turbo charging?

[MikeyB.]

Hey all my rspeed peeps,i was helping my brother move his inlaws today and i swear i heard an rx 8 turbo charged,can you do that on a rotary engine as compared to our engines.Be easy on the answers this all foreign to me.

[Cateybrew]

yea you can do it to a rotary engine.. a few companys make bolt on turbo kits for the rx-8's... the rx-7's came with trubos from the factoy.. the trubo versions are pretty bad ass..

[Cateybrew]

[MikeyB.]

Are they fast cars,i know they r rated 262hp as i was looking at them when dee got her mazda a while back.What kinda #s can a rx8 gain with that upgrade?

[Shawn96VR-4]

Ah. Sure. Why not?

[BoxerSix]

The motors are all HP, not much on the torque values. New Renesis motors differ from the old 13b days with newer and better port geometry. Helps with low end torque a bit and fuel economy(man those things were PIGS)

Rotaries love boost, but usually don't take high boost for very long without issues to apex seals and the like. Keep it mild with a good tune and it'll be fine.

[Captain Moai]

RX8's came with ~238hp stock. Mazda kind of ate their ass on the original 255hp claim and had to revise it. The Renesis is a decent engine, but of course, it's still going to act like a rotary. No starting it up just to drive it down the driveway. You'll end up yanking the plugs to blow out the raw fuel sitting in there.

A turbokit like the greddy 18g unit will make it capable of ~250whp. For that car, that's plenty. It's got outstanding balance. More power would simply ruin it.

The downside is, rotaries don't have a wide margin for error with boost. Greed on the boost, a quick ping or excess heat will mean byebye motor, very very quickly.

[Cavi Mike]

As far as I'm concerned the only good rotary is a turbocharged rotary. I don't know much about these reed-valved renesis engines though or if it has any adverse effects when attempting to turbo-charge it. If you want to know about turbocharging a rotary, talk to the local puerto-ricans. The rotary is their favorite motor.

As far as rotaries being finicky with boost, it's not true. These engines love boost. What they don't like is heat and the fact that they fire on every 'crank' revolution versus every other like a piston engine, they create twice as much heat. They also retain a lot of that heat due to the mass of the rotor and the inability to get heat out of the engine. Rotaries are more like a 2 stroke engine but since they don't have gas and oil constantly rushing by all the moving parts, they also don't have that cooling benifit. If you can keep the engine cool, you can boost them to oblivion.

The only things that fail on a rotary are the apex seals unless, of course, you deprive the engine of oil you'll spin a bearing just like every other engine but that's not my point. The apex seal is the rotaries equivalent to a compression ring. Dismantling a rotary engine to replace them is easier than doing just about ANYTHING on a piston motor. There's nothing to a rotary. There's even less parts than a 2-stroke piston motor. They just intimidate people because America was raised on piston engines.

I love the rotary engine, I've always been fascinated by it's simplicity and it's love for boost. They actually run better with boost than without. Their small disadvantages are far outweighed by their advantages and if you're a tuner the disadvantages become advantages.

[Captain Moai]

Originally Posted by Cavi Mike

If you want to know about turbocharging a rotary, talk to the local puerto-ricans.

Nice statement, even though most of the local puerto ricans wouldn't know their ass from a worn out D15. So since I'm Puerto Rican and many of family play with Mazdas and Toyotas back on the island, does the phrase "rotaries don't have a wide margin for error with boost" mean anything different to you now? Boost IS heat, regardless of what turbocharger you're using. A naturally aspirated wankel will last damn near forever if maintained right. A boosted wankel has a very short lifespan in comparison. Just consider how many naturally aspirated FC's are still running without a rebuild, versus how many FD's are on their original motor.

They do NOT have as much forgiveness as a piston engine. Detonation results in apex seal damage MUCH faster than a piston engine's rings would see, because of the fact that they do not shed heat as efficiently, as you said. It's a small motor with a small surface area, firing as many times per rotation as a V12 piston motor. Tuning a rotary is about patience and calculated effort. You cannot just slap on a kit, crank it to a bar and expect to make it through the weekend.

[Shawn96VR-4]

Originally Posted by Moai

Boost IS heat, regardless of what turbocharger you're using.

DING DING DING. We have a winner. Glad you brought that up as I was about to tear it up.