Nearly a Commando

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDYzOrnwors[/video]

These are brilliant.

Thanks. Starting the 2 up sold me big time.

If they get enough built may give the 961 a run for its money!!!
They look great
Regards Mike

Great sounding motors.

If Richard Negus has done the engine it should go well. The best man to work on a rotary. He was Director of Motorcycles of Norton Motors Ltd in the rotary days. The rare case of an academic who can work miracles in the workshop, too.

Also a good man for the rebuild of a Commando engine. He built one in the mid-1980s for a customer of Norton Motors Ltd that was then sold to Germany and did well over 100.000km (60.000mls) before the owner took it apart. Only because he thought oil consumption got a bit high..... nothing mechanically wrong with it.

Looks not to bad . Nice and simple & traditional . and LIGHT we hope . Then theres the SPEED .



As somebody might have said once. Or twice , Elsewhere . The Sods COULD have MADE this For 74 Production . Sniveling Gits . :x

http://www.classicbikeguide.com/article ... nvt-rotary A bit here elswhere too , I hear .

Of course Matt, it is a 2-stroke after all - but wont you fret about the thirst, even with that fat interstate ['inter-county'] tank?

Nay , Its a 6 Cylinder 3 stroke . ACTUALLY , its NOT a ' STROKE ' at all , is it . Dear Chap . :lol:

Hence the name rotary. I think they sound odd, especially in deceleration.

Oh Matt, do your homework old boy, the principle of a rotary sweep/recip` stroke are analogous, & it so it is thusly a 2-stroke - application-wise...
Mind you it would sound better as a triple [check out a 20B Mazda, such as raced in the Rolex sports car championship RX 8]

Whatever it is , If theyed put it into production in 74 , it wouldve seen of any Jap Road bike . And not just in the bends .
A bit of foresight 7 they wouldve realised Fuel Injection was comeing along . Their excuse was that Emissions wert compliant , back then .
A good Anglo saxon contraption , rather than japanese recycled scrap metal , too . Not sure what they made their tyres from , but none of them worked , either .

Emissions? Thirst? Next we`ll HAVE bill telling us -you cant buy one!
[Quick, get a campaign promise from Mitt!]

A rotary is a four-stroke. Check the phases the rotor goes through.

We rebuilt, and I then testrode, one of the 1974 prototypes. Nice bike, but far from production-ready.

I also owned the 1979 prototype (the "Cooke Neilsen") and rode it for a while. A very nice motorcycle, and, in my opinion, that should have been produced. Only 9 years later it was launched in similar form as the Norton "Classic".

I later sold both bikes to a German collector, and they are both currently exhibited in the Motorsport Museum at Hockenheimring.

The fuel consumption and failing seals saga are but sagas, and were history by the time Norton built production rotaries. When the German "Motorrad" magazine tested the P55B (Norton "F1Sports" resp. Norton "TT") in 1992, I it rode back from Nuerburgring to Stuttgart on the autobahn, accompanied by a journalist on a Yamaha Enduro, the other on a 1200cc Triumph Four. We filled up near Nuerburgring, then refilled in Stuttgart. The Yamaha single- predictably- was the most economical bike, next was the Norton rotary, by far the most guzzled the Triumph. Guess what the test said? "Rotaries guzzle petrol!" Journalists know their readers like to get their prejudices confirmed....

Emissions: I did the emissions testing on the P53 "Commander", the P55 "F1", and the P55B "F1 Sports". P53- no problem at all. P55- no chance with the Mikuni carbs, a total desaster. P55B- same engine/exhaust but SU carbs, passed. The bikes were up to the standards of the time. With electronic engine management systems and injection it should be a piece of cake now.

Find out more on these- and other rotaries- on http://www.nortonmotors.co.uk

Joe Seifert

One turn of the rotor produces four combustion cycles, but does that make the rotary (or Wankel) engine a 4-stroke ?
I personally think that the term "stroke" is not correct here.
Some time ago I met a guy who rode a Norton F1 , a nice looking machine indeed, however, the owner reported overheating when riding in slow traffic.
The compactness of the rotary engine made the rotary engine particularly suitable for motorcycles, and the project looked promising at the time(although the Suzuki RE5 was anythinh but compact, but that's another story)
The Wankel project was inherited from BSA in the early 1970's , and lingered on for many years, but unfortonately it never came close to a comercial succes.
Today, the Wankel engine seems to be dead as a dodo, as no major manufacturer seem to be interested in futher development or production of this type of engine anymore.
A missed oportunity ? who knows !

The F1, with its beautiful but fully enclosing bodywork, overheated in slow traffic. Hence the successor F1 Sports/NortonTT, which opened the fairing up and let the heat get out. A very much better motorcycle in many respects. In my opinion the best rotary engined motorcycle ever built.

ZFD said:

The F1, with its beautiful but fully enclosing bodywork, overheated in slow traffic. Hence the successor F1 Sports/NortonTT, which opened the fairing up and let the heat get out. A very much better motorcycle in many respects. In my opinion the best rotary engined motorcycle ever built.

Click to expand...

How many of the said successors were made and in what years do you know by any chance?

Only 65 were made, all in 1991, according to the nortonmotors.co.uk site.

FWIW, I think Tom Kullen, one of the forum members, still owns his. He could probably add some info on the mods that were made to fix some of the issues having to do with the air intake and cooling system.

The Frutiger brothers shop in Minnesota used to own one, along with their works monocoque racer. They sold the racer to Jamie Waters, but I don't know what happened to the F1S.

Ken

On the Norton facebook page there was mention that the brothsrs still hVe the rotary.

I could tell you in what details the F1Sports differed from the F1, but I think few people on this forum would be interested. The idea and technical changes to the F1 were put down in a fax to Richard Negus by myself in 1991, after my frustrating experiences with the F1 in emissions testing, which I did for Norton Motors Ltd in Germany, plus my riding experiences of the grossly overheating F1 in Munich city traffic and in the Alps.

If I remember correctly a total of 67 was built of the F1Sports/TT, the last one in Bavaria from new parts.

It is all so long ago........ I still have an F1Sports, and the rotary racer in my shop in Bavaria, plus we have all the ex-factory rotary spares stock at Andover Norton.

I scanned all the Rotary info I have, not much. A letter to Norton from a Firm they hired and a Commander Brochure.