Originally posted by megotmea7
only through miss information and the general concensus that rotarys are "unreliable" and put out no torque. the FD put out plenty of torque and with a redline of 8krpm you can gear for more torque and your argument becomes pointless, rotarys are performance engines, they make great power from a small size and small displacement, when you say youd rather have 1.8 liter 4 than a rotary what about a 2 liter 20b 3 rotor? you want torque? lmao and thats closer to the displacement than the 1.3 liter 13b-rew, compare ANY 4 cylinder to the 20b in terms of reliability modability, performance(and keep in mind it came in a luxury car...) and if your worry'd about gas mileage then i wouldnt even be worry'd about a performance car. gas consumtion is the killer of the rotary in the 80's if it wernt for the ga crunch you be seeing rotarys in everything. after the gas crunch GM and mercades droped their projects, mazda was the only one to stick with it and if ppl can get over the misconseptions and see the truth i wouldnt doubt other manufacturers would start toying with it again. on paper the design is almost perfect(more perfect than any piston engine, only thru use of better materials and developent it will come to blossom(the piston engine has been around forever, if the rotary had as much development as piston engines we wouldnt be talking about it in the current context.

PS i read thru this whole thread and theres so much ignorance im not going to bother with responding to, even if i did most these ppl arnt even around anyway...
Having to rev an engine to 8000 rpm to make up for a lack of low down torque really exposes the deficiencies in the design . And no doubt explains the lack of fuel economy. If you can live with poor fuel economy buy a V8 and have torque , power and ordinary fuel economy. Similarly if you have to gear the car to compensate for the lack of torque it is a compromise. Rotaries are a novelty and without the innovative RX8 car itself would probably be listed under historic engines by now.