TwoCammer

what i say comes from my experience working with a mazda master tech the last few months, and doing more than a desired workload of rotary repair....
that said, we have an rx8 right now...our fixed op's manager's daugher's car...a motor is bein ordered for it. seems like this trend isnt so uncommon. i think she got 14k on the clock before it went poo...didnt die, just started having weird problems. and you should spend 2 or 3 days trying to start a flooded rotary engine...that will definitely change your mind. sure they hi power cars tear some serious bunghole, but it just dont seem worth it. there is a service bulletin on them, that the new rotary motor will use oil...oh yeah, and my favorite...a recall on standard tranny cars...the vibration damper heat shield...the heat from the exhaust gets it too hot, and it cracks and can actually fall off the car while going down the road



ROb

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Artificialist

yeah, what a shame, the RX8 is such a cool looking car...
Mazda thought they got all the bugs out, but it seems they didn't. They blamed most of the problems on the turbo, but the RX-8 is non-turbo. I guess they assumed too much.

Also, how well do the apex seals hold up on an RX-8? They used to crap out WAAAAY too often on FC and FD models. Then they'd smoke like crazy.

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ausgeflippt13

hehe...yeah as Jeep said the 13B came w/ twin turbos (one for each rotor)...the super sweet thing about rotary engines is that there are no intake/exhaust valves, just openings for the intake/exhaust. This means that the maximum amount of gas/air will flow into the area formed by the rotor and the wall of the chamber, thus giving the best volumetric efficiency possible. Then, slap on a turbo for both rotors and you've got yourself one sweet machine

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Artificialist

Not onl;y that, some rotaries have had their ports polished for even better air flow, however, it can kill low end torque from what I have read.

Also, I heard that the position of the ports determines the overlap of intake and exhaust.

Rotaries are interesting engines, but I really don't trust them.

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ausgeflippt13

by polishing the ports you improve the air flow by spiraling it into/out of the chamber, so I should think you'd get better torque.

I don't think that the position of the ports determines overlap cuz the corners of the rotors are big enough to cover the intake/exhaust ports which then prohibits overlap.

The old rotary engines (10B/13B...ones in the first two gens RX-7s) were extremely inefficient. The oil for the turbo (in the case of the 13B) got in the chamber, and the chamber itself burnt oil like crazy. That's why the 3rd gen RX-7s went w/ a V6...but the Renesis engine is totally improved, and the darn thing gets ~19mpg in the city and a whopping 35 mpg on the highway (it has to do w/ being more efficient @ higher RPMs).

and, it's affordable

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TwoCammer

no rx-anything came with a v6, they have always and will always be rotary powered...as to the apex seals holding up, i am sitting not 10 feet from a new standard power 13b that is on the ground in front of the car because of low compression...rotaries have always, and will always burn oil...i dont understand it completely, but our mazda master tech told me that the oil pump actually pumps a metered amount of oil into the rotor housings for lubrication. so they are gonna burn oil. you can enlarge or polish the ports atleast on the old motors...and as for low end torque...i think the turbo's were the only engines with anything you would consider torque under 4 grand...and the renesis isnt much better...but you keep a high power above 4, and with will make you cry for momma...something about hearin that redline buzzer humming at you as the tach swings to that big 9 on the tach is undescribable.


ROb

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Tuanies

RX = Rotary eXperiment IIRC or something like that.

ausgeflippt13

sweet. I coulda sworn that I heard the 3rd gens came w/ V6s cuz they were more efficient than the Wankels...maybe the guy I was talking to just threw a V6 into his 3rd gen cuz it was more efficient...that sounds more plausible. I stand corrected.

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TwoCammer

i dont think wankels ever made production. a wankel engine had the spinning countershaft of the rotary, but the rotor housing also turned around the rotor.

ROb

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Tuanies

Wankels were the original 12A Rotory that was used in the RX3, RX4, R100, RX2, RX5 Cosmo, and REPU Pickup, yes there was a wankel powered pickup.