The 1991 Le Mans Mazda Team and the legendary rotary “Renown” 787B.
In 1991, Mazda became the first and only Japanese car manufacturer to win the prestigous 24 Hours of Le Mans endurance race. Using the Wankel rotary engine, it was also the only non-piston engine car to ever win. All three Mazda 787B cars to enter the race finished the gruelling event in respectable 1st, 6th and 8th positions. Of a total of 46 entrants, only 12 cars officially finished the race, 4 did not make the required classification, 22 did not finish, while the remaining eight either failed to start or qualify.
So successful was Mazda’s entry in the 1991 race that the rules for subsequent races were changed to ban the rotary engine from competing in subsequent Le Mans endurance races. At the end of the season, the FIA (Federation Internationale de l’Automobile) banned the use of Wankel-type rotary engines in the racing series which it governed to solely allow cars with the 3.5L F1 engine to compete.
1991 was the first, last, and only time that a Japanese car has won the 24 Hours of LeMans. The victory sealed the 787B’s status as an icon with Mazda fans throughout the world. Despite the enormous success of the 787B and its Wankel powerplant, Mazda didn’t fully exploit its historic victory through marketing campaigns and advertising. However it did strengthen sales partially for Mazda’s road cars…
Simplicity of design:
The powerplant:
It used a 4-rotor R26B Wankel engine which produced over 700 hp (522 kW). Engine speed (RPM’s) were deliberately kept low for longevity under the extreme stresses incurred during a 24-hour endurance race. The 787 was reported to have a redline around 9000rpm. However, interviews with Mazda’s 787 race engineers revealed that the power of the quad-rotor increased dramatically above 9000rpm. One engineer stated that the car could develop more than 930hp with a redline around 10,500rpm.
Engineers also commented that during the post-race inspection and tear-down of the quad-rotor engine they discovered that all aspects of the engine were still in excellent condition and could have run another 24-hour race.
“I kept seeing this bumble bee appear in my rearview mirror,” - Davy Jones, one of the TWR Jaguar drivers, of the Mazda.
Advantages of the Rotary Engine:
Wankel engines have several major advantages over reciprocating piston designs, in addition to having higher output for similar displacement and physical size. Wankel engines are considerably simpler and contain far fewer moving parts. For instance, because valving is accomplished by simple ports cut into the walls of the rotor housing, they have no valves or complex valve trains; in addition, since the rotor is geared directly to the output shaft, there is no need for connecting rods, a conventional crankshaft, crankshaft balance weights, etc.
The elimination of these parts not only makes a Wankel engine much lighter (typically half that of a conventional engine of equivalent power), but it also completely eliminates the reciprocating mass of a piston engine with its internal strain and inherent vibration due to repeated acceleration and deceleration, producing not only a smoother flow of power but also the ability to produce more power by running at higher rpm. [Read more →]
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