Well, after a long time coming, the wife has finally approved for me to begin a major project. I am starting to build a street-legal (in AZ) open-wheel car basically from the ground up. I have been debating powering it with a rotary due to the engine's light weight. If I go this route, it raises many questions. Some I used to be able to answer myself, but I've been away from the rotary world for a while...

1. Is a rotary engine the best choice? I want to keep the total weight of the car under about 1700 lbs. My thoughts with going with a rotary engine are the low total weight of the engine and the low center of gravity. With the car's total weight as low as it is, there is little need for a lot of low-end torque.

2. The factory setup has many additional sensors, solenoids, and actuators that are not necessary. What is necessary to for operation? I'm not asking about the basic rat's nest reduction, I'm talking a full-on removal of anything not needed to run the engine.

3. I know the factory ECU will not be an option after removing all the extra crap. What would be my next best option and why?

4. I plan on giving the engine a fresh rebuild and street porting it before I put it in. I am unsure if I want to stick with the factory twin setup or go to something else. My goal is roughly 300 hp with a fairly flat power curve, or at least one with no crazy peaks like a huge single turbo produces. Thoughts or suggestions?

I do not want the discussion to stray to any other part of the car. Right now I'm focusing strictly on the powerplant.

I have more questions, but I can't think of them right now and the old lady is hassling me to spend time with her. Since she approved this project, I suppose I'll give her that much.

To say this ahead of time, thank you to anybody providing reasonable input to this thread.

 

How large is your budget? If you had a little lower power goal, you could go with a naturally aspirated carbureted setup. Compact, light and easy.

 

Budget is roughly $20k over 2-3 years.