This Turbocharged Five-Rotor Sounds Like an F1 V-10

David Mazzei has spent the last several years building a Superlite SL-C—a race- and street-legal component-car monster—powered by a custom-built, five-rotor peripheral-port engine fed by a massive Garrett G57 turbo. Mazzei recently posted a video to his YouTube channel explaining some of the history of the build, followed by the first drive of the mid-engine monster. You’ve got to hear it to believe it.

Mazzei has plenty of rotary engine experience and has built an impressive FD RX-7 powered by a custom four-rotor. That said, this five-rotor engine is another beast entirely, and it looks like it has tremendous power potential, especially considering the huge turbo. Even though this is just an easy shakedown run, the results are encouraging, and the fabrication and engineering work on the build are inspiring.

There’s no denying that the five-rotor engine sounds amazing, but how does it stack up against the V-10 F-1 sound of the ’90s and early 2000s? Those 3.0-liter Formula 1 V-10s revved beyond 16,000rpm and didn’t have much in the way of mufflers. Mazzei’s five-rotor Wankel engine makes up for its lack of pistons by firing much more quickly, and while it does have two small bullet mufflers in the short exhaust, it seems the turbocharger is doing the lion’s share in quieting the engine. Despite having just five rotors and revving to “only” 9,000 rpm Mazzei’s custom engine does a great job mimicking classic F1 V-10s. Some people, Mazzei included, like to compare a rotary engine to a two-stroke piston gasoline engine because its unique construction has it complete one power cycle per rotor per rotation of its eccentric shaft. So, even at half the engine speed, this five-rotor is delivering similar frequency to a V-10 four-stroke turning 18,000 rpm.

We love to see hard work pay off and bring such an ambitious project to fruition. This car looks like it has tremendous potential, so we’re looking forward to updates from the Mazzei Formula channel.