The internal combustion engine, for all its mechanical sophistication, still runs on a 19th-century mechanical idea: pistons rising and falling, a crankshaft spinning, a steam-age architecture ...
The rotary engine was an unconventional design that delivered great power for its size. Here's what's good and bad about it.
The electric motor might carry the hype banner at the moment, but some minds remain convinced that there's plenty of innovation left to be extracted from internal combustion. AIE is one of the rotary ...
You hear endless myths about the Mazda RX-7, from breathless praise of its “magic” to horror stories about blown apex seals.
Astron aerospace has shown a partial prototype of a new rotary combustion engine it claims runs at an extraordinary 60% thermal efficiency, burning totally clean with zero NOx emissions and nothing ...
Rotary engines (also known as Wankel engines and Wankel rotary engines) are quite different from piston or "reciprocating" engines. One of the distinguishing features is that they don't need valves to ...
Over-the-top rotary builds are an enthusiast tradition. Because so few rotary cars have been made, the limits of the engine type haven't been fully exploited by automakers. It's been tuners who have ...
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, ...
Bruno started at Top Speed in 2022 and now serves as Senior Editor for ICE while also training writers across CarBuzz, HotCars, and TopSpeed. A car and motorcycle enthusiast, he enjoys writing about ...
Language is an imperfect medium, but it's what we've got, so let's go with it. Determining the swept volume of inventor Felix Wankel's rotary engine can generate more arguments than claiming what a GT ...
Wankel rotary engines, typically but not exclusively found in Mazdas, certainly lean on the "quirkier" side of modern powertrain systems, made quirkier because most rotary-powered cars on the road ...