Pop the hood on a classic Mazda RX-7 or RX-8 and the engine bay looks oddly empty. That is the charm of the rotary engine: a compact lump of metal that trades pistons and valves for a spinning ...

Rotary engines (also known as Wankel engines and Wankel rotary engines) are quite different from piston or "reciprocating" engines. One of the distinguishing features is that they don't need valves to ...

Justin Cupler has been a member of the TopSpeed team since 2012. Justin's love for cars started back when he was just five years old, helping his dad work on his 1957 Chevy Bell Air and then his 1966 ...

While most people might know rotary engines for their use in cars, a pair of companies made use of them in chainsaws — and ...

With rotary engines long out of production, the job of building and maintaining them has fallen to individual experts, like wizards of some kind of dark art. But there was a time when things were ...

Antonio is a chemical engineering student pursuing his master's degree in chemical engineering and sustainable processes. Throughout his academic journey, he has gained substantial knowledge in areas ...

Mazda has been building new parts for the original MX-5 Miata for a couple of years and even offers a full restoration service over in Japan. Now it's expanding the parts program to the RX-7, ...

You're a master of all things LS. You completely understand the Ford FE big blocks. Those Honda B16 engines are no match for your knowledge base. At their core, these engines all behave the same way.

Over-the-top rotary builds are an enthusiast tradition. Because so few rotary cars have been made, the limits of the engine type haven't been fully exploited by automakers. It's been tuners who have ...

The engine in question was the Wankel rotary, named after German engineer Felix Wankel, who first patented the concept in 1929. Instead of pistons moving back and forth, the rotary engine used a ...

Race cars aren't often remembered unless they mean something special; usually, it's the team or the driver that holds the ...