In all fairness, Ralph Sarich is not your average Australian. As an inventor, engineer, and property investor, he’s done it all, frankly, amassing a great fortune with his engineering and real-estate endeavors. Sarich’s big break, however, came during the early ’70s, with the re-imagination of what we know as the Wankel rotary engine that Mazda made famous.
His version, dubbed the Orbital engine, had the rotor orbit around the crank/output shaft instead of rotating, which was a Wankel hallmark. It’s complicated and unconventional, shall we say, so here’s an archived video from 1973 to help you better visualize the engine.
The orbital design, according to Sarich, made the engine light and compact, while retaining the Wankel’s desirable power and high-revving characteristics. Not only that, but the Orbital engine had much superior wear resistance, unlike the rotary with its fair share of pros and cons.
While the engine certainly brought him fame, for a brief moment at least, the design wasn’t flawless, as it ran into cooling and lubrication issues. Although he claimed the Orbital had better emissions, sealing, and fuel economy, Sarich couldn’t get the engine production-ready, even after nearly a decade of research and testing.
Sarich dropped the Wankel idea, but realized the fuel injection system he created for the Orbital could be adapted for use in two-stroke applications (though not the same as the two-strokes used in motorcycle racing engines). Lo and behold, the OCP (Orbital Combustion Process) engine was born, using an air-assisted direct fuel injection system, dubbed OFIS (Orbital Fuel Injection System), which allowed the engine to run an A/F ratio as lean as 31.5:1. The tech was first prototyped around the early ’80s in three-cylinder two-stroke Suzuki-sourced engines.
