![]() ![]() While an impressive design, it was probably not a great engine to put in a tank. ![]() This is just one of several significant differences between tank and aircraft engines They are similar and share some components but are not the same. In tanks the compression ratio was reduced from 6.1 and 6.3 as used in aircraft to 5.7 to allow use of 70 (?) octane fuel. The earliest tank versions were called R975-EC3 I believe, and rumour has it they used high octane (100) aviation gas - but none of my manuals confirm this. Continental manufactured the R975 under licence from Wright and made many thousands of engines- far more than were ever made as aircraft engines. Three sizes were offered a five cylinder (540c.i + 150 hp) a seven cylinder ( 760 cu in +225 hp) and a nine cylinder ( 975 cu in + 300 hp) By WW2 the nine cylinder was producing about 400 hp, due to increased compression ratios, supercharger blower speeds, fuel quality etc. By 1930 a new engine was designed and called the J6 series. I believe these early engines were called the J5 version and the nine cylinder Whirlwind was a 788 cubic inch engine of 220 hp. The Continental R975 C1 radail engine is a descendant of the earlier Wright Whirlwind engine that propelled Charles Lindberg across the Atlantic in the late 1920s. I just wanted to add some information about R975 radial engines as there is much interest in them, some really nice restored ones to admire in forum pictures and apparently lots of mis information about them out there. ![]()
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