why rotary so rare?
 

I was telling a buddy of mine all the amazing things about the rotory engine.How compact it is 3 moving parts! blabalbal.He stops me dead in my tracks and said,"well why the hell isnt it in more cars?"I couldnt really give him a good answer and i am stumped.Is it copyright?Please help me.For the name and reputation of the Rotary Engine!

Maybe 'cuse gas cost so much money these days, and they ain't the most economical cars. Oh yeah and they aren't very emmision friendly. Chevy tried to go rotary a long time ago, they made like 1 rotary corvette, and they were supposed to come out with rotary Vegas but then the oil crisis hit and gas prices skyrocketed

I figure it just a demanding engine and needs proper care to last, right. Consumers don't want to worry about that stuff when all they want is to get form A to B plus what kundo said.....

Maybe that will change with the new design debuting in the RX-8. Good emissions, as much power as an RX-7 without the turbos (and problems they brought), and better mpg.

people think that if it aint broke dont replace it

actually back in the late 60s and early 70s every car company had a rotary concept car, just about. chevy and mercedes come to mind off hand. chevy had the corvette as mentioned, it used a 4 rotor n/a i beleieve. mercedes had some 3 or 4 rotor design as well. but for whatever reason no company decided to use the engine except for mazda. it was their selling point. just about the entire mazda lineup was rotary cars. i think the reason they didnt catch on was because of their use of gas and oil and their reliability reputation, or lack thereof. but the fact that the rotary is so rare is one of the main reasons i like my RX7. because nobody else has one. if they werent so rare i probably wouldnt own an RX7 right now.

there was no way that a rotary can pass emissions back in the day

Actually, the 1st and 2nd gens were known for their reliability. 3rd gens are really the only ones with a bad rep.

As others have mentioned, the oil crunch of the late 70's killed almost all rotary developement. Mercedes was actually very serious about the rotary until the oil crisis.

Another reason is cost - it ain't cheap to desiogn a new engine using new technology that's arguably not much better than what you've already got.

I also remeber reading somwhere about Mazda owning the patent (or something like that) for the design.... but I could be wrong.

It will be interesting to see what will happen when the Rensis hits the market. ;)

Actually, back in the day the rotary engine was known as being emissions friendly. That is why al the other manufacturers were looking into the rotary. Check out the REPU sales brochure at http://www.mazdarepu.com/Gallery/ind...brochure_1.jpg and Mazda actually brags a little about how clean the rotary is.

:crzyeye:

I think I'm right in saying that most prop planes are powered by rotary engines. Then they were moved into car's where they haven't had as much success due to the cost of designing by manufacturers and also the cost of oil rising.

I worked on the flight line during college and never saw a rotary engine.

Perhaps you are thinking of a radial engine. This is just a piston engine with the pistons in a circle.

Most gas powered planes today have horizontally-opposed engines, like old VW Bugs and Porsche 911s.

Because nobody else could get the thing to work right. Not NSU, Datsun, Toyota, GM, Ford, Curtis-Wright, John Deere, etc...
Its funny they all started by using the Mazda designed rotary engines and tried to make changes to make it their own.
Besides that the oil/gas crissis didn't help.

because only REAL sports cars have it...........:):):):)

i think audi's had rotary engine a long time ago

Nope
 

NSU the original licenser of the Wankel later near bankrupt it was absorbed by Audi. The Ro-80 was rotary. Drivers of these cars, when passing the same would put up the number of fingers representing the number engines since new! They had carbon apex seals that didn't last long, great for racing engines though. The Germans couldn't make it work, even Mercedes with the C111 all show and didn't go for long. GM built a full engine plant to produce rotaries for Vegas, 20,000 engines were built and never installed, it was 1973 and the oil crisis hit. OMC built outboards with rotaries, quite good ones I hear and Suzuki had the R500 (I think) motorcycle - but the morons put it in the frame with the rotor spinning left to right rather than front to back - so when you booted it the cycle tried to torque over. The engineers at mazda in the 60's worked hard to get this thing in working order, its day will come, maybe the Renesis, maybe something further off, we have to get away from valves and cams and pistons.

I think rotary engines are not more prevalent in the industry for a couple of reasons.

1. R&D (Time and Money)
2. Tooling (Time & Money)
3. Fuel Efficency (Compared to todays standards)
4. Emissions (Compared to todays Stds & R&D invoved)
5. Other car companies don't have balls.

well said styjan. That's my take exactly...and about in that order.