On your Tuesday episode you had a news regarding the Mazda engine. The technology that you showed is actually really cool. The difference between this and diesel and gasoline standard engines, or Otto cycle, Diesel cycle, miller cycle, and dual cycle is that the engine can harness the extra power left on the table that these for mentioned cycles are unable to use. The best way to help you understand the benefits is to show the limitations of each cycle. Otto Cycle has a hard limit of a certain compression threshold. This can be dynamic or static, but that is why there are Octane numbers in gasoline. The fuel will compression ignite and the flame fronts could collide and cause knock. Diesel and Dual cycles have a hard limitation of mix rates. The flame front propagates on the line where fuel and air are at perfect combustion balance. This means some fuel is not likely to burn, from lack of mix rate. The combustion is limited by mix. Miller cycle is an augmented Otto cycle that improves efficiency, but severely short changes the stroke length. HCCI is a premixed gasoline engine that allows for dynamic compression to be so high that the engine is in knocking territory, but switches from spark ignition to compression ignition allowing the power associated with Diesel engines, and the start up of Otto cycle engines. I would be more than happy to help further if you are interested in further understanding. I have over simplified this content, but the effect of the new engine is an increase of efficiency because the cycle is running thermodynamically more efficient with much greater difference in temperature and pressure.
I think it’s going to take companies just plain-old not making gasoline powered cars anymore to make people transition. I mean, Audi is making some incredible numbers in the fuel economy world while still providing good power. that 2 liter engine is quite impressive.
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That hurts man, I have a miata and an rx7. (granted, the RX7 doesn’t have compression, so I don’t drive it)
I keep hearing this and yet people don’t realize this has been the goal of engine combustion for decades. It means a 2L engine can have the power of a 2.5L while consuming the same amount of fuel as a 1.5L.
Electric vehicles are heavy and are not a solution to the energy problem. All it does is transfer the burden of generating energy to the energy companies. In many countries that means burning coal and fuel anyway. This is good news in multiple ways.
1 improves efficiency of combustion engines,
2, improves power of combustion engines,
3, is the long awaited answer for efficiency in Rotary engines which is one of the reasons why the RX-Vision was shown (Skyactive-R),
4, means rotary range extenders are about to hit the market,
5, Hydrogen combustion engines are potentially back on the table
I never really thought about it this way. I’m really not a big-picture person when it comes to cars. Cars are nothing more than a source of entertainment for me.
LOL. Crappy cars that die after the warranty is up.
Imagine my surprise. LS swap that RX7. LS swap the Miata. LS SWAP ALL THE THINGS!!!
Nah man, electrics are getting more and more efficient too, and so is electric power generation; solar, wind, etc. We are approaching the last time in human history where energy will be a scarcity.
Hydrogen is just a storage medium - like instead of batteries. The energy is produced/captured elsewhere. Hydrogen is probably a boondoggle, but who knows.
Have you driven one recently they’re pretty good, but it’s hard to beat Mercedes when it comes to being posh. I’ve got a 2009 A5 with 150k on it and it’s flawless. I suppose you do have to take care of them though, which is probably too much to ask for some people.
haha. Running a 3.2l Honda J engine in the Miata, RX7 died about a month ago, trying to decide what to do. Body and transmission are good, so I don’t really want to turn it into a drift missile. Might rebuild the rotary and go carbon seals.
Tempted to do an LS3 and call it done. Might trade it for an e30. As you can see, I don’t know what I want.
I hate luxury. I hate European cars. I have a bitchen Camaro 1LE.
Do it. Any LS will work but you probably want an all aluminum. LS7, LS3, or LS6 are probably ideal. LS2 is sort of the red headed step child. But there are cheap as fuck LS1s aplenty.
If you want a reliable car, why buy a rotary and then LS swap it? makes no sense. Good thing you guys aren’t right hand drive or the Japan market would be desimated.
Then buy an ls powered car. Simple. Just because an engine might not be as good as another does not mean an ls is the right choice for everyone. There are thousands of different engines just like there are billions of different people. People hold different values and not everyone values the reliability of an ls like you do. If they did, Japan would be full of GM engines. Why GM is important in a discussion about Mazda I don’t know. Rotaries are less efficient and reliable than America’s big v8’s sure but discounting them just because there’s more efficient options already developed styfles development. If rotaries were dead, then Mazda wouldn’t be developing the Skyactive-R. And the Skyactive-X is a stepping stone for the Skyactive-R
Oh and I’m about to sell my RX7 and buy a BRZ. More as a interim step between getting an electric car as the new Tesla 3 is just too expensive with the options added that make it appealing to me. Almost but not quite there for me to start using as a daily car. Plus I can’t get one in the UK for 12-18 months anyway!