The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

Ce The Canadian Champion, Frday, September 5, 2008 Ir ~J\ Searching for movies is quick b ,PO4 ~ bYtatile or cinemna. Halton and Peel locations are featured. AVAILABIE ONUNÉ AT wjww.miItoncanadanchaplof.com Os mme wste iw att F8c d, n'No0 Ian. Mty imd W6t mmttta WM MdM mkraam, whitet "M.*d «W. n tt Ai, ansmiftmriîwmstty, S .28 2.7t. W6 a&o pmm *inII Pmu bçaâ »MDi, eUthooraWtis 0",r St Çmu VS,* ai paN AM «M", WbVSO. &teuW utnI*Uk8 2U FOOD 1w- 1stBDm - IIWVuW Mazda's rotary-powered another model in the R3 I By JIM ROBINSON Metroland Media Group Winklle, PÀnzIe hatle Wankel How 1 wonde-r if your crankIl, Torque enough f0 turn itself, Or il you wind up on the sheif That hlte poem was penned by the John Dinkel, a 20-year veteran wîth Road & Track magazine in the 1970s and, one of the great automotive wniters of ail time. His poem kicked off a feature on the then new Wankel rotary engine that Germant carmaker NSU (now part of Audi) was trying teo make viable. The prohlemt was Dr. Felix Wankel invented it to power torpedoes for German U-Boats. It was neyer supposed to last longer than a few minutes so trying to create a permanent rotor seal was not an issue. It was almost as thirsty as most II V8s of the day The upside was the engine was near vibration- free, light, powerful and very compact. NSU could not make it work, as bard as they tried. Nor esâ mny, could General Motors, Daimîer-Benz, Rolls-Royce and M tum Citroen. But the hittle known Mazda company in Japan gave it a go. After literally thousands of substances were tried, including horsehair, they got the rotor to seat at the apexes for an acceptably long period. Then on May 30, 1967, Mazda launched rhe world's first twin-rotor engined car, the Mazda Cosmo Sport. Today, four decades on, the company is celebraring the 4Oth anrtiversary of the Mazda rotary engine. In the years between, Mazda has produced nearly two million vehicles powered by the rotary engine. The first vehicle Mazda sold in North America was the 1970 R100, powered by the rotary engine. It was followed by the RX-2, RX-3, RX-4 and R.X-5 Cosmo. The 1970s even saw > . Mazda instaîl the rotary engine in its Rotary Pickup truck. Wen Mazda launched the now-legendary RX-7 in 1979, it really shook up the sports-car establishment and set sales records neyer before seen with sports cars. 4ltf And when the company launched the innovative four- door sports car RX-8 in 2003, the rotary engine saw a dra- matuc update with the introduction of side porting; resutting in grearly reduced exhaust emissions and improved perform- ance. is Mazda's rotary engine bas been overwhelmingly success- fut in motorsports, roo, powering the company's cars te, over nn'*d 100 professionat sports car racing wins in the U.S. atone and 48. l enahling an overaîl win at the 1991 runming of the famed 24- 660 Ian. Hours of Le Mans. Mazda was the flrst, and is still the only, lèmf Japanese car company to, ever win this grueling endurance aiaM :u race. In fact, the rotary was so good, it was banned. AThe 2009 Mazda RX-8 marks 40 years of the rotary and the R3 modet is equipped to, the point that there are no options available, but it does have more than a dozen extras neyer before offered on a RX-8. Power is a twin-chamber rotary with the equivalent of 1.3-litres disptacement. The R3 version is stightly more pow- erfut at 238 hp and 159 lb/ft of torque on premium fuel. Fuel consumption is tisted at 12.8/9.2L/100 km ciry/highway MU There is only one transmission, a six-speed manuat denived fromt the one used in the MX-5 Miata.. Mm The new RX-8 R3 also features variable red-zone technot- J ogy which limits revs at a cold start to protect the engine and 1) allows fult use of the cars uniquety broad 9,OOOrpm rev-band when it is futty warmed. Much work on the chassis sees the R3 with a perfect 50:50 front to rear weight distribution that greatty increases the agility of the car. Front suspension is double wishbones wath a multi-link independent systemt at the rear. Bilstein supplies shocks tailored te, the handlirtg characteristics of the R3. With a redtine way up to, 9,000 rpmt and the free-spinning nature of the rotary getting to the rev limiter is swîft, accom- panied by a tenor beltow under fuîlthOrottle. Think of the rotary more like a turbine than an intrmat combustion engine. Acceleration is a matter of using the higber revs and leamning ro, use Oie gears to get the most of the 159 lb/ft of torque. If you push it, youlIl find up and downshifts can be timed to the engine note, not the revs, because Oie rotary is 50 -see TAKING on page C7