[ZDan]

^^^

Originally Posted by chulooz

The desire to combine performance driving and fuel economy has NEVER made sense to me.

And the idea that gas mileage should mean NOTHING in a STREET car has never made sense to me. I commute 100 miles a day, but even if I didn't, BETTER performance in a car that gets MUCH better fuel economy is a no-brainer.

Enjoying the benefits of driving a sporty car costs gas, if I was concerned about milage Id push a prius.

See that argument all the time. Makes zero sense to me. Sports/sporty cars don't *have* to get poor gas mileage. In fact, the single most important aspect (to me) of a sports car is also good for fuel mileage. Both sports cars and economy cars benefit from being lighter-weight.

If I was concerned about milage and performance I would have two different cars.

I'd much rather drive my sports car every day. It's fun even at 1 to 3/10ths

Its like this; if I want to cut down a tree, ill use an ax. If I want to peel an apple, ill use a knife. Now a machete will be able to do both, but its cant do them as well as the more specific tools.

Cars are expensive to buy/maintain/insure/store. And anyway, even if I have multiple cars (I do), they both have to be track-worthy and fun/engaging to drive.

Are piston engines more reliable? Unarguably yes.(century of development) But calling rotaries unreliable is a stretch. Once again reving the piss out of rotaries are literally beneficial to the mill, you cant say that about pistons.

F20C doesn't mind hanging out at 9000rpm all day at the track

What enthusiast would want to see an amazing and unique performance engine go extinct?

I don't want to see it go extinct, but I *do* want Mazda to build another RX-like car (decent power/weight FR coupe) that doesn't suffer from rataryitis (abysmal mpg for the performance).

FWIW, I got 29mpg on one tankful (462 miles on 15.9 gallons) driving my 500+hp LS2 RX-7 up from Texas. Has a stock FD *ever* gotten that many mpg? And the car weighed only 20 lb. more after the swap (2800 lb. vs. 2780 lb.). Since then I've added an AC compressor (another 5 or so lb) and p/s pump (also 5 or so lb.). Probably ~2825 lb. now, only 45 lb. heavier.

Rotary is neat, rotary is cool, definitely like the idea of someone continuing with developing it. But for me, the drawbacks are far too great and the benefits far to limited.

If the RX-8 had come with an engine more similar to the s2000's (or MS3's), I'd have bought one.

Here's hoping Mazda re-enters the fray with an engine that offers much better performance *and* mpg.