** · 07-29-2009, 11:15 PM

Originally Posted by Old fiberglass

They made a major mistake on that one....it's easy to be a Monday morning quarterback though.

Why did the rotary EGT get so high ??? A/C turbine APU's could get up to 1800F on start up on some applications, but usually max EGT at full load was 1000~1200F.

We did a lot of development work on a passive non-mechanical oil cooler for aircraft turbine APU's. It is called a eductor and took the exhaust airflow creating a vacuum to pull air through the oil cooler. It got rid of the mechanical cooling fan. I always wondered if that could somehow work in other applications.

Ficthel & Sachs used a similar devise on their muffler for the rotary. A double skined device drawing air in between the two.
John

**Rotary John** · 07-29-2009, 11:36 PM

Originally Posted by E-tec1

ruff day,, by the way, theres a few guys still around i talk to, they say to say hey...................

If I remember the story correctly, Moller got The OMC 650 as part of his deal with OMC. He sold the rights and tooling to Infinite Machine. They got in a huge lawsuit ,which Infinite lost ,with a many million $ judgement against them. Moller settled for the return of his stock and all the 650 stuff.
John
ps:
who says hi?