I never liked the idea of carrying the weight of an engine. What if you built an air cooled quasiturbine engine inside of a wheel and had the front wheels run by these engines? The exhaust could be run by flex hose from it. I'd use wheels kind of like mobile homes have where the rim and tire come off the hub for flat repairs and tire changes. The only drawback would be designing a transmission to work with such an engine. Both wheels would need a transmission built in. An alternator could be built into the quasiturbine to generate needed electricity for A/C, lights, radio, etc. This should hopefully greatly reduce the weight of the car and eliminate a lot of parts. Working on an engine should be easier as well.
-- Willie333, Sep 29 2005

O.R.M. Wheels O_2eR_2eM_2e_20Wheels
Kind of like this idea but electric. [BJS, Apr 17 2006]

Unsprung weight would likely make this handle extremely poorly.
-- bristolz, Sep 29 2005


Good point. But my chiropractor would probably love the extra business!
-- Willie333, Sep 29 2005


Wouldn't the rear wheels be a better choice..?
-- BJS, Apr 17 2006


The additional rotating weight would increase gyroscopic effects which would impair cornering, more-so for front wheels than back. However, it would certainly lower the centre of gravity.

This could be an interesting concept for the back wheel of a bike, although I suspect it would be susceptible to wheelies. If there was a set of reverse gearing though, it would supress the normal rotational force associated with acceleration.
-- marklar, Apr 20 2006


1) You are still carrying the weight of the engine (now two engines) together with 2 transmissions etc. 2) You are now carrying this weight as unsprung mass. This is a bad thing. 3) The size of engines with enough power would result in some huge wheels. The whole vehicle would definitely end up heavier. 4) Air con, power steering, brake servos etc. are all normally driven direct from the engine (not electrically) so links to these would be a problem. 5) It has already been done with motorcycles, most noteably with a five cylinder gnome rotary engine. The motorcycles had no suspension (circa 1920) so suspension and handling were not significant ideas. Not so much half baked as a pile of dough on the floor.
-- Twizz, Apr 20 2006


Twizz, a quaisiturbine engine generates immense amounts of power for very small sizes. It could easily be mounted within a decent sized wheel. The wieght won't be much of an issue, problem is powering the wheel motors.
-- S1, Apr 20 2006



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