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Originally Posted by pylon
I miss rebuilding carburetors.
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Working on them is fun, but I do not miss the issues with them. Vapour problems, freezing, poor cold weather drivability etc. Fuel injection is one of the best things to happen to the auto industry.
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The biggest achievement in my auto repair career, was completely rebuilding a Mazda 12A rotary on my 82 RX-7, with nothing more than a Chiltons manual, and 600 bucks worth of parts from the Mazda dealer when I was 17. A guy down the street bought that car from me, and it ran for 11 years on that rebuild. I always wondered why the Wankel engine never caught on.
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It never caught on because it is simply not a thermally efficient engine. Combine that with the fact that they have a habit of burning oil even when new, and making them meet current emissions standards is very difficult. Sad really because it's such a neat and simple design.
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It made so much more sense than piston engines, and if the same amount of time an research went into it, it would have been amazing what could have been achieved with the rotary concept.
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Ultimately, the piston engine is just better overall, I don't think any amount of research and refinement of the rotary would change that. I did own an RX3 for a short time, that car was a blast to drive, the engine would rev to insane degrees.