It was the 289ci engine they used in the GT40 originally wasn't it?
In rotary engines, basically 1 rotor is equivallent to two normal piston cylinders.
The 787 was not the fastest car at Le Mans that year. Sure it was fast but it only won because the faster Jaguars and Mercs were side-tracked.
Here is the road-going GT-40, courtesy of Wikipedia:
The Mk III was a road-car only, of which 31 were built. The car had four headlights, the rear part of the body was expanded to make room for luggage, the 4.7 L engine was detuned to 335 bhp, the shocks were softened, the shift lever was moved to the center and the car was available with the steering wheel on the left side of the car. The most famous Mk III is GT40 M3 1105, a blue left hand drive model delivered in 1968 in Austria to Herbert von Karajan. As the Mk III wasn't very appealing aesthetically (it looked significantly different from the racing models), many customers interested in buying a GT40 for road use chose to buy a Mk I that was available from Wyer Ltd.
So I was wrong too...
And yes, the Sauber-Mercedes cars were faster, leading the race until the reliability as well as speed of the 787B came through. Interestingly, when the winning car was inspected, the motor itself was in excellent condition, and 'could've run for another 24 hours'. This dispensed some myths that the Wankel rotary engine was unreliable, but, then again, as HYBRIDLVR had said, the 787B's motor is a complete departure from the Rotar2 Rotary engines found in the later 90s Mazdas.
(FastFerrari) can some relay some good raito numbers to me so i can push my 78 over 230mph...tryin for at least 240-250mph. THANX
I am not much of a gear tuner, but try pushing the auto setting up by 5-7 notches. With only 5 gears, though, acceleration may diminish...
(Renesis Power) Yes it was not the fastest but the strongest and most reliable it was the 12th fastest qualifier. They said they were just sidetracked just becuase they did not like the thought of loosing too a 2.6 liter NA car while they the Mercys and the Jads had bigger Displacments Mercedes C11(one of them was the 1st fastest qualifiers) had a 5.0L TWIN TURBO (KKK's) V8, and the jags were more reliable with their 7.2L!!! V12's!!!!!! Two of the three Merc's that enterd could not finish because of engine problems not sidetracked and tone of the Jaguar's did not finish becauso of a broken input shaft. oh and what was that all the invinsible 787B's finished in perfect condition in the TOP 10!
Sorry to burst your bubble but the 787B's did not win beacause their opponents wer sidetracked more like becuase of iferior engineering on their opponents part
If I can understand this statement correctly, they were sidetracked. By poor engineering. Much like the 1952(?) F1 race at Rheims, when Jean Behra's French Gordini beat the Ferraris, whom were poorly prepared for the race. So, all in all, the C11s and XJR-12s, being ill-prepared as well (their newer C291s and XJR-14s under the new 3.5L formula that year failed to qualify; their final entries were obselete Group C cars) were sidetracked by unreliability of their cars, while the new Mazda 787B took home the victory, its sister car finishing sixth.
Again, that's only how I interpret it...