News & Articles RSS
How a rotary works & why it makes the most engineering sense (on paper)
If you read THIS STORY you'd know the Otto cycle rotary engine isn't solely a Mazda engine. So what is the appeal of the tiny triangle donk, and how to they work? While it was first drawn up in the late 1920s, it wasn't until the mid-1950s that Felix Wankel's rotary engine really came to be A Thing. Wankel was after a smooth-running powerplant that didn't suffer from vibrations found in piston engines of the time, and this has always been a key highlight of the rotary. While a piston engine has to transfer the up-and-down motion of the pistons...
The rotary couldabeens - the Dorito-powered cars which never made it
If you have see the LATEST EPISODE (click HERE) then you'll know about the piston-less shenanigans which have entered the MCM shed. The rotary engine has a long and varied life outside Mazda's famous performance models. The dorty little triangle engines (latin name, Brapsalotyl Noisemaximus) have been used in all sorts of vehicles, including planes, but most people link them to Mazda. Quite a few other manufacturers have had a tilt at triangle motors, and here are some cool cars that were maybe a little too advanced for their time or didn't get the support they maybe should have. NSU...
How BAM BAM makes cars faster
If you've seen the LATEST EPISODE (get your BAM and also more BAM here) then you'll see the box of wonder, sparks and flames the boys fitted to MOOG's museum-spec 180SX. But, why do people froth on cars banging out the exhaust and popping flames? Basically, it all goes back to motorsport from 40 years ago... The wondrous, flame-belching technology referred to as BAM BAM is actually colloquially known as anti-lag, and came from top-shelf Formula One, sports car, and World Rally Championship motorsport. In the 1980s, back in the early days of turbocharged race cars, engines typically had low compression ratios...
Oil temperature is crucial to good engine health
Why do so many tuner and race cars run oil coolers? Because oil temperature is one of the most important aspects to keeping your engine running. Literally. Extreme oil temperatures drastically shortens the life of the bearings which keep your engine spinning, for a variety of reasons. Firstly, the temperature of oil affects its viscosity (AKA, the oil's slipperiness) which is why oil has numbers like 0w-30, 5w-40, and the like. These numbers refer to how viscous the oil is when cold and what the upper temperature range is. When oil gets hotter than its peak operating temperature it starts to thin out....
All the Haltech parts we used to get the Kei Truck running (with wiring diagrams!)
