The Wankel, a rotary internal combustion engine, but with a totally different architecture from other traditional engines, does not have cylindrical chambers, pistons and connecting rods, equipped several vehicles mainly Mazdas, but was also present in other brands of cars, motorcycles, minibuses, aviation and other types of vehicles.
In 1924, the German Felix Wankel, conceived the rotary motor design, formed by one or more chambers with oval shape, with a trilobular rotor (triangle of reuleaux), which rotates eccentrically in relation to the main axis, thus performing all the intake, compression, ignition and exhaust steps, also function as a seal between the steps and as an intake and exhaust valve, so it does not need the respective valves and controls, making the engine have fewer parts, smaller volume and smoother operation due to constant rotary motion, and not alternating direction of travel like conventional engine cylinders. As the rotor travels, three 4-stroke motor phases occur together, one on each face.
In the early 1960s, several brands signed license agreements, including the Japanese MAZDA brand (Toyo-Kogyo Co.), and also (Curtiss-Wright (aviation engines), Mercedes-Benz (diesel engines), Krupp, MAN, Rolls-Royce, General Motors and Ford)
The old NSU was known to have been the first to license the use of these engines, the first car was the NSU Spider, built between 1964 and 1967.
The first of the Mazda was the Cosmo Sport 110S in 1967, after this experience, the corporation became more confident and launched successive models of the RX series, the most famous being the RX-7, produced from 1978 to 2002. In 1991, the prototype 787B, won the French 24 Hours Le Mans race.
The General Motors, Citroen, Mercedes, Nissan and Lada brands also featured Wankel rotary-powered cars, along with Suzuki RE5, Hercules, OCR1000, Van Veen, Yamaha RZ201, Norton, RCW588 motorcycles. It also had aeronautical applications, go-karts, jet skis, snowmobiles, and even lawn mowers.
It also had a Rolls Royce Diesel Wankel project, but was not put into production.
The main qualities of the Wankel engine are its smoothness of operation, less volume, number of parts and more simplicity, as well as its ability to achieve high horsepower. However, it had problems in reaching consumption and emission of low pollutants, besides having faster wear than the engine. normal.
In 2003 Mazda launched the RX-8, with 236 horsepower, in 2012 was the last breath of the model in the American market. The engine is still widely used by fans in supersports, it has always been speculated to return this engine in commercial vehicles, even in hydrogen version in a supposed RX9, as well as aeronautical or auxiliary engine in electric vehicles.