Rotary Engines
 

So i love my camaro to death and would never get rid of it but my buddy wants to go 50 50 on a 88 rx7 project...does anyone know anything about the rotary engine?

all i really know is that there expensive to work on... but a good running rx7 makes tons of power with few moving parts.. is it a turbo???

They are super fun cars. What will you guys be doing with it? They make fantastic autocross cars. Especially with the weight distribution, tons of fun, very forgiving cars handling wise and those engines will rev to the moon and back.

Agreed with basic concepts, they can be spendy to work on, especially if you get a pile. It always seems like the previous owners have driven the absolute piss out of the car and a bunch of crap always needs fixed.

If you can get a really good example that doesn't need a lot it'd be a lot more fun for you.

Check out rx7club - they have a good forum and a lot of info and tech tutorials, a buyers guide (if i recall) and all the basics of rotary engines you could ever know. I wanted a 3rd gen for a long long time and spent a lot of time on their forum, nice people.

if im not mistaken they rev to 13k maybe 14 my boss is obsessed with them he knows EVERYTHING if you do end up getting the car you can pm me questions and i can ask him... hes what they call a rotor head

They are pretty cool pieces of engineering really. They most definitely can rev high. You ever seen the Le Mans car they made? Psychotic car...

The sound of it coming down the track is enough to make you pee your pants.
Fast forward to 1:00
YouTube - ‪Mazda 787B at Mazda Miyoshi prooving ground (1)‬‏

Yeah, piston engine goes boing-boing-boing, and the Mazda goes hmmmmmm. (old TV commercial) ;)
I had an 88 for a short while, was the brother in laws car. It was the Turbo II model and was pretty quick, once I cleaned out the melted down pre-cat. My neighbor has an 87 non-turbo, and it's a dog by comparison. You want the turbo if you want the car to move...or a SBC in it would be better!! Generally, once the rotary engine gets in the 80k miles range, it's gonna be needing some work. The apex seals don't wear as long like a piston engine's rings do, it's a different animal. Some get lucky and get more useful miles than that, but this one was feeling it already. Being a turbo engine probably didn't help matters any. Oh, and don't mix up the spark plugs. The engine has two rotors, and each has two different type spark plugs, a primary and secondary.

i think some had 3 rotors at least that what i thought my boss said

Okay ill checkout that forum and thanks this has helped me understand them better im gonna test drive it tomorrow hopefully

just checked with my boss all stock rx7s have 2 rotors but theres a Japanese rx7 that has 4 rotors that revs to 20k at 850whp

One thing you need to know about the rotary is how its induction works. They don't have valves like we do, air is sucked in by the rotating assembly. This makes for a wide smooth torque curve, at one expense. It needs to be spinning fast. Driving one will be the exact opposite of driving a pushrod motor.
This is something you're going to want as a second car. I looked into one, but decided against it, with maintenance, fuel economy, and daily driveablility in mind. Id kill for one as a second car.

They make all HP, torqueless wonders.... :rolleyes:

The only reason they are expensive is because there are only few people that can work on a Rotary and most dont really want to because there is far more work involved to a traditional piston engine.

Stock rotary TurboII rev to 9k. If you build them up, anything is possible with the right money.

That is a sick engine if it has 4 rotors because the Cosmo which is in the F1 car they have is 3 rotor.

ya my boss said that they were a special edition only Japanese version and they only made around 100 of them he also told me they were base prices at $100k in 88

WHAT? They don't have pistons!? HOW DOES THAT WORK!????

































Kidding :P

I had an 83 Z28 with a mild built 350/350 combo nothing really special and a friend of mine had an 88 typeII (turbo) five speed. I would spank his *** to about fifty then his turbo would spool up in third gear and I was chasin tail lights. Fun times.

I had an 88 Turbo II with a five speed as well. Your friend must not be very good at speed shifting, to have gotten spanked.

Well I was talking about the first fifty or sixty feet then the turbo spooled up and he spanked my *** from there out! I had him on the launch upto his top of second start of third gear. My 83 was no slouch but it was a no demon either.

lol. When you said "to about fifty", I read it as fifty mph.

Yea I was thinking feet but it did read mph my bad. Those cars are bad *** tho.