Father of The Wankel Engine in The USA
Bentele and his team studied the concepts of the Wankel rotary engine and started to design a prototype before the license was granted, settling on a 60 cubic inches (980 cm3) design using most of Wankel's original geometric sealing designs in the DKM54 model. In its first dyno test in 1959, the new model, dubbed the IRC6, provided a spectacular performance of 100 bhp at 5500 rpm, which was impressive for such a small engine design.
Bentele and Jones then proceeded to design a custom cooling system that surpassed NSU's, with increased engine performance and reliability. Extensive experimentation continued, following Bentele's orders, on nearly every aspect of the engine's design, the process taking several years and continuing after Bentele had left Curtiss-Wright. Output was gradually increased, as was the general size of the engine. The late RC2-60 engine was tested in a 1966 Ford Mustang and performed well, providing similar performance to the Mustang's original V8 with less fuel consumption, noise and vibration, and physical size. The engine was also emission tested in a study by Curtiss-Wright and the University of Michigan in a Ford Galaxy; GM and AMC also tested rotary engines in their vehicles but did not publish findings.
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