The rotary engine is perhaps one of the most polarizing motors to have ever been commercialized. From its checkered past to its intent to live on as a range extender, the small spinning triangle has ...

In theory, Wankel-style rotary internal combustion engines have many advantages: they ditch the cumbersome crankcase and piston design, replacing it with a simple, single-chamber design and a thick, ...

When I wrote about Mazda’s attempt to create the perfect range extender, I mentioned I wanted to examine the ideas that seem to be closer to that goal. Unfortunately, the Japanese company’s attempt ...

A Wankel engine is a type of rotary engine, but not all rotary engines are Wankel engines. Wrapping your mind around this idea will help you to better understand the similarities as well as the ...

You hear endless myths about the Mazda RX-7, from breathless praise of its “magic” to horror stories about blown apex seals. Strip away the fanboy noise and you are left with a very specific kind of ...

The rotary engine is unique in its success and failure and its ability to make an impact with a completely different way of thinking. As it is, every production car for the last 130 years, aside from ...

Everyone generally knows about piston and rotary engines, with many a flamewar having been waged over the pros and cons of each design. The “correct” answer is thus to combine both into a single ...

The supercharged 25-hp XTS-210 rotary engine is intended to fill a gap on the mobile power market. Credit: LiquidPiston LiquidPiston has launched a 25-hp heavy-fuel rotary engine that could power ...

In a world dominated by pistons, the rotary engine was something different for motorists. It was the vision of German engineer Felix Wankel, built on the belief that the up-and-down motion of pistons ...

For a time, the Wankel rotary engine seemed like the future. In 1963, German automaker NSU—later absorbed into Audi—debuted the Wankel Spider, the first internal-combustion production car not powered ...

How the 13B-MSP Renesis evolved from earlier Mazda rotary designs, technical features explained, and common problems and maintenance issues discussed. The 13B-MSP Renesis rotary engine powered the ...