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Mazda Stops Production of the Last Rotary Engine Powered Car
Hugh Pickens writes "After a 45-year production run, Mazda Motor Corp announced that the latest edition of the Mazda RX-8 will end production in June 2012. The Japanese automaker ... introduced its first rotary engine car in 1967 and is the only automaker in the world that makes rotary engine vehicles, once the darling of the automotive industry. Such engines have fewer moving parts and are quieter than comparable piston engines but are more expensive to manufacture and consume more fuel. Cumulative sales of Mazda vehicles with rotary engines total about 1.995 million but Mazda sold only 2,896 RX-8 cars last year, with 1,245 of them in North America and 963 in Japan. 'Although R-X production is ending, the rotary engine will always represent the spirits of Mazda, and Mazda remains committed to its ongoing development,' says Mazda Chief Executive and President Takashi Yamanouchi recalling the victory of Mazda's rotary engine at Le Mans 20 years ago... Mazda does not have flashy green technologies in its lineup that its bigger Japanese rivals do — such as the hybrids at Toyota Motor Corp. or electric vehicles at Nissan Motor Co. The fading away of its prized rotary engine — although largely symbolic — is yet another blow."
Mazda sold only 2,896 RX-8 cars last year, with 1,245 of them in North America and 963 in Japan. Cumulative sales of Mazda vehicles with rotary engines total about 1.995 million as of the end of August
Unless my math is off, it looks like final cumulative sales will fall just short of 2 million cars:
2,896 cars/year is 241.33 cars/month; even assuming the end is on 30 June that means only 10 more months of production -- a total of 2413.33 cars -- for a cumulative total of 1.9974 million (only to the precision of the starting "about" 1.995 million, of course). Man, just one year short. Maybe there will be enough sympathy sales that final year to put them over the top?
I need to get out more.
I love my RX-7! The rotary engine is really an engineering marvel. Too bad they never had the resources to work on the efficiency like everyone did with piston engines.
I was saving for years to be able to buy an RX-9 if/when it hit the market (Which has been rumored for years, and supposedly was coming near to release in the next few years... guess that wasn't the case).
So long, wankel!
(I'll still continue to love and drive my RX-7, of course...)
Perhaps 'Hugh Pickens' should read up on Mazda's SKYACTIV technology.
http://www.mazda.com/mazdaspirit/skyactiv/
Like a million apex seals cried out in unison, and were then ejected from the tailpipe.
I read the internet for the articles.
Is it really less efficient? As I understood it, the rotary engine gives an equivalent HP compared to a piston engine at a fraction of the displacement.
More Twoson than Cupertino
So the main advantages of this engine are that it's quieter and has fewer moving parts, while the downside is that it's more expensive and less fuel efficient.
So why would i want one of these? There have been a lot of improvements to noise reduction with regular engines so that's not as big a deal as it once might have been. Does fewer moving parts mean fewer breakdowns? It could, but it doesn't have to. It's always possible that the fewer parts have a higher individual rate of failure that balances things out. And when it does break how do the repair costs compare? If it breaks half as often but costs twice as much to fix when it does then i'm not really gaining a great deal in the process. And of course with gas prices hovering just below $4 a gallon where i live the fuel economy thing is kinda important.
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
The Mazda rotaries have traditionally worn out prematurely (needing rebuilds after 80-100k because of oil leaks), and they get relatively poor fuel economy. The design has a slightly higher power/weight ratio, but that specific advantage doesn't outweigh the many disadvantages.
I'm watching the MYT engine, which is a swing-piston engine. Raphial doesn't want to sell out to someone who'd kill it or bury it, and hasn't found anyone to loan him enough to get his factory off the ground.
Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
www.teslabox.com
Looking for a cheap coupé, I came close to buying the beautiful RX-8, but the fuel economy is just hopeless, and I read that it basically bleeds oil. If you see an RX-8 for a suspiciously cheap price and a seller with a big sad face, I figured that car is an auto-vampire, sucking its owner dry in petrol and maintenance costs before moving on to the next victim. Owners have a "300 club" where you try to make it clock over 300 miles on its 61 litre fuel tank without having to walk to the next petrol station. Planet-burning fun :)
Matthew @ Bytemark Hosting
Its not all that great for a sports car. The other downside is it consumes more oil and requires a rebuild every so many miles. From an engineering standpoint it make more sense. Why convert the opposing force of the pistons to a rotation when you could generate the rotation force itself?
Now given the choice would I drive one? Hell yeah.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
Once the darling of the English language...
Thank you political wonks, your contributions to the language will be with us (unfortunately) for generations.
The 787B Mazda rotary engined car is the only Japanese car to win Le Mans, and it did it on reliability, not speed. And if the rotary engine is not good for a sports car, then what is an RX-7?
I'm convinced that the only real reason we have piston engines in most cars today is because pistons work really well in steam engines, and early on in the development of the internal combustion engine, most of the engineering was done by people familiar with steam engines using the designs they knew. If development had proceeded on the principle of "IC is different from EC, let's take advantage of that," rotary and other non-piston-based designs might now be a lot more common and a lot more advanced. It was nice to see Mazda keeping the torch lit, and it's sad to see that they can't do it any more.
It's kind of as if the computer engineering world had taken a look at the first integrated circuits (also "IC," by an interesting coincidence) and said, "we need to do this with vacuum tubes." No doubt we'd have all kinds of cool miniaturized vacuum tube technology we don't have today, but there's little doubt that computers would still be horribly bulky, slow, and expensive compared to what we actually got.
And yes, I just made a computer analogy for car engines. Deal with it. ;)
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
Mazda needs to make a rotary Miata.
They've needed to do so for years, but they're too stupid/stubborn to do so. Their execs must be from the same business school that Commodore's were from.
If someone is passing you on the right, you are an asshole for driving in the wrong lane.
Thank goodness! I can finally doff my ear plugs and ear muffs any time I'm around one. Good indeed to learn that they are quieter. That is certainly a relief. I guess those mufflers that took up a whole side pod on the GTP cars was completely unnecessary!
Their they're doing there hair.
Historically rotary engines had huge pollution issues. Plenty of HC output, not just from leaky oil seals. ... turbine engines have much better power to weight ratios (although horrible idling losses).
Rotaries have a market position problem
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
It would seem to be perfect for this (I think it needs to rev higher that a similar output piston engine?)
Of my first car, a 1972 Mazda Rx2. Last seen in a wrecking yard in Orange, NSW with a crushed roof and twisted frame. A great car, but 17mpg on a good day was a shock.
If my call is important, why am I talking to a recording?
Sure, they're dropping the RX-8, but they've made promises that a rotary is in their future.
(ref 3rd gear)
'Although R-X production is ending, the rotary engine will always represent the spirits of Mazda, and Mazda remains committed to its ongoing development,' says Mazda Chief Executive and President Takashi Yamanouchi
Sensationalist headline!
Attention deficit disorder is a complicated issue, spanning several major... HEY LET'S GO RIDE BIKES!
...HHHmmmmmm..
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
GM was supposed to make a rotary a.k.a. Wankel Engine. AMC was going to source it. They decided to design a car with a futuristic almost UFO-ish look. This was the Pacer.
GM never made the engine, never sold it to AMC. The Pacer still was sold, making Wayne's World just a bit funnier.
My '73 RX3 would produce deafening backfires when the throttle was suddenly closed after being wide open. IIRC my '77 RX3SP didn't so much. The best gas mileage I got from either was something like 21.5 miles/US gal. But smooth and (for the era) powerful? You bet! Of course, an unmuffled racing engine was brutally loud: the Chimney Rock (NC) Hillclimb had a fellow named John Finger whose car might've been audible in Charlotte...
Even if the rotary engine needs fewer moving parts and could therefore provide a plus for reliability, there are still plenty of other moving parts required to be useful in a vehicle: transmission, drivetrain etc., all of which provide plenty of scope for failure. Considering how complex the average car has become with regard to electronics, it would be strange then to try and push supposedly simpler mechanics purely on aesthetic merit. If it doesn't even provide comparatively decent fuel economy, then I guess the coffin is nailed shut.
It might never come to commercial fruition, but I'm sure most red-blooded males could get excited over a turbine powered car. Or maybe I've just seen too many Batman re-runs...
technology coming down the pike. the new diesels look especially intriguing. And it appears the rotary isn't dead, it's just restin'.
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
my ears thank them.
Reality check, the upcoming CX5 will be far and away the most fuel efficient AWD vehicle available in North America when it's introduced later this year. In 2013 (2014 model year) if they bring the Skyactiv diesel to the US like they've announced then you will be able to get an ~42mpg AWD crossover. They are doing this without the very expensive and environmentally dubious hybrid or electric drivetrains, just good old fashioned engineering.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
http://www.jcarblog.com/2011/10/10/mazda-confirms-development-of-next-generation-rotary-engine/
http://www.autocar.co.uk/blogs/autocarlive/archive/2010/03/03/let-s-have-more-cars-like-the-audi-a1-e-tron.aspx Ask Audi.
Their they're doing there hair.
The advantages of the rotary engine are power (relative to weight) and simplicity. Even though the rotary engine has fewer moving parts than a piston engine, service life is LESS. In theory, IF there were many manufacturers competing and making interchangeable parts, rotary engines might become cheap enough to be disposable. But with Mazda as the only game in town, forget it.
As engines evolved, people discovered it was easier to reduce the weight of a piston engine than to build a long-life rotary engine. Of all the components that can fail in a car, the pistons, engine blocks, rings, rods, valves, fuel injectors, and camshafts are normally good for the life of the vehicle. With the possible exception of timing belts, the simplicity of the rotary engine does not translate to lower maintenance cost because the admittedly complicated piston engines are generally quite reliable.
I can't believe we haven't come up with a better system than the piston engine invented 100's of years ago. When I first learned of the rotary engine long ago, I hoped it would be better, but I guess not.
If you could reason with religious people, there would be no religious people
I'm not happy it's dead, but happy it's gone. All this years has made damage to the world of combustion engines.
A jail made cool, engine.
Seriously, why optimize a propietary engine when you can do so on a free V{8,6},4L one?.
That's the principal reason why we don't have a green rotary engine today.
Could someone provide a car analogy to explain?
My userid is prime!
Still have my 91 T2, and would love to get an rx8 r3. Someday...
It turns out that the power to weight ratio on a rotary is high because they can increase the RPM quite a bit higher. That is possible due to the perfect balance that can be achieved with the pure rotary design. Some of the imbalance of a piston engine can be eliminated by using laterally opposed cylinders, but IIRC there is still some imbalance.
Thermal efficiency is best when you have a spherical combustion chamber which expands radially (maximum volume to surface area ration). But since that is not physically possible the next best seems to be a piston in a circular chamber. The triangle in a peanut as some call it has a larger surface area. Mazda was stupid and showed off a new rotary in 2007 (I have pics from the auto show) and that killed demand for the existing engine and car. Why would you buy it when they were planning a new one with better efficiency and more power?
Someone posted
Too bad they never had the resources to work on the efficiency like everyone did with piston engines.
The basic Wankel isn't a bad engine. But you can't vary the basic design much. The trochoid determines the shape of the combustion chamber. All the games that have been played with combustion chamber layout, from the hemi head to four valve engines, don't really apply. Valve timing, too, is determined by the geometry. All those have been tweaked to improve fuel economy and emissions. With a Wankel, there's not much to tweak.
have much in common with two stroke piston engines. Oil consumption is high because there can only be one set of seals on the rotary "piston" compared to two (or more) sets of rings on a piston engine. This also results in some fuel being lost in the exhaust just like in a two stroke. The seals are not as good and wear out more quickly reducing compression and loosing power. The engine runs hotter and as a result can produce more 'smog' gases (however the extra heat helps the catalytic converter scrub the exhaust). The engine's high power to weight ratio and quick rev-up make it a good racing engine so I doubt it will disappear, but it really isn't suitable anymore for street cars.
I drove one of these for several years until I got married. It had good looks, awesome power and was a chick magnet.
Now I drive a 15 year old minivan. My how priorities change.
Yes, a rotary needs to spin faster for the same power output. In fact, that's why they have a better power/weight ratio. The perfect balance allows higher speed, so a smaller engine can produce the same power. Electric machines also tend toward better efficiency at higher speeds so it may seem like a good match. However, the rotary is probably so inefficient that it outweighs the savings. Now if it turns out that the PEAK efficiency can be made higher than the peak for a piston engine, then it will get its place in hybrids (since they try to operate at the peak efficiency or not at all). But that seems unlikely.
For all of the sturm and drang on Slashdot regarding patents and how they impede progress, how could they have gone unmentioned in a discussion of the rotary engine?
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
Clearly whoever wrote this has not been to the 1/4 mile drags when rotaries are running. They are loud as hell and it only gets louder when they spin to the moon. Though it is fun watching them blow up, as for ever few rotaries that make a pass one will have a catastrophic failure. Shame it shuts the track down for at least 15-20 minutes while they clean up the mess, leaving all of us waiting to make passes bitching about how much rotaries suck.
The year I was born ('78) my dad picked up an RX-7 ('79 model) and... I've still got 'er. We just turned 33. Sure it smokes a bit when started and the mileage is about 1/3 my Prius... but I'll tell ya what, that car is still a ton 'o fun to drive. Paint job & an engine rebuild in the future maybe.
https://plus.google.com/photos/107583965604079893535/albums/5335373415122190865
Mazda does not have flashy green technologies in its lineup that its bigger Japanese rivals do — such as the hybrids at Toyota Motor Corp. or electric vehicles at Nissan Motor Co. The fading away of its prized rotary engine — although largely symbolic — is yet another blow
Skyactive? Better economy that the Prius (3.3L vs 3.9L) in their Mazda 2 range - and it's actually a "Real" green technology - unlike plugin eV's and Lithium based battery packs. It's a genuine reduction in Green house emissions, not a "We'll move the emissions from your exhaust, to the power station"...
dnuof eruc rof aixelsid
That's pretty much what the Volt looks like in the alternate universe where US auto companies don't suck ass.
Instead, all that great engineering goes into a gay hatchback that's been designed to run over pedestrians as painlessly as possible.
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
MIT made a Rotary engine about 10 years back that smokes pretty much every other ICE on the market to date from all reports I have seen and heard while being one of the most durable ICE around. Wonder why they never tried to adopt that. Would have virtually springboard to the top of the market assuming everything panned.
Does this mean that the last car will never be finished?
James Garner talking about blowing someone's doors off!
Back in the 80s and 90s I'd read ads in car magazines for the RX-7, where Mazda touted the virtues of the rotary engine, and wonder "If it's so great, why don't they use it to power all of their vehicles?" Obviously, it doesn't have any huge advantages over conventional piston engines--they cost about the same, they weigh about the same, and they produce about comparable amounts of power for any particular amount of gasoline ingested.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
The RX-8's aren't selling, because they're merely a shadow of what the RX-7 was.
For the price of a new RX-8, you could have a well cared for used RX-7 (or 2) and it would've been faster, and better to look at.
Where was the factory turbo option on the RX-8? Where was the factory twin-turbo option on the RX-8? The thing that people loved most about these cars was the old 13B engine, specifically the 13B-REW, why replace it with the weaker RENESIS? People in the market for a true sports car aren't looking at what the emissions or fuel economy look like.
The reason this failed is because they watered down and neutered a great classic car, while simultaneously increasing its curb weight.
When I got rid of my caddy in '03 I was looking for something new.The car I went into the whole ordeal looking at was the RX-8. It was new to the scene, and I had always loved RX-7's. The first 30 seconds driving the RX-8 was enough to turn me off. I test drove about 50-60 cars over the course of 2 months worth of weekends. Ultimately I chose a WRX, and never looked back. I'm glad I did too, as the after-market parts for RX8s turned out to be a far more limited selection and also more expensive.
Lemme know when Mazda starts putting 13B's (or dare I say 20B's) in a car again. I'll be the first guy in line to test drive one.
The Mazda RX8 was released in a slow economy where it had direct competitors such as the Hyundai Genesis Coupe, the Nissan 370Z and even the latest version of the Ford Mustang or Chevy Camaro. Sure, none of them had rotary engines, but very FEW potential buyers would put that first and foremost on their "want list" for a new sports/sporty car purchase.
Price-wise, it was one of the slightly more expensive cars to option out with modern technology like hands-free bluetooth or in-car GPS, compared to the others -- and while the car has excellent styling, it just didn't stack up to the others in horsepower/torque for the dollar, not to mention things like fuel economy and long-term reliability.
Personally, I considered buying one back in 2009 when I was shopping for a sports car in that general price range, but decided Hyundai's Genesis Coupe 3.8 liter V6 was also a great looking car that delivered in all the other notable areas too, like performance and luxury features that came standard or at reasonable additional cost. 2 years later, I haven't regretted my purchase a bit -- even though I think the rotary engine is very cool in concept. It's probably something that needs more R&D money dumped into it to really overcome some of the long-standing issues Mazda's had with them, and not sure Mazda is even the best company to try to tackle it,.
Rotary engines are amazing racing engines; anyone commenting on efficiency is missing the point...unfortunately car buyers of today are a mass of drooling idiots and enthusiasts are few and far between.
While I can't speak to the parent poster, I can say it varies by engine, body style and transmission type. The turbo models obviously use more fuel. The hatchback and the sedan aren't always comparable (depending on the model year). The manual transmission is better than the conventional automatic, and the CVT is better than either.
In my 2010 Impreza 2.5i hatchback w/ manual trans, I get around 28 MPG real-world, and I drive like a maniac. If I drive for fuel efficiency I can easily make 34 MPG. The CVT can supposedly come close to 40 MPG. 49 seems high to me but he might be in a different market that has different engines. (Maybe there's a diesel somewhere.)
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
That's a fabulous engine, and a great car. High power, high revving, the small size let Mazda position it for near mid-engine balance. Just incredible handling and so amazing to drive once you appreciate the smoothness and the rev-range you need to be in to have it work for you. Tiny problem: randomly stranding you on the side of the road with one problem or another gets to be annoying. My Rx-8 has been in the shop for the last two weeks getting its new engine (warrantied, thank you Mazda). Thanks to the warranty, I've "only" had to spend about $2000 of my own money in the last year and a bit keeping it running. ... we understand you will not get any happy campers there ... we are going to ignore those when assessing you..." and then furthermore trying to shut down the people who rebroadcast these comments - from Mazda USA to their dealers - : not so good.
How to reward/encourage a company that appreciates sportiness, dares to be innovative, and yet delivers an unreliable mess - big problem. The 17 MPG under highway cruising doesn't help much either (patronizing lies from Mazda USA about fuel economy are a bit frustrating). Mazda telling its dealers (paraphrasing:) "We take customer complaints about your service very very seriously, except for RX-8 owners
Just totally amazing car though, especially after the right suspension upgrades. And practical: the back seats are so usable that one can only think "TARDIS". This praise with the small caveat: it's great when it actually starts.
Did anyone else have the transparent model powered by little electric motor?
'I don't know what it's called. I just know the sound it makes, when it takes a man's life.' ~ Four Leaf Tayback
Safe handling in snow is all about having the right tires for the job. Americans are lazy, instead preferring the compromise of all-season (no-season!) tires. Having a separate set of rims for snow tires makes sense if you care even a bit about keeping your big stock wheels looking nice by not subjecting them to road salt. Drivetrain configuration is only a big issue if you refuse to consider using proper tires.
Also, the linear torque delivery of the RX-8's engine means it should do a much better job of launching from a standstill in low traction conditions than most comparable cars.
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law
Mazda is just not producing anymore renesis rotary engines. Does not mean they are not producing a new rotary engine. "Thank you so much for all your supportive messages concerning the RX-8 and the rotary engine! We are also excited. Mazda is aiming to achieve a breakthrough with the ‘Skyactiv’ technology, and we are zealously working on new models to house the next generation rotary engine. Thank you for your continued support!" http://carscoop.blogspot.com/2011/10/mazda-pr-tweets-that-company-is-working.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Carscoop+(CARSCOOP) This article is so wrong on so many levels that its funny.
Smoothness: One of the neat things about a rotary is that the faster it spins the more stable the combustion becomes. Where as many piston engines will be about ready to shake themselves to pieces at 7K, a rotary couldn't be happier there. Power Delivery: The torque curve on a rotary is very flat. This is due to lack of valve timing issues. This means you get a really smooth pull all the way to redline without being peaky. Uniqueness: Something a bit different is nice now and again.
One of the most embarrassing phrases one can utter. but you can learn to NOT be embarrassed! (monty python)
...that more slashdotters don't "get" the rotary. I would think this would be a community that would be very sad to see such an interesting and unique piece of technology die out.
You might say it died out because it "wasn't as good" as modern piston engines, but if you did say that, you would be wrong. It was different.
It had plenty of weaknesses, but the fact is that most are exaggerated for a number of reasons. Even with those exaggerations, it's amazing that this motor performs as well as it does in a modern market, given the considerably smaller amount of development attention that it received over the past 45 years.
At least in its current incarnation, the rotary's real strength is in racing -- it's light, real light. Mazda is the only Japanese car manufacturer in history to win the LeMans, in 91, with, you guessed it, a 4-rotor. The next year rotaries were banned from the race.
In naturally aspirated form a rotary will take a beating for many tens if not hundreds of thousands of miles more than a piston engine -- because there is NO VALVE TRAIN and the mechanical motion in a rotary is smooth and cylindrical, not violent and jerky.
Some of the major reasons rotaries have received a bad reputation include the following:
1. They are most identified with the RX- line of sports cars. 'Ever heard of a sports car being unreliable? 2. The most popular of those cars, 3rd generation RX-7 (the "FD") used a 2-rotor sequential turbo system. Using an NA 3-rotor would have maintained the same weight distribution, would have provided better torque, and would have been enormously more reliable, but having an NA motor doesn't sound as cool for marketing purposes as having a "twin turbo." This was a big mistake on Mazda's behalf. Rotary engines are notoriously difficult to tune when boosted. A small malfunction in the vacuum system could blow a motor, or more commonly, a anxious and naive performance enthusiast would install one-too-many aftermarket parts, leading to a lean fuel mixture, and BAM goes the motor. This is not a problem you see in piston engines, and unfortunately many people did not understand this difference. 3. General dislike for anything different -- as I'm sure man of us have noticed, car people are notoriously judgmental of other brands and setups. The rotary motor is a prime target for such unfounded scrutiny.
Really, I'm just sad to see such an interesting technology with so much potential disappear... but the Rotary engine attracts a very unique crowd of the engineering-type, and we're not likely to go anywhere anytime soon.
Just trying to find a post to wankel off too
Last I heard Audi hadn't cancelled the A1 E-Tron with a plug-in Wankel, http://www.audi.com/com/brand/en/tools/news/pool/2010/03/audi_a1_e-tron___electric.html "The A1 e-tron concept car has a Wankel engine as a range extender, but other compact concepts are also possible. The small single-rotor Wankel has a chamber volume of 254 cc and runs at a constant 5,000 rpm in its peak efficiency window.".
If the Wankel had come first things might be different, just as if Dr. Diesel had preceded Herr Benz the gasoline engine might have forever been relegated to motorcycles. But it didn't.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
The piston IC engine has one enormous advantage over the Wankel; it has many design degrees of freedom. The pump (piston/cylinder) has a large degree of independence from the valve system, the design of the combustion space has a considerable independence over the pump design, and the crank and con rod design also has a considerable degree of independence over the pump. This meant that, for the first hundred years till computer aided engineering really got going, it was much easier to develop a piston engine. If the Wankel had been invented in the 19th century, it would have been superseded by the piston engine for this simple reason; the technology of the day did not have the metallurgy or the maths to develop a Wankel.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
I had 3 rotaries - an '85 Rx7gs, and two '88.5 10th anniversary TurboII cars (poor financial management led me to "lose" the first, and after I'd recovered, I got another one).
The rotary engine does inject oil to lubricate the apex seals, but it uses a very small amount of oil for this.
I never once had to add oil between oil changes, and that was with 7500 mile oil changes, and I watched my oil closely.
The myth that rotaries required constant rebuilds was from the original '70s rotaries; by the time the Rx7 was produced the rotary engine was quite reliable, though still not very fuel efficient. A friend of mine has a 3rd gen turbo, and he just had to get the engine rebuilt at 220k miles.
steve jobs, wankel rotary. BAH! I only had 1 Mazda, and RX-4 (modified), 12000 RPM, 200HP+, a great fun car!
There was an unknown error in the submission.
But would it blend?
Their body designer? Every Mazda has a big dorky toothy smile for a grille, and they have not produced a good looking car for over 10 years. Stop with the dorky looking cars and maybe people will buy them.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
EOM
Is it really less efficient? As I understood it, the rotary engine gives an equivalent HP compared to a piston engine at a fraction of the displacement.
Power to weight the rotary is excellent and they are very smooth and compact but those are not the only things that matter. Rotary engines tend to be relatively poor with regard to fuel consumption (not awful but bad enough to be a meaningful disadvantage) and always had problems with leaking seals and oil consumption by virtue of their design. There also are network effect problems. Not as many mechanics are familiar with them and there are cost issues for the manufacturer due to the lack of economies of scale.
I'll miss the RX8. Drove one a few years back. Good car, fun to drive, looked nice and had some nice features. The rear doors in a coupe is a great feature that should not be lost.
Those Rotaries on the race track are super blatty...
There are just too many people talking without any clue that I decided not to waste time trying to respond individually. I'm building an airplane using a 13B and have had to deal extensively with the pluses and minuses of the engine.
- Fuel efficiency: The design is inherently bad on fuel. The combustion chamber is sort of a flattened triangle that has been curved. Extremely large surface area to volume ratio compared to a typical piston engine. The combustion looses a lot of heat to this surface area, and the flame front will be quenched before it reaches the volume next to the apex seal. The mixture will re-ignite when the chamber opens at the exhaust port, dumping the combustion energy into the exhaust pipe. Some work is being done to work around this. It is hoped that direct injection will allow the fuel to be concentrated into the center of the chamber, but even that won't make up for the huge surface areas sucking away all the heat. Some investigations have looked at waste heat recovery with a turbo type system (basically, put the aft end of a jet engine on the exhaust), but I haven't seen any implementations.
-It's quieter that piston engines: This is stupid. The exhaust hits the header at supersonic speed. The REW and earlier models dealt with the blast with a HUGE cast iron header. The RX-8 made the exhaust a peripheral port, at the cost of dumping more heat into the cooling system. If not dealt with properly the rotary sounds like an extremely large, amplified weed eater.
-It burns oil: Yes, it does, by design. There is no way to scavenge oil from the rotor housings. The only option is to let it burn. In the airplane, most people mix 2-cycle oil with the gas. 2-cycle is designed to burn cleanly. Crankcase oil is designed to not burn at all. Some real messes were created by people trying to use synthetic oils. They create a real mess when you try to burn them. Mazda didn't think they could market a high-end sports car that required 2-cycle fuel. They were probably right on that one. In this case, an engineering decision had to pay homage to perception.
-Low end torque: Horsepower is an overused measure in most car circles. Less than 100Hp will suffice to do what most drivers want. What they should really be looking at is torque...How quickly can I get this car moving and out into traffic? Most piston engines are cammed to give a lot of power on the low end and then level out. This gives the torque where the driver wants it. The rotary has a very flat torque "line" (you can't really even call it a curve), that starts at zero and points straight at 250Hp or so at around 8 to 9000 RPM (for the 13B). This is crap for the driver, but there's really no way around it.
Why am I using it in an airplane? A host of reasons that don't mean much of anything to a car driver. The low weight is good for an airplane, and the 16B held even more promise on this front (Mazda was/is working on eliminating the cast iron housings). A reduction gearbox brings the prop down to the correct speed, and the low end power is not an issue (the power absorbtion curve of a propeller is asymptotic). It's cheap, easy to rebuild (takes a day in a moderately equipped home shop), but most importantly the design can be viewed as two separate engines running in parallel in many ways.
The rotary has some good applications. Unfortunately, a car isn't one of them.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
Mazda's upcoming gas and diesel-powered compact cars and SUVs should all crest the 40 mpg mark without hybrid tech. Their subcompact Mazda2 has a trim level in Japan that can get 70 mpg (on a MUCH less stringent testing cycle, granted) ( http://green.autoblog.com/2010/10/22/report-next-mazda2-could-hit-70-mpg-and-be-worlds-most-efficie/ ). Also, they tweeted yesterday about the "next generation" ( http://twitter.com/#%21/Mazda_PR/status/122570913660153856 ) of rotary engines. No new tech at all coming out of Mazda, indeed.
I leased an RX-8 from 2006 to 2009 and I loved it. I had it up to 230 kmph on new pavement and there was no vibration at all. It just ran smooth as butter. Crappy mileage, but so much fun. And not one single thing ever went wrong with it.
Wasn't the best car I ever had - I consider my 1998 Miata to be that - but it was awesome fun.
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Just sayin'... rear doors in a coupe is a wee bit of a contradiction ;)
If you want to get pedantic about it it really only has the one door split into two parts. There is no B pillar in the car. It's just easier to say rear door.