Technology doesn't always work out..... Here's some fails

[XCV330]

Not really, Mazda did an entire legendary line of cars with "The Wankel" engine.

We have entire die hard fans of "The Wankel" engine with it's untapped potential.

Rob Dahm's entire YouTube channel is all about the Rotary Engine.

What killed the Wankel Engine in the US was "Emissions" & Maintenance Costs.

Not performance.

LiquidPiston has the "Liquid Piston X" inverted Rotary engine that is a generation ahead and much lighter in weight to accomplish more HP for less mass.

but emissions and maintenance are more important than performance when you can still get acceptable performance from a regular reciprocating engine. Same as with 2 strokes. Sure 2-strokes generate more power in theory but it comes with all kinds of problems.

Mazda did make some pretty amazing sports cars with Wankels, and I can remember growing up, some neighbors had a rotary mazda station wagon in the 70's. But from what I understand, those motors don't last long. Even Mazda eventually gave up on the idea.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

but emissions and maintenance are more important than performance when you can still get acceptable performance from a regular reciprocating engine.

But the Material Science of the 80's & 90's aren't as good as what we have now.

We have FAR better tech to deal with emissions to this day.

Rob Dahm can attest to that.

Same as with 2 strokes. Sure 2-strokes generate more power in theory but it comes with all kinds of problems.

Mazda did make some pretty amazing sports cars with Wankels, and I can remember growing up, some neighbors had a rotary mazda station wagon in the 70's. But from what I understand, those motors don't last long. Even Mazda eventually gave up on the idea.

Mazda gave up because they didn't want to invest more money into technology that was niche.

Nearly every ICE engine is based around some form of Pistons.

Heck the ICE supply chain is based on Pistons.

Nearly every engineer understands Pistons, Rotary Engines are more Niche and there are only a handful of Engineers & Mechanics who really understand them.

Rob Dahm included since he has spent nearly most of his time tuning, experimenting, and innovating with him.

Seriously go to his channel and see what he can do, it's freaking amazing as to the crazy stuff he's pulled off with Rotary's, including climbing Pike's Peak.

Liquid Piston X has the next generation iteration where it fixes the fundamental issues of Rotary with a Inverted Rotary.
Liquid Piston has a DiTrigon shaped housing with a Peanut shaped rotar instead of the classic Wankel that has a Stadium Loop shaped cavity & Reuleaux Triangle Rotar.
The LPX engine has one rotar housing that can easily scale from 1 to 1000 HP in size before you need to stack them like Wankel Engine.

They're super light weight.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

The piston engine really is a present day relic from over 100 years ago. Why haven't new types of combustion engines evolved?

Ooh found an odd alternative the Opposed Piston engine where the two pistons share a cylinder

https://www.autoweek.com/news/technology/a36068845/opposed-piston-engines/

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

The piston engine really is a present day relic from over 100 years ago. Why haven't new types of combustion engines evolved?

Ooh found an odd alternative the Opposed Piston engine where the two pistons share a cylinder

https://www.autoweek.com/news/technology/a36068845/opposed-piston-engines/

There are A LOT of alternatives, but Pistons are always the come-back solution because it's "Entrenched", it's "Simple to UnderStand (Relatively)" compared to newer engines, and it's very flexible to innovate on.

Achates Opposed Pistons is one of the engine designs I'm rooting for.

One that I want the bigger car companies to license & adopt for big Trucks & Heavy Duty Vehicles.

Same with the Koenigsegg TFG (Tiny Friendly Giant) that is a inline 3-Cylinder with "Free-Valves" (Electro-Mechanical Valve Actuators) on top.
It only weighs 154 lb dry weight but is 300 hp Naturally Aspirated & 600 hp with Turbos.

Sadly, rich people don't want efficient engines, they want "Big V8's", so the engine isn't going into limited production.

I'm hoping that the CEO of Koenigsegg (Christian von Koenigsegg) would sell the design to one of the big car manufacturers if they were willing to mass produce it.

It's literally a "God Tier" engine in terms of specs and what it can do along with the lower emissions.

For Sports Cars & Sedans, I want them to adopt the TFG as part of a Hybridized system.