To expand and elaborate on the thread started by JasonC19, i'm now wondering about a slew of other neat little (well, maybe little, maybe a big deal... but hey!! subjective, you be the judge) aspects of the gem called RENESIS...

like the fuel economy?? EVERYBODY!! opinions please... (not to take anything away from your thread JasonC19, but i just figured i'd throw it in too...)

and how about that big weight savings... i threw that into a different thread, the one about turboing or going 20B style, but no one said anything about it after...
my theory is that Mazda's got a new alloy which is much like or maybe based upon (or the same as) the rotor housings and used it for the side housings (which were an iron intensive steel...)... 'cause a what, 40% weight savings (that number could be VERY incorrect) couldn't just come from elimination of the turbo systems, so i thought about the 'multi-layered sandwich' that is the 13B block... or hey!! what about manifolds and other stuff??? any other tech heads know about new wave(s) in meturlagy (sp. i know...), could ya throw me a bone about new technologies in reducing wieght through alloy R+D, in PRODUCTION cars?? 'cause i know that in F1 circles, Inconel is considered "inexpensive", but in the real world, i have serious doubts about that... (Rich?? how about it...??)

okay, here's a goodie: emissions!! what the heck about this??? i believe my memory (but you may not) when it says that i read somewhere that the 8 will be qualified as a "Low Emissions" vehicle, due to the RENESIS... any thoughts on that??? i know that the hydrocarbon emissions should be nearly non-existant thanks to the zero-overlap layout of the side inspiration and expiration ports, but what about oil usage??? i read on this forum a while ago (again, can't trust this memory) about some newish process they (Mazda) are using in making the housings which is suppost to greatly reduce friction, and increase the durability of the worn surfaces, therefore reduced oil consumption, which i would surmise leads to reduced emissions, yes?? i dunno... boowana, allowed to tell us anything about that from The Big Book of Mazda Top Secrets??

um, other stuff!! you guys (in a non-gender-specific kinda way) are brilliant, and could come up with all sorts of things my tired mind hasn't the fainest inkling of...

 

57 veiws and NO replies?? c'mon!! i'm really wondering about this stuff!! :D doesn't ANYONE have ANY kind of opinion at ALL??? i mean just whatever comes to mind... like "ya" or "hmm..."... or "this guys a weiner"... whatever it is!!

 

this guy's a weiner

 

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I didn't reply because I have no expertise on the topic. I generally post unless I have something worthwhile to add, and all I can do is guess and speculate. I've never owned a rotary powered vehicle, but look forward to my first.

I do have a more specific question semi related to this thread. Is there a good, cheap way to get more hp out of a rotary if you aren't concerned with stringent emissions?

 

I have very little knowledge about the RENESIS engine, but as for metallurgy:

Inconel IS VERY expensive. Very difficult to mfg; not ductile, which is a desireable characteristic in IC engines. It's been used as cylinder liner due to its high temp characteristic, but recently metal matrix composites seems to be preferred as used in Honda's FC20, Toyota's 2J-G series and Porches 3.6 water cooled engines. F1 had been using berylium alloys until banned in 2k(?)

From the pics of the RENESIS engine, I would think the weight saving came mainly from surperior casting techniques as seen in the webbing and voids. probably from R&D using newer CAE/CAD/CAM and Rapid Prototyping technology.

 

"webbing and voids" you're referring to the hollow bit in teh rotors and such?? i see... but casting techniques?? i thought that rotors of such a design would be much simpler to forge together, like a sandwich...

cyclender liner, eh??? COOL!! ya, i've only heard of it being used in aerospace and fighter plane stuff, other than in F1 for the exhaust headers (as it's prime utility)...
ya, i knew about hte beryllium, but that was mostly Ilmore (Mercedes...)... which was why they were the most powerful in '99, and the ban the reason they really, really weren't in 2000.

 

cool cool COOL!!! okay, who else's got anything?? :D

 

oops!! sorry KayakDaddy, i missed your question first time through...
well, i've never owned one either, i just pretend to know about it...

uh, CHEAP way?? jeez... well, uh, a cheap way to get a powerful rotary is to find a junker FC that's had the rear half of the car dismantled by another, and take the 13B out from under the hood (hopefully without a previous rebuild on it), and get it rebuilt (PORTING is the key there) to your desires... then, you could think about supercharging it... i think that i'd use the 13B NA Series 5, 'cause then you wouldn't have to worry about getting new rotors or outer gears or anything, 'cause they already rev right up to 8k RPM... and if you wanna really get some nice torque, i think that a ROOTS style (not centripital, 'cause i think that'd be too tricky in the NA, if you don't open up the bathtubs on the rotors to lower the compression at high RPMs; basically it'd give you too much boost where you've already got power) supercharger set-up would work really well with the 6-port inspiration system...

porting the rotary is nice, 'cause with a simple die grinder, you could do it yoruself!! just order the templates from Racing Beat for $30 or whatever, and there you go...

but, i'm pretty sure that you wouldn't want that old thing in your brand new RX-8... and well, from things people've said about ceramics and other expensive and fragile materials being used in it (not to mention the already very large size of all 10 ports) it'd be nearly impossible to port without permanently ruining the block... so, best i could think of is just wait for the warranty to run out first , then buy yourself a (small!!) roots style supercharging kit, and give yourself boost it was designed to handle (like about 1 bar, don't go over that... you'd probably be hitting 300 hp with it, but i'm no expert, Dazz would know about this stuff, like HP gains vs. boost pressure in NA spec compression rotaries) and you'd be pretty set... i don't know of a better way...

oh btw, i say supercharger 'cause then you don't need to screw around with a couple of fancy manifolds (jus a pulley on the super), the greater amount of plumbing, the cost of the turbo itself (!), and a bunch of other crap (i guess) which makes them more expensive, but also more powerful (better boost at high RPM, better still than the centrifugal super)

but, that's still not cheap, but the only thing that comes to mind at 7:15 before work... :D sorry if that's no help at all....