1971 Arctic Cat Panther 303 Wankel

[@thomasbailey8306]

My Brother had one of these when We was young. Love these old sleds..

[@171apples171]

I have 2 of these. One is a runner. The other is parts but i might be able to get it going. Found it in a junk yard but water had gotten to it.

[@vacontryboyenglish8710]

good stuff I like to hear it start... nice to see inside of a wankel engine

[@randykroells8049]

I remember a riding buddy had to dump heet down the intake for vapor lock when it was warm.

[@nuttersspeedshop]

One of these days I'm going to do a video on taking the killer butterfly out of an OMC Wankel. It's only been waiting for 14 years now LOL.

[@curthenry9398]

What creates vacuum to pull the air/fuel into the combustion chamber?

[@57rotary]

Very Cool! Liked it.

[@meca13b]

Any updates? And where you located 👍

[@jimciancio9005]

The 303 were the first produced by Sachs and Continental as the manufacturer. They were later available in a 295cc engine that was much more performance based over the slightly larger 303's. The KM-24 was a much simpler engine and cleaner looking. The one that was running is the 303, and is a much rounder looking engine where the 295 is boxier looking and made roughly 24HP Over the 303s 18.5HP. Either one is good in their own fashion......

[@motorman45]

actually the 303 or KM914A is 18hp and the KM914B is a 20hp, the 18.5 on the tags was the displacement in cubic inches. continental was never the manufacturer of the engine, only Sachs in Germany was, they were imported and labeled Curtiss Write. you can tell the difference between the A and B version by the pulse port. the A has it cast into the top of the motor and comes out near the back at the cab level, the B version had an M10 threaded port on top where the "snuff can " or diaphragm can sat for the pulse line. the later KM24 295 was not much simpler in its design, just different with side only intake ports and shared almost no parts with the 303.

[@scottb3323]

Good place to get parts?

[@wpspeed2738]

have some questions about my '71 303. how can i contact you ?

[@jeffnicks4909]

always wanted a Wankel im waiting for my inlaws to give the go ahead and get the 73 out of there barn and get it running been waiting 20 years!

[@arcrotaryengineering7156]

Would you have a complete engine with pull start or know where I could source ..Would love one down under

[@RinkyDinkMachineShop]

We could look for one if your still interested?

[@jasonbrown7258]

Nice!!! Back in the early 90s we had at least a dozen of these laying around. I put one of these motors on a manco go kart that thing hauled ass. How do you think a expansion chamber would perform on one

[@brianjacobsen5762]

Can you bridgeport these like b13 mazda.?

[@thegaff1888]

Do you take "mail in" engines? I'm looking at a 1974 panther 295. Hasn't run in 15 years. Would like it looked at and tweaked before trying to start it.

[@francineganmor9952]

Are the seals still available? Or any parts for these?

[@RinkyDinkMachineShop]

Just crankshaft seals you can get new. Rotor seals I have never seen for sale new or used. Usually have good luck taking apart and cleaning out the carbon on the rotor. old motors have been our best parts source.

[@1525krr]

@@RinkyDinkMachineShop cool video. I have a 295 Sachs rotary. Hope I can get it running.

[@jasonbrown7258]

@@RinkyDinkMachineShop I wonder if rotor seals from an RX7 could be modified somehow to fit these.

[@noddybutts6018]

@@RinkyDinkMachineShop i have 2 full rebuild kit with all rotor seals & springs plus new rotor new eccentric shaft and 2 new end plates mite sell them for the right price??? And may know where to get new rotor housing ?

[@171apples171]

​@@jasonbrown7258 There was talk of this somewhere else on the internet and i remember them saying it was possible.

[@bigjay6743]

They can be a pain in the ass to get running right...

[@will7its]

Get a cameraman please before we have a seizure......😭

[@jstavene]

the engine design is flawed, similar to a rx7 rotary, but the seals always go, and oil,,,bad oil burners,, maybe in the future some new tech will happen and bring these back,, (I had someone say a model A ford can go 80 sometimes without needin a rebuild, even todays the makers often do not do a 100k mile warrenty.. planned obsolescence

[@zeus014]

I've owned six 1st-gen RX7s. With proper care and feeding it was not uncommon to get at least 150,000 to even 200,000 miles without a tear-down - not bad for that era, ie: late-1970s through to mid-1980s, and typical for most cars back then. But by the late 1980s it was not uncommon for piston engines to last at least 200,000 to even 300,000 miles with mediocre care and feeding (especially with Toyotas and Hondas), leaving rotary engine durability in the dust by comparison. But the key phrase there is "proper care and feeding". Many of those inexpensive RX7sports cars were bought for college co-eds by their parents - the mechanical equivalent of handing a loaded AK-47 to a two-year-old. The rotary engine uses oil BY DESIGN to lube the apex seals. In the RX7 this is around a quart of oil every 1500 miles (every 1000 miles if used in racing with rpms consistently north of say, 5000). Three ways to shorten the life of - or even kill outright - a rotary: 1. Neglect to top off the oil every second fuel fill-up and rarely do scheduled oil changes. 2. Neglect to change the oil-metering pump every 100,000 miles - a task that takes about half an hour with parts costing less than $200. If this pump is not changed out it will eventually wear out and quit supplying oil to the apex seals - causing them to get (very unceremoniously) spat out the exhaust ports and taking several thousand bucks worth of housings with them. 3. Continue operating the engine in a loss-of-coolant situation. Trying to drive that extra 2 minutes to the nearest garage (after a water pump drive belt failure, blowing a coolant hose or puncturing the rad) will warp the housings and destroy the engine. Since many of the owners of these cars never did proper maintenance it was common for these cars to need an engine tear-down at as little as 80,000 to 100,000 miles. If the oil level was NEVER checked and the oil NEVER changed (hello, college co-eds!) that engine had the life expectancy of a democrat with dirt on Hillary - about 6000 miles tops, and a voided warranty. As for the Sachs 303 and 295 snowmobile engines, they compared favorably with the 2-cycle piston engines of the same era, ie: accumulating carbon deposits and requiring a tear-down every second or third season depending on usage. But what was really interesting about those air-cooled Sachs rotaries was that they were also "charge-cooled" and lubricated: The intake "charge" (a 40:1 pre-mix of fuel and 2-cycle oil), after leaving the carb, did not go directly into the engine intake port for compression/ignition. First, it was routed to an intake port in the end plate that rammed it through the center of the engine assembly, ie: the internal part of the rotor (all the better to cool and lube the rotor internal gear, needle bearings and rotor itself) before being rammed into another port in the opposite end plate and only then routed to the intake port and then compressed for ignition. This same premix charge could then also reach the apex and side seals to keep them lubricated as well.