Very odd 914 sighting yesterday...., ...with a VERY odd-sounding motor! Options

[horizontally-opposed]

I was having lunch with an old 914 buddy in Novato -- the guy who built the silver 914-6 3.8 that keeps popping up for sale -- when a gray/silver (looked like that old-school silver that isn't so bright) 914 went by. Too quickly to collect all the details.

Fairly stock looking (I think it was still on four-lug wheels), but it sounded like it might have had an inline four, like a Honda S2000 or Toyota motor, but I am sure that's not it. Could it be?

If that was a Type IV, I want to know what was done to it!

This was on Wednesday March 9 on Bel Marin Keys Blvd @ 1:00 pm or so....

Anyone here know this car?

pete

[lapuwali]

QUOTE (jd74914 @ Mar 10 2005, 04:37 PM)

QUOTE (lapuwali @ Mar 10 2005, 04:26 PM) I'm sure you'll get a lot of hot replies to this, esp. from a certain Canadian... Rotaries had all kinds of problems early on (pre about 1977), but since then, they've been pretty reliable.  They don't need rebuilding any more often than a typical piston engine, and they can be tuned to make remarkable amounts of power.  Their chief downfalls are that they get crappy mileage (18mpg is common), they require excellent emissions controls as they're quite dirty without them, they generate a LOT of heat (requiring about as much cooling as an SBC), and they require good mufflling.  An open piped rotary sounds TERRIBLE.  However, a turbo is ideal, since it muffles well, and rotaries like turbos. I've had two RX-7s, one a turbo, and never had the slightest engine-related problem with either of them. Those are the problems I was referring to. I didn't mean to infere that they are bad engines. (IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/html/emoticons/spank.gif) I know people with rx7s who love them.

Those problems are largely not a cause of "perfecting", but inherent problems in the design. The bad mileage is a function of poor thermal efficiency, caused by the fact that the "combustion chamber" is very long and thin, and too much of the heat energy ends up getting transferred to the coolant or out the exhaust pipe, which is what causes the other two problems. Interestingly, this "failing" is actually a huge plus when it comes to using fuels that are low in octane. Rotaries are quite resistant to knock, so much so that pure hydrogen works very well in them.

Nonetheless, their power to weight and size are pretty much unmatchable in the piston engine. They rev to the moon, and even the non-turbo versions are pushing out 250hp these days.