what about rotary

[ij1889]

so every one knows i love rotary power, thats no biggy, but i was wondering what many of you think of rotary engines, id like to keep this on topic thats why i put it here.

me::iheartu2: rotary

[RoadRageMotors]

rotarys are great just like flat head v8s, bad fuel mileage no torque and the block is overweight........... but outher than that i loved the 2 rx7s i have owned

[Big Nate]

Rotary (Wenkel) motors are very interesting. They can make a lot of power with the correct setup but that set up is not too easy to find.


I would like to see more development on the motor. Mazda has a rich racing history but needs to either shit or get off the pot when it come to the rotary. They need to put a lot more money into it to make it cleaner and more reliable.

[Picklz]

While it's an interesting concept, and can make good power - like Nate said it's a little tricky. If Rotary were the way to go I'd think it would have taken off more in the past 20+ years, the last gen RX-7 turboed would be pretty cool, other than that I've never had much interest in em.

Without a turbo it's just like a little 4cyl, gotta wind the hell out of it to make any power and you don't have that low end torque.

[JustROLLIN]

Rotaries have been given a bad name in the sport compact market. Most people out there assume the apex seals will have issues leading to an overhaul of the engine. While people have had issues with the apex seals, I have read/experienced that with the correct maintenance, they are not a major issue. That aside, I think the idea of having essentially a limitless RPM range is pretty cool but lack of torque is a bummer.

I have worked on a couple of Turbo II cars and it was not all that bad. Had to reference some outside material for help at points, but I would definitely consider owning one. I see rotary as a bit of a novelty though, to be honest.

[cosmicspd3]

the rx-8 won a huge race at the grandam series was awesome. proves its reliable for some massive abuse. But i agree they need to do more r&d in that engine otherwise they are only hitting a tiny ass niche market. they need to turbo that thing too.

[Young Roids]

They rev nice. But need turbos. I used to have a gen2 rx-7 non turbo, it just didn't have enough power.

[ij1889]

i have never ever been a big fan of the 2nd gen rx-7, it lacks in lots of places, yes ill admit that the torque sucks especially from my 12a's but once on the highway they give me pretty good power, ive keep up with wrx not sti but still its a pretty decent car but for a car that has such a little engine and no mods at all its pretty impressive, if only mazda would have released the 20b engine here in the states alot of people would think very very diffrently about rotaries, alot of people dont really know how to take car of them and ive heard from a couple people that if i dont change my oil very often it goes up into flames which is bullshit, no synthetic motor oil and the ONLY oil you are supposed to is 20-50 (atleast for my 12a) they are not that highmaintnece, its just the oil, ive had to change a couple things to my car but its 27 years old. so many people have spread alot of rumors about rotary cars IMO

[TsunamiTam]

why not use synthetic oil?

pretty sure that is just a myth

rx7club has had on and on convo about the myth.

by havin the rotaries run super hot as it is and really hard to start it when its cold

synthetic is a lot thinner and wont gunk up shit

[TsunamiTam]

the only thing is when u fully rebuilt a rotary you would want to use conventional oil because the thicker oil helps sealing during the breakin process

but after the breaking in process..which is tedious, involving changin the oil/filter every 500 miles up until 2000 miles, and note ur not suppose to boost durin the break in,

after the break in, switchin to synthetic is fine

[ZoomZoom Diva]

Not a myth. Synthetic oil does not burn the same as a conventional oil, which can lead to deposits and/or a lack of lubrication for the seals.

I use a 20W50 racing conventional oil.

We can argue 1st gen/2nd gen... but mine is 20 years old (owned for 5) and I'm just now putting a clutch into it.

[ij1889]

yeah to each their own, it believe its just a myth about the high cost of maintenance

[Young Roids]

Not a myth. Synthetic oil does not burn the same as a conventional oil, which can lead to deposits and/or a lack of lubrication for the seals.

I use a 20W50 racing conventional oil.

We can argue 1st gen/2nd gen... but mine is 20 years old (owned for 5) and I'm just now putting a clutch into it.

Now I get it you have a mazda convertible that is not a miata. lol I was scratching my head. I totaly forgot about the gen 2 rx7 convertibles.

[RoadRageMotors]

yeah to each their own, it believe its just a myth about the high cost of maintenance
just ask mike what he has spent keeping his rx7 running this year, i think its around $1500 and we do all the labor

but what about the gas mileage? mikes stock 89 vert get about 10mpg and my 85 didnt do much better

as to motors blowing easly, my 93 R1 is sitting in the garage with a blown motor and only 20k miles on it......it was stock when it blew one day i will get around to swaping a 20B into

:banana: maintenance on a rotory makes a dsm look like a great daily driver:banana:

[ZoomZoom Diva]

I regularly get 20 mpg around town with my 'vert, better if the top is up a good portion of the time.

Also, from the RX-7's and even earlier than I have seen and spoken with owners, the maintenance expense you speak of is not typical of rotary engines. The vast majority of FD engine issues I have seen stem from improper modification or abuse. Yours may be an exception to that.

My experience in 5 years has been a set of tires, oil and fluid changes, and a clutch. Nothing rotary specific or premature.

[mndsm]

My brother's 85 GSL-SE was the epitome of reliability. Fo reals. Other than mysteriously carving a hole in the battery and shooting battery acid all over the engine bay, the thing never failed, got decent mileage, and never had any issues other than maitenance....

[ij1889]

i get about 20-30mpg with my 12as, yeah for somereason i hear about problems with the fd way more than any other rotary out there, my biggest issue i have had with my car was the carborator, then then again its older than most members on the site and almost twice as old as me, but yeah sorry to hear about your fd, 20b engine will kill anything here in the states, i want to get one for my other fb but its gonna take me a year or two to come up with that type of green

[turbovert91]

My favorite subject!!

The only real knock on rotaries (besides low torque, which is simple to fix with a big turbo...) is their shitty gas mileage. They'll make as much horsepower as a piston engine but need ~30% more fuel to do so.

My 85 SE (NA/FI) has been perfect for the 14 years I've owned it and I redline it at least a few times every time I drive it.

Totally bulletproof. When I hear someone trash the rotary that just tells me that they don't know shit about them.

It's only very mildly modded but still pretty quick. It also still gets 24mpg with I/H/E mods, just like the original window sticker rating.

The 84-85 SE's are the best motors torque-wise because they have the heaviest rotors. Every turbo owner I know that drives my car gets out with a smile on their face and comments on how surprised they are that it has that much torque. Not as much as a V8 but certainly impressive for 80ci!

BTW non-turbo rotaries are more like six cylinders than four bangers-there are three tips on each rotor being power stroked each time they pass a spark plug.

People also don't realize they inject oil directly into the combustion chamber and the amount depends on how heavy a foot the driver has. This is why synthetic is not recommended as it doesn't burn as clean as mineral oil, especially since it's the same oil lubricating/carrying the heat away from everywhere else...and you should use 10w30 oil in them. That's what the FSM says (at least for 1st and 2nd gen N/A and turbos) AND they'll get better mileage with it than with 20w50.

As long as the oil and coolant are watched and BASIC maintenance done an N/A will easily last 175,000-200,000 miles. I've had friends with over 300,000 miles on theirs before the original engine gave out, and you basically have to drive like a complete ass to burn a clutch out of a 1st gen.

Turbos on the other hand place a much higher demand on the whole drivetrain, but especially the oil since they make so much more heat. The exhaust temps on my 2nd gen are ~1600 degrees Fahrenheit! The 2nd gen turbos last longer than the (way sexxxy) 3rd gens because by the time the 3rd gens came out they cost upwards of $40,000, were complicated as hell, and Mazda had to cut corners to sell it even at that price.

Another problem is that being a poor man's Porsche they usually get modded on the cheap by people that don't really know them and whaddya know, they blow up due to overheating/fuel starvation under load.

I'm squeezing ~500 engine HP (w/methanol AI) out of my 80ci motor and since the engine was built properly I wind it out to 8,000rpm all the time with no problems so far...

[spek1098]

I will not claim to know personally how well a rotary works, but I think rotaries, plainly put, are a novelty. If they were anything but, then there would be more then one car on the market with them in it. Let’s look at it from an economic standpoint, as that is what drives car manufactures to design and implement different technologies. Everything is weighed on a cost/benefit basis. Things to be considered when make a decision like what type of engine to use are reliability, weight/power ratio, total cost to build said engine, and more. Simply put, by the fact that no one else uses these engines in cars, to score by those factors the piston vs. rotary debate, I think you’ll find pistons win. Other wise rotaries would be everywhere, with all the praises you guys sing about them. This is not to diminish rotaries, but if they were markedly better in either reliability, weight/power ratio, total cost to build the engine or whatever metric you’re measuring by, then they would be much more prevalent then they are. I don’t think there is some type of conspiracy theory keeping rotaries down, businesses would be shooting themselves in the foot by denying a better technology. If that happened, someone else would come pick up that technology and out-compete them with it. It all comes down to competitive advantage, like with the Rx-8. Rx-8 is pretty highly priced, with nothing special in the power department for that price. So what sells the Rx-8? I’d say its looks, and the novelty of the rotary.

[dmention7]

The thing about comparing rotaries to piston engines is that the amount of R&D put into pistons engines dwarfs the amount put into rotaries. For that fact alone, I think it's hard to call one or the other "better" without including a caveat about the relative investments that have been put into each.

The simple fact that any company uses them in production vehicles at all is somewhat of a testament to their viability.

If the whole betamax vs VHS deal has taught us anything, it's that commercial popularity is not necessarily an indicator of technical superiority, or vice versa.

[ZoomZoom Diva]

The RX-8 can sell on handling too. For other automakers (GM was very close to producing a rotary that AMC had licensed as the original engine for the Pacer), the cost/benefit equation is very different than Mazdas. Also, like diesels, rotary engines have a bad reputation with a lot of people based on false and outdated information.

Anyway, the equivalency factor is to double the displacement and triple the cylinders. Therefore, the 1308 2 rotor is equivalent to a 2.6 litre V6 engine... and my mileage and power are comparable to similar weight V6 cars of the day.

I've never burned a clutch out before (even with over 180K on a car), and mine stuck in the engaged position, so I don't know it it's only driving like an ass that can do it... I see it as simple mechanical failure and not a given fault of the car and particularly the rotary.

Jay, excellent point on the R&D differences.

[turbovert91]

Those are all good points. Every manufacturer in the early 70's licensed wankel technology-GM even touted the next Corvette as being rotary powered.

Then the big bad gas crunch hit and the technology was abandoned because of a) poor gas mileage compared to piston motors, and b) combustion chamber sealing problems.

Mazda had simply already spent too much on R&D to abandon the project, and was the only company that stuck with it. Eventually they fixed the reliability and oil sealing problems to acceptable levels but realized the engine would only be good for a sports car since it a) runs VERY smooth and b) has a high redline and c) their smaller size allows them to be placed farther back in the chassis for near perfect 50/50 weight distribution. Well, that and the fact that sports car owners aren't as concerned with gas mileage as most car buyers :)

Rotaries ARE novelty motors and will never be as easy or cheap to run as a V8, I think enthusiests just like bragging about all the power these little beer kegs can make when pushed...

Other than the Rx-8 (which certainly is not a SLOW car, just lacks any oomph) you still see a lot of them in small aircraft because of their size and the fact that they can run at a constant rpm all day long without any resonating or reciprocating type of fatigue.

I just happened to fall in love with them because my Dad was a Mazda dealer when I was young, and once you're bitten the bug is hard to get rid of :D

[ij1889]

lol i agree with 99.9% of turbovert91, when i said my 12 a is like a 4banger i only ment torque wise but on the the highway its a v6 and a really good car.

as most of us rotary owners have said it not a high maintence vehicle(unless you have the fd) its just people who dont know shit about rotaries buy them and think they are excatly as pistons and end up fucking up the cars, this is why we rotary get bad press.

the reason why the rx8 sells is the looks of it, there is no other car in the market like it.

i dont think its much of a novelty if you want something nice and cheap stick with a 12a or a non turbo 13b, but if you really want performance go with the 20b(i heart 20b) now thats a novelty.

once you own a rotary your outlook of what is rotary changes, you understand what rotaries are capable of, it is addicting and i have been hit hard with the love bug on rotaries that i dont only have one but 2 1st gen rx-7s

[RoadRageMotors]

the reason your clutch hasnt burnt out is mostlikely one of two reasons 1 lack of lowend torque and 2 my girlfreind hasnt driven it yet