Oh come on.You know that wankel is banned from lemans right?And guess why?Because it gives an amazing power to weigh and size ratio just on the engine itself.Wankel engine deserves more development.We are talking about an engine that only mazda knows and makes.Isnt the lightness and the small size an advantage?Lower center of gravity,less mass to move around.
And it may perform like an engine larger twice as much,but in fact it isnt,this is the best thing about it.
I don't think anything. It was a simple question. What car with a 1.3l piston engine has 250hp? I asked because I just don't know and would like to know.
Whilst the Wankel in the RX-8 has a volumetric displacement of 1.3l it isn't comparible to a 1.3l reciprocating engine. To get the ~250hp it still has to burn the same amount of fuel (actually more, as it's less fuel efficient). It uses more oil. Is more expensive to service, and generates less torque (but can make nice headline power figures due to a slightly higher rev ceiling). The only thing in their favour is size and weight, and it's not a huge saving of either.
Well,the fact is that no one ever cared about it.Only mazda believed in its performances.We now run cars with a really stupid engine,it converts linear motion into rotational,it has thousands of moving parts,and it just produces power in just one of its strokes.You cant say an engine like this is smart,can you?Wankel is not the solution,but surely it is a much more solid base to start from(at least theoretically).
Not really, no. It's purely a marketing exercise. If it was any good then Mazda would have more than one car fitted with it.
I've driven RX-8s on the road and on track (at Bruntingthorpe). On the road it was a truly awful engine, on the track it was merely okay. I've certainly never driven a car with 250hp that had so little go, and yet uses more fuel to achieve that lack of go.
The F1 turbo cars of the 80's were producing 1200 to 1500 bhp from a 1.5ltr engine. So with todays level of engineering expertise i think anyone could get between 250 and over a million bhp from a 1.3l, easy.
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As far as i'm aware Mazda persist with the rotary engine simply because they want too. It's very similar to Porsche still putting the engine in the wrong place in the 911. It's a trade mark, a unique characteristic, something only they do. An RX wouldn't be an RX without a rotary, just like a 911 wouldn't be a 911 without their washing machine engine crammed into the boot where the golf clubs should be.
Thousands, no. I'm (re)building my own I4 engine for my car, and I end up with about 120 moving parts if you dismantle the oil pump, water pump, turbo, cam angle sensor, dynamo, belt tensioners and clutch assembly and add the rest of the more obvious components. About that thing about producing power in only 1/2 of the strokes, it's still more agile and economic per hp/Nm than a 2-stroke piston engine. Get a 4-stroke piston engine to burn the same amount of fuel as a wankel, and you'll see who gets more power and torque..
Wankle engines are pretty damn heavy. The only real plus side to this engine is that it can be crammed into any tiny sports car or microcar. Such as the 84-87 Corolla or the Cappuccino. But even then, I would rather have a Kawasaki bike engine to work with.
Whilst I'm not a huge fan of bike engines in cars (the clutches take a lot of abuse lugging around so much extra weight of a car, and they were designed without lateral G in mind), I'm certainly inclined to agree. As long as the total weight of the car+driver is below 450kg then it'd probably be okay
Do keep in mind that the rotory engine is not a technology that has been exploited to it's full potential, it's still relatively " ancient " as no one is willing to invest time and money in it, so if you want to compare this engine, compare it to an engine from the '60s-'80s because your average petrol engine has more then 40 years of research ahead of the wankel one.
That's a very simplified argument. Don't forget that computer analysis - be it Finite Element Analysis, Fatigue simulations, CFD or Tribology simulations etc - plays a huge role in the development of both types of engines, and it would be wrong to compare one developed using those tools (the Wankel) with one developed without them (a 1960s engine).
And bear in mind that 120hp per litre was easily obtainable back then too.
Interestingly, and only slightly as an aside, I was reading the 2008 FIA Formula Three technical regulations today, and found they are allowed to use rotary engines with a volumetric equivalency of 1.5. Note that nobody bothers.
Or imagine a Kawasaki Ninja ZX6R engine in a Lotus Super Seven kit car.
by the way, I have this little freshman buddy that is talking to me about getting a bike. He is just fifteen. I know that he does not have a legal license... (you need to be 16). And you need a driver's license to apply for a bike permit. He said he wants a 2008 Kawasaki Ninja 250R which costs approximately 3,000 USD. At the end of a certain conversation, I told him to go get an old Lotus Seven instead(since practicality is obviously not necessary). Since it's too much of a hassle to get a bike permit.
