New VAZ-413 rotary engine for police chases (25 photos)

In the 60-70s, many of the world's leading automakers experimented with rotary piston internal combustion engines designed by Felix Wankel. The license to produce such engines was then acquired by NSU, Ford, Citroen, Mercedes-Benz, Mazda, Nissan and a number of other large companies.

The Soviet Union did not stand aside either: for example, in 1974, a special design bureau for rotary piston engines (SKB RPD) was created at the Volzhsky Automobile Plant, headed by B.S. Pospelov. The tasks were ambitious: to create and introduce into production a domestic “rotor” that would be on par with the best foreign models.

Scan of a Soviet magazine with information about the VAZ-21018

The first prototype of the RPD was created at VAZ in 1976, and in 1978 in Tolyatti they mastered the production (in a small series) of the single-section RPD VAZ-311 with a power of 80 hp at 6000 rpm. A car with this engine received the designation VAZ-21018 (based on the serial 21011) and although it was built in 1978, it was first shown to the general public in 1982 at the NTTM-82 exhibition. The maximum speed of the car was 145 km/h.

Archive photo of factory tests of VAZ-21018

A series of fifty such cars was produced to test them in real operating conditions. Soon, within six months, the plant was forced to replace the RPD with conventional internal combustion engines on 49 out of 50 cars, which was associated with a colossal number of complaints about the quality of both the design itself and its execution. The main malfunctions were failure of seals and bearing units, insufficient balance of the rotor-eccentric mechanism (REM), and low fuel efficiency.

Police penny: RPDs were also placed on these

However, despite the failure with the VAZ-21018, work on creating a RPD was further developed - domestic law enforcement agencies needed a powerful engine, while the requirements for service life and fuel consumption were lower than for a general purpose vehicle. As a result, the Zhiguli VAZ-21019 (also based on the VAZ-21011 body) with a two-section VAZ-411 RPD with a power of 120 hp was created. at 6000 rpm. The maximum speed of this car, which was called “Arkan,” was 160 km/h. On October 20, 1982, under the leadership of the USSR Minister of Automotive Industry V.N. Polyakov, a meeting was held on the work of the AvtoVAZ design bureau on rotary piston engines, automotive prospects for the use of VAZ RPDs and the possibility of organizing their mass production. As a result of the meeting, it was decided to begin organizing serial production of automotive RPDs for special operational vehicles in 1983, and to determine a production program for RPDs at VAZ for 1983 in the amount of 200 units per year.

And this is a VAZ-21079 police car with a 140-horsepower VAZ-413 rotary engine

In June 1986, the first pilot production batch of VAZ-21059 was manufactured. This car was a further development of the idea of a fast and powerful car for the police and special services, tested on the VAZ-21018 and VAZ-21019 models. This modification, like the VAZ-21019, was equipped with a two-section VAZ-411 rotary piston engine with a power of 120 hp. at 6000 rpm. The maximum speed of this car reached 160 km/h.

Another archival photo of a VAZ-21079 for the police

Since the second half of 1991, the VAZ-21079 car based on the “Seven” was produced in small batches for the needs of the police and special services. The model was equipped with a two-section VAZ-4132 RPD with a displacement of 1.3 liters and a power of 140 hp.

2 sections of the RPD are clearly visible: blue plugs are places for spark plugs

It was this kind of power unit that was discovered in one of the garage cooperatives in Kyiv. A subscriber wrote to me and said that he had a VAZ rotor with the index VAZ-4132 lying idle for a long time.

This is the first time I've seen an oil filter like this.

Engine number starts with 4132

The engine needs to be thoroughly washed, but indirect signs show that it is practically new and is unlikely to have been installed on the car

According to legend, this engine was somehow miraculously obtained by the director of one of the woodworking plants in the Zhitomir region. True, they never installed it on the car: all these years the RPD lay among various rubbish.

The carburetor, alas, was stolen by someone, but it is known that there was a Solex from standard VAZ models there

RPD is more compact than conventional internal combustion engines. The curb weight of the VAZ-413 is 107 kg

VAZ-21079 or 21059 with a similar 2-section RPD develop a maximum speed of 180 km/h, and acceleration from 0 to 100 km/h takes only 9 seconds.

An extremely interesting artifact

Unfortunately, the found motor is not completely complete in terms of attachments, but many parts are unified with conventional VAZ internal combustion engines, for example, a carburetor, so bringing it back to life will not be a very difficult task.

Already in the 90s, AvtoVAZ also mastered the production of RPDs for front-wheel drive models

Compared to the classic four-stroke internal combustion engine, the Wankel engine has a number of significant advantages:

- low level of vibrations due to the fact that the RPM is completely mechanically balanced - there is no need to convert reciprocating motion into rotational motion, torque from the rotor axis can be transmitted directly.

- excellent dynamic characteristics.

— High specific power of the RPD (hp/kg).

— overall dimensions and weight are 1.5-2 times smaller compared to a conventional internal combustion engine, which is due to the absence of pistons and crankshafts with connecting rods.

- ease of repair due to the number of parts being 35-40% smaller compared to a conventional internal combustion engine - a two-rotor engine has three main moving parts: two rotors and an output shaft, while the simplest four-cylinder piston engine has at least 40 moving parts, including pistons , connecting rods, camshaft, valves, valve springs, rockers, timing belt, timing gears and crankshaft.

However, with all the listed advantages of RPD, there are also significant disadvantages. These include the following:

- condition of the seals (the contact area of the piston and chamber is very small - the consequence of this contradiction is leaks between individual chambers and, as a consequence, a decrease in efficiency and an increase in exhaust toxicity

- increased oil and gasoline consumption. On average, cars with RPD consume up to 20 liters of fuel per 100 km, and from 0.4 liters to 1 liter of oil per 1000 km.

- tendency to overheat.

- high requirements for the precision of parts make it difficult and expensive to produce.

In addition, these seals operate under conditions of limited lubrication and poor heat dissipation - additional oil must be injected directly into the intake manifold to lubricate them. It is not difficult to guess that this also does not improve the environmental performance of the engine.

Some parts are unified with the very first VAZ-311 rotors

VAZ RPDs were also not particularly reliable and durable, and although the plant itself promised a service life of 100-125 thousand km for the VAZ-413 engine, in real life they rarely reached 30-40 thousand without major repairs.

The rotary theme was finally abandoned in Tolyatti in the early 2000s, and only the Japanese Mazda clung to the RPD until the last and tried to develop this design. Their last rotary model, the RX-8, remained in production until June 2012.