[Crispy-d]

Oh right! I thought the Essex V6 was OHC like the 2.8i engine. Ah well, that explains why it's quite a tappety engine then! I'll have a look at that Panoz-Zytek engine - sounds pretty unique.

I actually did some project work on experimenting with valves on engines last year. It was actually found that for speed, precision and reliability, mechanical valves are still the best. We tried solenoids, but the ones that were available to us were rubbish, and never really worked properly. The ones they used in the F1 engine did work, but they are very complicated and require a lot of work to setup properly. The thing is, an electrical solenoid can never be as fast as the mechanical lobe hitting the valve. There is always a slight delay, and although that can be accounted for, it still limits the ability to rev. Hydraulics, let alone pneumatics were seen to be far to 'lazy' systems to work sufficiently.

The hydraulic tappets seem to work well these days, especially with the thinner oils. The hydraulic tappets in my younger brother's Vectra 2.0 seem to be rubbish in comparison to my ones though. He's already had a valve go, and it taps like mad, especially when cold. Even on a cold morning, mine's as quiet as a mouse!

So the RX-8 sounds like a good setup then! I understood it just 'burnt oil' as if it were leaking like an old Fiesta or something! If it injects it, then I suppose that explains it - and I can see why it's running life is also increased. When I say it 'needs to be revved' I mean in driveability respect. As in it makes it a pain to drive round town when there's little torque at lower revs. I don't know, admitedly, as I have never ridden in one. But compared to a V8 which will pick up well from pretty much any rpm, the rotary engines I thought were quite laggy. Almost like having a big turbo. A bit tedious to drive at slow speeds, and only really make sense when you're revving away merrily. A modern CVT gearbox (which are also supposed to be really effective these days) mated with a couple of ****el engines actually sounds perfect! Especially if they've got the seals sorted out. A suppose a turbo would sort out some torque for me when zipping around town...!