Open up LFS\data\language\your_language.txt, search for the line 3a_etl_inli and change the following word to "Rotary" (or whatever that translates to in your language). Voila.
You also have to update the engine sound file and tweak the engine to redline at a very high rpm. You also have to factor in heat damage. If you stay at redline for long, you will melt your engine and you will have to do a rebuild. Then we need to add virtual money so that the people who drive a rotary engine equipped car can then have their virtual bank account drained while trying to maintain their car.
Hope you're joking mate...keeping it simple:its a particular type of engine which doesnt have pistons which move up and down,it simply has a sort of cilinder with a strange shape(kind of a fat triangular section)which rotates.So you(the crankshaft) dont have to convert linear motion into circular.Also you save on valves(there arent any,just ports).Has a excellent power to displacement ratio and is really compact and light...wiki for more
Well it is true that the torque delivery is relatively low for a given rotational speed compared to conventional reciprocating engines, but it isn't 'no torque'. At the speeds at which a Wankel engine would typically run in a car, for example, the torque is sufficient but not gigantic.
To say they aren't as mechanically sound is just silly. They are extremely simple and robust and are therefore much more mechanically sound compared to reciprocating engines. That's one of their main advantages.
it's a nice idea on paper
mazda managed to manufacture something with that design only after spending so much money on R&D that almost bankrupted them.
its only advantage is that it is lightweight. otherwise it is sensitive, wears down fast, eats up gas like no tomorrow...
no it is not mechanicaly sound. it has losses. the seals are taking a lot of punishment. it isn't a long lived engine. and by "long lived engine" we are talking about one that can do 200000+ miles...
compare this to the CCE for which they haven't found a significant fault yet. (wikipedia IIRC mentions three or four silly things IIRC which haven't even been verified)
So did NSU & Citröen, which take it down (NSU bankrupted cuz of R080).
One of it best advantage is it size compared to a piston engine with "equal" displacement, usually 1/2 the size of piston's one.
There is the fact that Mazda builds the engine block with a sandwich of aluminum, steel, then aluminum. If you overheat the engine, or if you send too much heat through the block, you will contract various parts at different rates, thus warping it. Then you need an engine rebuild. While piston engines can have cooling thought the block. Piston engines last longer.
this is what I've heard, and thats a bit more in depth than just "not mechanically sound."
I have no personal experience with rotaries, except I've ridden in an rx8 for a couple flying laps around Laguna Seca.
I am talking about stock rotaries from mazda when I make general statements like that btw. I know you can slap turbos and multiple 13b's together or whatever and make a fast ass car...like you can with more conventional engines. The point still remains that they make little to no low end torque due to the nature of the engine. They need to spin fast to make power. The advantage and power comes from the 3 firing pulses per revolution, and their light weight. For normal driving around, you won't be driving up to 6k rpm every shift.
The rx8 didn't pull hard until you got to 7k rpm, and then you went all the way to 9k before hitting the rev limiter...which was solidly in the red on the tach. Even at 7k rpm, it was a light weight momentum car. It didn't really have a lot of ooomph.
It is a very fun car, and I wouldn't mind having one, but for playing on the streets its much nicer to have something with low end torque so you can have some spontaneous fun instead of having to push the thing so hard.