billdunn wrote:

I have seen claims that the renesis is 30% lighter than the latest RX-7 rotary engine.

Does anyone know of the exact ( or approximate ) weight of the Renesis engine ?

The weight of the latest RX-7 engine ?

Thanks

bd

I think they are referring to the fact the turbo's have been removed.
Also they are using  plastic upper intake manifolds. The bare
weight will be the same. No luck on aluminum end housings.
Why bother anyway? The rotary engine is already a small percentage of
the overall weight of the car. All that crash safety stuff adds
up to a lot of weight and four people are up to 800 pounds alone.
Getting 50 or 75 pounds out of the 200 pound car rotary engine is 
probably not cost effective unfortunately for us.

What I would like to see Ford/Mazda do is make a world beating 
sports car and use the Jag XKS chassis and a three or four
rotor engine. Now there is where you could justify aluminum 
end housings. That would really impact the automotive world
like a moon size meteor.

Paul Lamar
 
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