5 ms·
Low end torque tends to be the rotary's Achilles heel. I think the claim being made is that efficiency is better at high, steady RPMs, but tbh, I've always foun
by _ea1k 3y ago
Low end torque tends to be the rotary's Achilles heel. I think the claim being made is that efficiency is better at high, steady RPMs, but tbh, I've always found that claim a bit dubious. If you love the rotary engine, this does have some nice perks as the electric motor basically fixes the rotary engine's main weakness.
Having said that, I'd have been much more excited about this 10-15 years ago.
- ianai 3y agoA YTer said it allows the rotary engine to operate in its best circumstances. It’s essentially a range extender while battery tech improves.
- lostlogin 3y agoIt fixes the terrible efficiency by having an entirely different power source? As others have pointed out, the article doesn’t do a great job of explaining how the rotary helps.
- suprjami 3y agoIt really isn't. Go and drive a 13BT car. They make almost all their torque by 2500rpm and the curve is flat. They're more torquey than any 4 cylinder I've driven.
- _ea1k 3y agoI've owned an RX-7 and an RX-8. They definitely didn't have flat torque curves. Even the twin sequential setup on the FC was far from flat. But even if it was, that was the most powerful stock configuration made and it topped out at ~184 lb/ft. :) Torque was never the strength of this motor.
- suprjami 3y agoI had a turbo FC and beg to differ. A dyno graph of a stock car also begs to differ.
- _ea1k 3y agoDyno graphs aren't consistent with that: https://www.google.com/imgres?q=1993%20stock%20rx-7%20dyno&imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.rx7club.com%2Fattachments%2F3rd-generation-specific-1993-2002-16%2F408684d1288238017-13b-rew-stock-dynosheet-compared-stock-dynosheets-other-turbo-engines-evox_stock_dyno.jpg&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.rx7club.com%2F3rd-generation-specific-1993-2002-16%2F13b-rew-stock-dynosheet-compared-stock-dynosheets-other-turbo-engines-928507%2F&docid=3yaHKYIiVZ-OsM&tbnid=T9m9rGov8hxrRM&vet=12ahUKEwiEieuz36iFAxWv3ckDHZKvD3gQM3oECEoQAA..i&w=823&h=636&hcb=2&ved=2ahUKEwiEieuz36iFAxWv3ckDHZKvD3gQM3oECEoQAA https://www.google.com/imgres?q=1993%20stock%20rx-7%20dyno&i... They are fun engines, but low end torque just isn't their thing.