If there were as much money going into rotaries as there were going into piston crank engines, i'm sure they'd be much more reliable. With a piston crank engine you have sooooo many little parts that are accelerating back and forth and back and forth. Each acceleration puts a lot of strain on each of those parts. Meanwhile, the rotary is just a constant rotation thing, no back and forth and back and forth motion

 

I really like the RX-8 as is. A little more HP won't hurt, but it won't hurt either if it doesnt get it.

 

The rotary has always been an 80k mile engine when turbo'd. Why do you think no turbos this time around on the 8? The last gen RX7TT was expensive, about $34k in 1993 with 240 hp, about $45,000 today. If it was that great, everyone would be using it now. I loved my 81(that lasted about 110k miles) and my 93(that burst into flames with 10k), but its more of a niche car with that platform then something to build around. I would love to see something cool like a straight 6 rx7 then a rotary.