The internal combustion engine, for all its mechanical sophistication, still runs on a 19th-century mechanical idea: pistons rising and falling, a crankshaft spinning, a steam-age architecture ...

In theory, Wankel-style rotary internal combustion engines have many advantages: they ditch the cumbersome crankcase and piston design, replacing it with a simple, single-chamber design and a thick, ...

Wankel rotary engine powered thousands of aircraft. One of several problems: It spewed castor oil on its pilots.

For more than a decade the name Wankel has popped up whenever car enthusiasts start talking about advanced-design automotive powerplants. The theory of the Wankel engine goes back to 1954 when Dr.

When most people hear the term "rotary engine," they probably think of Mazda first, as rotary engines have been part and parcel of the Japanese automaker's mantra for decades. In fact, Mazda proclaims ...

A normal Wankel has a triangle rotor spinning in a peanut-shaped housing. Liquid Piston flips that; now the peanut rotor spins inside a triangle housing. That small change makes a big difference. The ...