The Wankel rotary is a turbine engine, right? I don’t think Mazda is really involved in racing, but would the RX series be banned in no-turbine series?
The much-maligned Toyota MR2 SC is much faster than a car with 140hp weighing 2600 lbs has any right to be. This is because it, like the Mustang, has a really wide powerband. Most small displacement cars aren’t too torquey, the current solution seems to be switching camshafts(V-Tec and VVT-i) or using a supercharger.
Sorry, VVT-i is variable valve timing(duh), not camshaft switching.
http://www.onthenet.com.au/~billzila/vvtvtec.htm describes it in much better detail than I could.
Why the S2000 is “dull” at low rpm’s is due to a torque deficiency. Torque is what pastes you into the seat. You can’t feel horsepower. The S2000 needs high rpm’s to generate meager amounts of torque.
Here’s my example of a car blessed with torque…
Back in '68 you could have walked into your local Plymouth dealership and picked up a 426 (6.98litre) Hemi Roadrunner for the paltry sum of $3700.00
What did $3700.00 get you?
A monster of a car with 425 horsepower (at 5000 rpm) and 490 foot pounds of torque at 4000 rpm.
This was a mere 60 horsepower per litre but with all the torque one could ever want.
I am really impressed with Honda’s technology to get this much HP from such a small engine, 240hp from 122 cubic inches is a remarkable feat.
Horsepower isn’t everything.
Having been a passenger in a Hemi Roadrunner I can tell you that there is nothing like nearly 500 ft pounds of torque to paste you to the seat all the way through triple digit speeds.
Cars mentioned like the Porsche 911, the Mustang GT, and my favourite (above) do one thing really well. They hit their maximum horsepower and torque quickly between 4000 and 5000 rpm mark. I have driven high revvers like the MR2 as well as 'Stangs, Porsches, and older muscle cars. I prefer cars that generate high torque at lower speeds.
Just checking some specs…
The 2.3 litre turbo in my T-Bird is good for 190 HP (4600rpm) and 240ft/pounds (3400rpm) of torque. People are always amazed that a car like this with a 4 cylinder can snap your head back so quickly…
No. The Wankel engine is a rotary engine. A turbine (as we usually think of them) are jets. For a discussion of turbines, go here: http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=28317 A rotary engine uses a rotary piston instead of a reciprocating piston.
Then you need an AMC with the 360 cid V8…only 200 hp (@ 2500 rpm), but almost 300 lb-ft of torque @ 1800 rpm. Or the 401! (300+ hp/350 lb-ft @ same rpms)
My Jeep Wagoneer w/17-year-old, unrebuilt, 170,000-mile AMC 360 will climb a 50-degree hill easily at around 1500 rpm…now that’s some low-end torque. It’ll also go faster than 100 mph, but that’s another story…
Back to the question about why the 10 cylinder limit, my guess would have to be that it relates to the torque vs horsepower discussion. When you start playing with stroke length a lot you can do some fairly impressive tuning. They probably don’t want the team with the most money comming up with some outlandish 72 cylinder 1/4 inch stroke engine that the other teams couldn’t compete with. With a 10 cylinder limit, everybody is going to have about the same place to start working, and have a more competitive field.
Sheesh, I’m not sure how all that white space got in there. Sorry.