The Rotary Westfield

[Stephen W]

Why did it never take off?

 

I remember the photo's of the jig et all a few years ago then all went quiet.

 

[GaryD1971]

Looks really neat! Plenty of cheap Mazda RX7s on the market now too. Mind you, they are cheap for a reason, one of which being reliability I believe...

[Stephen W]

That was custom built single rotor one. The twin rotor 230bhp RX8 unit would be good. 

 

They are very compact but are surprisingly heavy! 

[CosKev]

1 hour ago, Stephen W said:

Why did it never take off?

 

I remember the photo's of the jig et all a few years ago then all went quiet.

 

That's supercharged is it?

[Stephen W]

6 minutes ago, CosKev said:

That's supercharged is it?

No that version had the fancy self pressurising and cooling air set up. Designed to prolong a rotary's life. 

[CosKev]

1 minute ago, Stephen W said:

No that version had the fancy self pressurising and cooling air set up. Designed to prolong a rotary's life. 

Ah right 

Was looking at the pipe work wondering what it was,then thought it looked like a supercharger on far side of engine

[andy665]

A RENESIS powered Westfield using the 231ps RX8 engine would be a sweet thing indeed

[BenD]

its been done over on locostbuilders i made a thread about it a while back as an alternative to my turbo engine.

[BenD]

the one on locostbuilders has a had a few engines but its a good read if youve got a spare half hour. very loud at full chat though. ive seen one on facebook im sure its a turbo one in a westfield

[Dave Eastwood (Gadgetman) - Club Chairman]

The rotaries are still doing development work I believe, but those tiny modular ones are very expensive. While capable of some serious power, like I all high power engines, they cost some serious money to buy new.

Mazda rotaries have been done a number of times by builders, the main issue seems to be noise levels and the difficulty of packaging a suitable exhaust system into a Westfield. (One capable of passing competition or track day noise tests).

At the end of the day, there are easier engines to use, that suit installation into a Westfield better.

[Dommo]

10 hours ago, Dave Eastwood (Gadgetman) - Club Secretary said:

The rotaries are still doing development work I believe, but those tiny modular ones are very expensive. While capable of some serious power, like I all high power engines, they cost some serious money to buy new.

Mazda rotaries have been done a number of times by builders, the main issue seems to be noise levels and the difficulty of packaging a suitable exhaust system into a Westfield. (One capable of passing competition or track day noise tests).

At the end of the day, there are easier engines to use, that suit installation into a Westfield better.

It's a shame really, because the idea of a high revving compact engine'd Westfield obviously suits. Like Ben, I also considered an engine swap but I can't work out how to keep the thing quiet. Aside from slapping a turbo on it, of course.

I wonder if Westfield ever considered an RX8 SDV? Although I suppose the reason RX8s are cheap is usually because the engines are broke... which is kind of a key component.

Back to the original engine, I remember seeing it at Autosport and thought if they could make a ~400kg car with one I bet it would be a whole lot of fun, even with relatively low power.

[BigSkyBrad]

Back home in NZ, you practically trip over Mazda rotaries and rotary re-powers. RX2's,  3's, all marks of 7's, just about every model of RWD JDM has had a rotary installed at some point, a good few E30 BMW's, 7-esques and so much more.

Back in the late 1980s, NZ relaxed their car import rules/taxes and on average, NZ imports well in excess of 100K used cars from Japan each year. And with that came a lot of rotaries - especially alot of MK1 and 2 at the start, and although the cars have rusted off the roads (the MOTs, called a WOF - Warrant of Fitness - are more strict on rust than the UK) many 12As and 13Bs have survived, albeit on the third rebuild!

There's hardly a day go by that you don't see/hear a car go by going brap, brap, brap, braaaaaaaaaaaapp out of a 3-1/2 inch dump pipe!

[Kevin Wood]

I'd have thought, with dead RX-8s quite cheaply available, a SDV build would be attractive even if you had to factor in changing the tip seals and refreshing the engine. Once done, most Westfields don't do huge mileage, so the engine would probably last well. Most of the reliability issues, outright durability aside, were down to them flooding / fouling the plugs. Not likely to be such an issue if you use the revs, and it would be rude not to in a Westfield.

Noise would be an issue, though. A mate of mine used to have an earlier generation Mazda rotary in a Westfield and it was about 100db noisy idling on the driveway! I also remember coming across another sevenesque car with a Mazda rotary that had 2 exhaust silencers down the side, linked by a trombone-like pipe at the rear, with the exhaust eventually exiting back at the front of the car.

As Dommo points out, though, turbos make good silencers....

[MK11]

The RX8s are mostly dead due to engine failure though, which kind of reduces their usefulness as a donor.

[BigSkyBrad]

On 3/2/2018 at 18:09, BigSkyBrad said:

Back home in NZ, you practically trip over Mazda rotaries and rotary re-powers. RX2's,  3's, all marks of 7's, just about every model of RWD JDM has had a rotary installed at some point, a good few E30 BMW's, 7-esques and so much more.

Nothing on TV so I'm zig-zaging around Youtube tonight, as you do, and came across this perfect example of the above.

The (world famous in NZ) Ashley Forest Rallysprint has been running for just under 40 years, and televised on national TV. The year the sub-1min was cracked was a big deal in NZ petrol-dom!  That was 1988, by one of NZ's best and famous multi-motorsport exports, Rod Millen, in a rotary (RX7).

Incidently, Rod Millen has a beautiful property in NZ called Leadfoot Ranch, where he hosts the Leadfoot Festival weekend in the summer, which is a tarmac hill-climb event using the driveway up to his house! Check it out on Youtube - the range and variety of cars, bikes and trucks tearing up the hill is amazing, like a down-under Goodwood.