Just wondering what times anyone has run at the big track at Mosport with their RX-8? Let me know what suspention mods if any you have done also.

Thanks
Joe

The Grand-Am ST class RX8's are qualified at 1.34.505. I believe when Speedsource was running the cars a few years ago they ran in the 1.33 range but I'm not 100% sure. Those are actual times done by transponder, I know there have been stop watches that have gone much faster (lol). I cant see a stock RX8 running any faster than 1.44 or so, maybe with a pro driver they might.

What have the ST cars have done to them? Just made them lighter with wicked expensive coilovers?

I went out last year to a trackday and with the help of an instructor managed to get my lap times down to 1:49 ish. Going out again to the same race school on Sept 11th, hope to improve the time around the track.

The Grand-Am ST cars are full tilt race cars a lot more than just suspensions mods. The engines internally I believe are stock but thats about it.

A 1.49 at Mosport in your stock RX8 is nothing to be ashamed of! Some of the guys we race with arent going that fast! We have run a best lap of 1.37.210 at Mosport and hope to go faster this weekend. With our new transmission and bigger tires I hope to get under 1.36, that would make me a happy guy!

1.49....not bad at all. Cool!

Anyone else run their car at Mosport?

A stock 944 (160hp and exact same weight as the RX-8) can do about 1:48 (1:45 when driven by pros) on slick.

A 944 turbo with 220hp and 250lb/ft torque can do 1:40.

The RX-8 probably lies somewhere between the two.

Would be nice when someone start to run a RX-8 at the regionals. When are you guys going to build a RX-8 for CASC?

When we have money? 'Cause it takes at least 70k to build a rx8 race car :(

Mazda Canada gave the Mazdaspeed Rx8 race car to some other dealership who dont race....oh well.

$90,000 to be exact....

Wow $90,000 is still a cheap race car from the ground up if your using all the best parts..........Who is your driver going to be........................lol

Jesus how much of that $90k is the beer budget? Just buy a $15k RX-8, add a cage and go racing. You should be able to get out the door for under $35k unless you're tricking the car out with Moton shocks from the get go.

I know I couldn't believe how cheap the bill came out to when we totalled everything up. $90,000 cheap lol.

But I was expecting well over $120,000.

BTW, we aren't building this car for ourselves, we had some interest expressed to us from some race teams. Nothings set in stone yet, that's our quote. We'll see if anyone is actually serious about it.

Jesus how much of that $90k is the beer budget? Just buy a $15k RX-8, add a cage and go racing. You should be able to get out the door for under $35k unless you're tricking the car out with Moton shocks from the get go. This isn't some big budget fantasy Speed World Challenge team.

Jesus how much of that $90k is the beer budget? Just buy a $15k RX-8, add a cage and go racing. You should be able to get out the door for under $35k unless you're tricking the car out with Moton shocks from the get go.

Ummm yeah, Moton coilovers, G-Force gearbox, a very expensive engine, Motec ECU, AIM dash, fully caged...ect ect the list goes on and on.....

If you guys think all you do is add a cage and go racing, come look at our race car. We have over $3000.00 in steel braided lines and fittings. You would be amazed at how fast all the special nuts, bolts and fasteners add up, not to mention the cost of aluminum and steel for panels etc. It is much cheaper to buy a car some other idiot spent all the money on, then you buy it for 1/4 of the price. The cost of a P.Port is about $15,000 from scratch.

What they said above. I have probably $15K (or more, I stopped counting when it started to scare me) tied up in my little FC small region club racing car, and I bought a chassis that was already caged, and shopped for deals on every single part. It all adds up at a crazy rate. That's just building it up.. running it is that much all over again.
Of course, it would probably help if I wasn't on my fourth transmission of the season, but still...

Yes the sky is the limit when it comes to racing, but you don't necessarily have to build your own Darth Viper to participate at the regional level. I'd put running cost and driver development (aka don't ball up your car) ahead of technical car development in the grand scheme of things.

Mind you my involvement with racing has always been on the low budget side of things, so we have no illusion of winning races and are really there to dry-hump the AMB timing system, race against other ghetto racers, and hopefully stay out of the wall.

My head hurts when I see some of those Castrol touring cars. Custom fab everything, Moton shocks, huge trailers, RV homes. That is one hell of an expensive hobby with zero ROI.

climacus: I'm with you. I just hang out at the back of the field and try to do things on the budget side of things, get seat time and not wreck my car. My car is probably one of the more capable cars locally, but, I've committed the biggest sin of club racing. I've now got too much money wrapped up in my race car to push the thing. This is my hobby, and I'm doing it out of my own pocket, so I can fully understand where you are coming from. But, it still got really expensive really fast, and building a front-running RX8 for $90K sounds pretty reasonable to me.

Guys I race the exact same way as you do! I have a budget so tight it squeaks. But the reality of racing is that if you have to buy a decent car to start with, and spend on everything you need to get going, 14-15K just isnt realistic. I went in with that approach 4 years ago when someone gave me a FC shell. When I added how much it would cost just to put a proper cage $3000.00, buy belts, gauges, seat, fire system etc it was easy to hit 12-15K right there! Even with the "turn-key" car i bought (it wasnt even close to turn key, but thats a whole other issue) I still have spent well over 25K of my own money, and thank god for my sponsors or god knows how much it would have cost!

btw, any potential spoonsors out there??? lol

Al, I'll take any of those sponsors that you don't take. I'll put whatever somebody wants on the side of my car. One local guy a few years ago had a Revlon sponsorship, and his Formula Ford ended up a reddish-pink (as was his fire suit) with a giant lipstick kiss on it.

I tried to stop tracking how much of my own money has gone out as it makes me ill. I certainly appreciate all of my sponsors as well. All were "in kind" types of deals (ie discounts on parts and labour) but it makes a HUGE difference. I wouldn't have anything like the motor I do without Joe and Dan at RPM helping me out, for example.

No real sponsorship leads for you, however, if you, or anybody out there needs custom gauges and electronics, a friend of mine is using my car to prototype on and is always looking for more.
He's starting to make his name for taking on the custom, small projects that the Stacks of the world won't do. He's done work for some Bonneville speed record bikes, Robby Gordon's Baja Truck etc. (Very smart guy. Has a dual degree in Computer and Electrical engineering, had a job offer from Lotus and used to work for Intel.)
If you are going to be racing with it, will give him some engineering feedback and let him use your info, I'm sure he'd be interested in talking to you.

http://www.xdesignlabs.com/main/

The one he's working on now (and I'm hoping to get on my car soon) is a GPS based Speedo that will do lap and interval times, and can eventually the plan will be to link into the gauges he built for me (Tach, Oil Pres. Oil Temp, Water Temp, Voltage, Fuel Pressure, Dual O2 and Dual A/F) and logged on to a GPS map. Basically, think a race-specific VBOX, and you are on the right track.

Ran 1:45.05 last Saturday.
Stock springs with Tokico D-spec shocks, Mazdaspeed swaybars and Hankook R-compunds.
Still have lots of room for improvement left!!

Nice! Next time plz mount a camera and record the run so we can enjoy it :)

I did low to mid 1:40s last year with full interior and audio system... Mazdaspeed coilovers and RA1s...

Grand-Am ST RX8 used moton suspensions..