What is your say on the Rotary engine of the Mazda RX 8 ???

[Fleischmann]

Well, 9000 revs and 238 bhp from a 1.3 liter engine can't be bad, eh ??

[godspeed06]

the car has no low end torque which is what i think makes a car the most fun for daily use.

off topic, but could you put a rotary engine in a motorcycle? or is the 1.3 L basically a completely useless fact considering its a rotary engine?

[antonioledesma]

the things I'd like of the wankel engine (if I had one, of course ), even when it doesn't have the efficiency of a normal engine (sorry, but I don't remember the cycle), it's reliability, don't make a lot of noise, is a smooth engine, and remember that engine once won Le Mans.

[godspeed06]

what i was asking was if the hayabusa has a 1.3L and makes like 140 or 150 hp, if they could put the rotary 1.3 L (because of same liter size) and have the bike make way more power. i don't think the revs would be that far off either. and it would be one damn fast bike.

[sickx]

Keep in mind that the 1.3L on the rotary is misleading...you can NOT directly compare displacement between piston and rotary engines! The combustion chambers are very different-- as mentioned before, the 1.3L Rotary is more in the class of a 2.5 - 3.0L V-6.

For bikes, the inline 4s are the way to go--nice packaging, serious power potential. You'll see bikes with close to 200hp soon from the factory.

[godspeed06]

thanks... that was pretty much what i figured, but you never know.

[kiato4]

The rotary is cool, but I just wish they had spent more money on development to get the twin turbo version to work with the better emissions.

[sickx]

Originally Posted by kiato4 The rotary is cool, but I just wish they had spent more money on development to get the twin turbo version to work with the better emissions.

THey did--it's called flush ports instead of end ports. It's they only way they could control flame propogation/exhaust scavaging sufficiently to work around the emissions problem that plagued the old 13B.

Doesn't mean you won't see turbos on the new rotary in the future!

[astonmartinandy]

I think as far as engine designs and ideas go, it is pretty amazing, but then you do have to consider the short-falls as well; low torque, power very high up in the rev range and high emissions. Then again having a car that revs that freely all the way to 9000rpm has to be worth a drive and the rest of the car is supposed to be pretty damn good- apart from in the wet!! What do you think to that or the 350Z? (The obvious competitor)

[gottacatchup]

its a great engine
small compact light and produces respectable power although at normaly unusable rpm's when you want to it will go

[zevolv]

The Renisis is an amazing engine it even won engine of the year last year so that says it right there. the car is amazing and very nibble and I'm 6 feet tall and have no problem in the back seat of the RX-8. the engine only has one set back and that is the fuel consumption.

[Schwalbe]

The rotary engine of the Mazda RX8 is original, but where are the turbos ?

[zevolv]

The turbos on the old engine were putting too much boos tin the engine for the low amount of fuel in the engine when pushed to the extremes (especially in the corners) and that's what caused so many of the RX-7s to blow their engine.

[SFDMALEX]

I dont like rotaries, the make me sick. PERIOD.

[NYCHonda]

The concept of a rotary engine is great. They're compact but can be able to produce decent amount of horsepower. It is a great concept but reliability issue is what turn me off about the engine. Mazda claim that the new Renesis rotary engine which is in the RX-8 now doesn't have all that reliability problems like the old rotary engine. I don't believe them yet until I've seen one myself. The RX-8 is still a new car. It's hard to tell but everytime Mazda producing the new RX, they always said stuff like that about their rotary engine.