Originally posted by drg84
Swiftster, I hate to argue with you(again), but the rotory has issues. As for as simplicity goes, the rotory is truely for lightweight cars. But their by no means bulletproof. Seems to me that the points on the rotors like to grind off causing poor compression and smoking. As such, their almost useless by 100K. Otherwise, mazda would be Still putting them in its entire product line. As for the wankel powered hot-rods, wouldnt it work to place a rotory in something like a spirit, a mustang, a escort or something else lightweight? Just to be different
The tips of the rotors have seals. You have to overhaul the engine to replace the seals. This isn't any worse than putting rings in a V-8. Mazda couldn't put rotories in all their cars because the fuel mileage is horrible. Remember, we are in the age of corporate fuel economy. It's a lot easier to sell 25,000 RX-8's with poor mileage when you can offset this with 600,000 6's, 3's and Miatas. The best endourace test I can think of is 24 hours of hard racing. It passed that test. I don't think these engines are any worse than any other engine design.

I agree, putting a rotory in a lightweight car would be different and significantly cut weight compared to a V-8. The AMC Pacer was another car that was originally designed for a rotory. The only problem is that we don't get 3 rotor Cosmo engines. We get two rotor engines with less than 200 HP. While porting the rotors can make significantly more power, it still won't hold up to an LS1 Camaro or a blown 4.6L Mustang. Check out the pictures of the Spitfire I included earlier. It's a nice car, but it only weighs 1500 Lbs.