Single Chamber

The basic rotary engine has two combustion chambers divided by a bilaterally symmetrical vane. If we use a vane that only extends in one direction from it's pivot point, we could have an engine with only one combustion chamber. A single chamber rotary engine would vibrate a lot if it were operated by itself, but if there were two of them rotating in opposite directions and connected rigidly, the vibration would be minimized.

This combustion chamber could start from a rest in most positions by injecting some fuel and the firing the spark plug. That would work if the vane was anywhere except over the exhaust port, butterfly valve, fuel injector, or spark plug. If we had two of these combustion chambers connected so they were 180 degrees out of phase, the engine could be started from any position without a conventional electro-mechanical starter.

Putting these two concepts together brings us to the round8 engine. It has a single rotating valve plate with four slots and eight single chamber combustion elements.

In addition to being able to auto-start, the round8 engine, has a better power to space ratio than the original rotary engine because the 8 cylinders all use the same rotating valve plate, and the engine geometry allows for fairly efficient packing of the combustion chambers.