How reliable is a rotary engine?
Mazda RX-7: IMSA GTU Champion – 1980 – 1981 – 1982 – 1983 – 1984 – 1985 – 1986 – 1987 No other manufacturer has won such a long string of consecutive championships. The 1979 season was almost the first in the string. Mazda had 199 points to 1st place Datsun’s 211. The 1979 season opened with the RX-7 IMSA debut at the 24 Hours of Daytona, where RX-7s finished first and second in GTU. Also in 1979, Mazda won the Champion Spark Plug Challenge with 246 points to 2nd place AMC with 218 and Datsun with 100. Mazda RX-3 drivers took the first three places in the series’ drivers’ points race. Results like those take two basic things: 1- Power, to be first, and 2- Reliability, to stay first. Like any other engine, the cooling and oil systems must be kept up to snuff to maximize reliability. If you let a boinger overheat, a typical result is a blown head gasket. The nature of rotary overheating is that a “head gasket” type failure requires a total overhaul to repair. If you can avoid such neglec
