Just doing some research on the Mazda R8. Not considering buying one. Just like to look at cars and engines as I'm sure you do as well if you clicked on this thread.

So what the hell is the appeal of Mazda's Renesis rotary engine? The sucker only puts out 230 HP, under 200 lb/ft of torque, and drops in with fuel economy ratings of 16 city and 24 highway.

Am I missing something here? Seems like a car that is destined NOT to sell.

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Wheelhouse

Advantages
The Rotary Engine is very simple. It’s a 1.3 liter that has way less moving parts than a piston engine. The 13B-MSP Renesis (from the RX8) has the highest horsepower per displacement of any naturally aspirated motor produced from the Factory in America. For it’s size, the rotary packs a punch. For reference, the 13B from the RX8 is a 1.3 liter, and produces 232 horsepower. That equates to a ridiculous 178 horsepower per liter. In Theory, that would be equivalent to a 6.0 liter LS2 (from the Corvette) producing 1068 horsepower N/A from the factory.
Unlike Piston engines, Rotaries are almost immune to catastrophic failure. In a piston motor, you can have a piston seize and cause all kinds of damage, but in a Rotary motor, while the engine will lose power, it will continue to produce a limited amount of power until it finally dies.
Rotaries will also rev to the moon and still make power. For instance, A RX8 redlines at 9k and that’s where it makes peak power as well. Needless to say, the Rotary likes to stay high in the RPM range.

Disadvantages
Some main complaints of the Rotary are gas mileage and burning oil. One of the most common misconceptions is that the Rotary engine burns oil out of fault, this is not necessarily true. The Rotary uses oil squirters that take small metered amounts of oil and mix it into the fuel to lubricate the seals. Gas mileage is very Mehhhhh at mid 20′s (supposedly….much less in reality.)
Rotaries also tend to produce about as much torque as a screwdriver. Seals tend to be a big problem after a while if you live in a colder climate. Parts are generally expensive and since it’s a Rotary, you have to take it to rotary mechanic or dealership to get it worked on when something goes awry.
Rotaries sometimes have a problem flooding with fuel on cold starts as well. This generally only happens with older 13B’s, so it’s necessary to let the motor warm up to operating temperature before you decide to take off.

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Pretty much what NYI said. They have a high HP rating for such a small displacement which in turn is a high power to weight ratio.

A big thing with the RX-8 is it has perfect 50:50 weight distribution front to rear because of the motor.

Another thing, they can rev to 10,000+ very easily. The RX-8's are limited or they would literally rev till they physically couldn't anymore. So it's very easy to get even more power out of them by upping the revs (No idea how 10,000 wouldn't be enough) or to turbo it, which the RX-7's were already.

They were such a great motor in the Mazda 787B in the 1991 24 Hours Of LeMans race, which allowed them to win in 1991 because of reliability they were banned the next year, actually that's not entirely true. It was to sway teams to use the 3.5 litre F1 Engines.

My dad drove a RX-8 and wanted one for a brief time, said it was one quick car and very fun to drive. It is an FR car and has perfect weight distribution. Great for drifting.

The Renesis, which the RX-8 has, has fixed most of the seals problems and most of the problems from the older ones. An the older ones with the 13B-REW motor in them were the problem ones, mostly needing rebuilds after 50K or so miles depending on the seals, the 13B-MSP is the new Renesis motors which run more efficient too.

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I've actually been looking at getting an old RX7 - they're hella fun to drive.

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my buddy's got a 1993 mazda rx 7. i drove it back from phoenix. pretty cool opening that up to 85 on the 75mph interstate. way more fun bringing a radar and going across the flat, dead, not-well-traveled, panhandle of texas on the I40

They're really interesting pieces of engineering.

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Twitter - @Ryan911T - @MotoExposure

That may be true about the interesting engineering, but if you can get a Hemi V8 that pumps 420 HP and 420 lb/ft of torque and get the same fuel efficiency as that rotary engine that can't even climb over 200 lb/ft while naturally aspirated, what's the appeal?

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Wheelhouse

I thought Mazda stopped production of their rotary engine entirely earlier this year...am I missing something?

EDIT: yes they did
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/11/10/11 ... owered-car

And they only sold 1,200 R8's in North America last year.

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Hold my beer and watch this...

Not according to their website touting the RX8. Maybe they'll be done for 2013 though.

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Wheelhouse

See my link above

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Hold my beer and watch this...

So I guess there is no appeal, and I wasn't missing anything. lol

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Wheelhouse

Well, like Ryan911T said, the appeal is it's a really elegant and unique bit of technology.

I've had it in the back of my mind to own one one day just for fun.

EDIT: whoops, posting from the wrong account

The cars are lighter. Slap a turbo on that bitch and go to 20 PSI and you'd have one hellavu fun car over some V8 Hemi.

And NYI, what year were you thinking of getting? The FB, FC, or the FD? I'd love an FD but they are ridiculously expensive.

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