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Whatever became of the Wankle Engine?

I recall that Mazda was using the Wankle Engine in some of there cars way back when, has that engine been shelved or is it still being used elsewhere?

7 Answers

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  • 1 decade ago
    Favorite Answer

    The Wankle engine aka the rotary still lives up to modern society. I see people adding in more rotars to to their rotary engine cars up to today and modding them. The Rx-8 is the most recent rotary engine car, and the Rx-7s are a prime example of them still being used.

    "No one wants a car that needs a motor replaced at 30K miles, so the Wankle was shelved"

    Lol, let me remind you that the rotary engine 787B LeMans cars OWNED LeMans and were and still are the only Japanese car make (Mazda) to ever win LeMans. In-fact, they completely outclassed the other cars due to the regulations by the FIA and they were BANNED. Being banned for owning someone isn't a reason why the rotary engines would be shelved at all.

    I know someone very close to me who owns a 3rd gen Rx-7 (Twin turbo rotary engine) and had over 90k miles ALL to/from and track miles. 90k miles of pure going to and from, and racing at the track aren't your everyday highway/city driving miles. Later in the future he blew a coolant seal, and the labor to replace it, he was better off changing his engine.... and that's exactly what he did. Seeing as if you race for MazdaSpeed you can receive up to 40% discount from all Mazda parts, he had a engine flown in from Japan and had it swapped with his old one. His original engine was still fine despite having over 90k of to/from and track miles on it. So that comment is total bullshit.

    The only reason why a rotary would crap out at 30k miles is because someone doesn't know how to treat their car properly.

    Nuff said.

  • 1 decade ago

    You can still buy a Mazda RX8 with a Wankle rotary engine.

  • 1 decade ago

    The Wankle engine did not hold up in real life situations, with failures starting at low mileage. No one wants a car that needs a motor replaced at 30K miles, so the Wankle was shelved

    Source(s): 30 years in the auto business
  • 4 years ago

    It sounds like it would desire to be a reliable theory, the wankel has a lot going for it. It desires a jet unit it quite is optimized for bigger rpm and those are used on issues like Yamaha jetboats. those engines rev extreme, no longer 40000 rpm yet possibly 10-12k rpm could be ok for the jet unit.. you are able to could marinize the engine yet i think of it would desire to be executed. no longer asserting it would be!

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  • 1 decade ago

    ts called the rx8/still available

  • Anonymous
    1 decade ago

    They got a reputation of being gas hogs back in the day (early-mid '70's)

  • ken k
    Lv 7
    1 decade ago

    its called the rx8/still available

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