Brief Forward: One of the great benefits of rotary engines is they can output incredible power from a very small engine block. This small size allows carmakers to put the engine in an optimal position: closer to the car's center. Regular engines can add extra pistons to increase displacement and rotary engines can add extra rotors. But by adding extra rotors the engine block becomes too long and the advantage of putting weight towards the car's center is lost.

Idea: My idea is to take two twin rotor engine blocks and put them side by side connected by gears to the flywheel. This would keep the weight of the engine toward the center of the car and double the displacement. If two naturally aspirated Mazda Renesis motors were put side by side, their power would be just under 500 bhp. Turbocharged, they could reach over 600 bhp. Again using the Renesis as an example, this side-by-side engine would weigh less than 400lbs. By comparison, a Porsche 911 Turbo engine weighs about 450 lbs and puts out 420bhp.
-- thejini, Aug 20 2003

(?) Renesis http://www.ukintpre...ftheyear/ieoty.html
[thejini, Oct 04 2004]

Oh. I was hoping this was a really complicated roundabout (rotary in the US).
-- DrCurry, Aug 20 2003


Well if you packed a roundabout with 600hp Mazdas it might get interesting.
-- DeathNinja, Aug 20 2003


why not have one engine driving the front wheels and one driving the back like the Tiger Z100
-- shifty, Oct 21 2003


One of the car mags put two engine/drivetrains in a Honda CRX way back when; put a lot of thought into how to synch them up, finally decided to just let the road do it. Worked fine.
-- gzuckier, Mar 22 2005


The Tiger referenced above is in fact using both engines to drive the rear wheels - they share a common propshaft, so the gearboxes, at least, are in sync. It's possible to have each engine running in a different gear though. Odd.
-- david_scothern, Mar 22 2005



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