Well mixed is all I have to say. Mostly highway with about 8 to 10 stoplight starts.

Pro:
1. Holy crap this thing gets to redline fast!! Especially in 1st gear. I almost crashed into the car in front of me because I was unprepared the first time.
2. Definitely a kick in power near 5000 rpm
3. The exhaust sound changes after 4000 rpm. It kinda whines after that point. I like it. It sounds unique (some people may put this as a negative.)

Con:
1. Idle is rougher. I use to have rough idle until they changed out my plugs to colder ones and the M flash. After those changes, my idles were smooth. Now it sounds like it's about to die.

2. Maybe it as bad shifting but I thought it might have hestitated from 2000 to 3500 rpm. It only happened a couple of times. Other times it was smooth acceleration from idle to 7000 rpm. (Haven't tried to 9000 yet.)


I don't know if I'll keep it in, especially if the rough idle is an indication of burnt (or burning) coils. If the idle thing is fixed, it's defintely a keeper. No doubt this thing makes my rotary strong.

I have to say the 30 minutes I spend driving my 8 with the CZ on the highway made really wish we had the 280 hp Renesis. There was not stops so no idle issue and I kept the rpm's above 4000 so there was a lot fun to be had.

Anyone else from GB#2 installed theirs yet?

One last thought. I am really itching to keep this in the car if the rough idle is solved (or if there are no burnt coils) and install a MS lightweight flywheel.

I think that will be one heck of a ride!!! :D

Update

Drive it at night because more room to test things out.

Power is defintely there after 5000rpm. There is a huge difference. However the idle is much rougher than before and there seems to be no power from 2000 to 3500 rpm in 2nd or 3rd gear. Doesn't seems to be a problem in 1st. When I step on the gas pedal the car doesn't seem to accelerate in that range (2K to 3.5K rpm)

I thought CZ only changed the timing and a/f ratio after 5000 rpm? Did he do anything before that point?

I haven't installed mine yet, but started looking around for both the instructions for installation, but if there has been any mention of the coil issue. I found this thread (http://www.rx8club.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=31802), and have sent a PM to Omicron asking for an update, preferably to the thread.
-Doc

I saw Jeff's (MazdaManiac) suggestion to replace the coils with MSD DIS coils and use MSD or AEM ignition controllers. Seems like a good idea. Any idea if this will fix our problems with loss of power below 4000 and rough idle or does it fix only guarantee no burnt coils?

Wow this BLOWS! Idles fine... but when you step on the pedal... there's nothing. Its like half power. Just to verify that I am not insane, I had my wife flip the switch and not tell me if it was on or off. Man turn it on and it's like I left a rotor somewhere. Sounds fine.... idles fine, but nodda.

I am going to go download the map and see what the hell he is doing.

BRB.

Slavearm

Are you going to go with this setup in the future Maniac? I had heard you mention this before.

I am hoping I am wrong, (I did this at about midnight following about 4 hours of sleep) but it appears that the output voltage might be low going to the coils. Can someone confirm this? If this is the case, I am thinking it might have something to do with the Coil Pack Fix. Anyways... driving with it in the off position for now.

Slavearm

It would be good to get data plots from Canscan and compare the idle and acceleration diagrams between CZ on and CZ off.

Weekend, Here I come! :D

It would be good to get data plots from Canscan and compare the idle and acceleration diagrams between CZ on and CZ off.
Been there, done that. Sent to Maurice and hopefully he'll have an answer for me tomorrow.
________
DEPAKOTE LAWSUITS (http://www.classactionsettlements.org/lawsuit/depakote/)

I spent the day with Speed Racer installing my CZ unit from GB #2. Verdict....definitely need to tune it. Below 5k very sluggish, surge from 5k to redline. Also got some really bad pinging in the low RPMS. Most likely my MAFS voltage is on the high end and I need to add more fuel at low RPMs. This definitely will take time as we spend about 6 hours on it today. On one of my first runs with the CZ on my A/F ratio was something like 9:1. Funny thing, we took Speed Racer's CZ unit (one of the first ones) and plopped it in my 8 and just ran it, worked awesome, great power.

I originaly got my stage 1 unit from canzoomer in march of 2004 it worked just great. then my car was "M" by the dealer. 2 week ago I sent my unit back to Canzoom for the upgrade. When I got it back I had no power from 2000 up to 3500 rpm. from 4000 rpm and above the car would just run fine. I called Canzoomer office about my problem he told somethings to do on the lower rpm range MAF data only. I used the software and cables that I bought from him earlier along with my laptop and I tweaked the low rpm column only.now my car is driving great with no loss of power in the lower range and the surge of power at the 4krange and above. I had to adjust the lower range rpm on my car about 7 times until it worked . I WOULD LIKE TO SAY THAT IF YOU CAN CALL MAURICE DO SO BECAUSE HE WILL HELP YOU. I'M NO MECHANIC AND I HAVE LITTLE KNOWLEDGE ON CAR MATTERS 'BUT I TRIED WHAT HE TOLD ME AND IT WORKED FOR MY CAR. GET SOFTWARE AND CABLE AND YOU CAN TUNE YOUR CAR ALSO. I'M just trying to help anyone with this really nice car.

Remember folks, the '8 has a "learning" ECU. Takes a few hundred miles for your car to adapt to the CanZoomer unit... so, I'd suggest you wait a bit before you start tuning.

*** MOD EDIT ***

If you're wanting to sell your unit, please post a thread in the Parts for Sale forum. Thanks.

I am having the same issues as everyone else. Sluggish in the 1000-4000 RPMs then it kicks in. The idle is very rough. I cant tell if the car is any faster. Its hard to tell cause the car hesitates in the low RPMs then surges. It kind of gives the illusion that it feels faster, but Im not sure it is.

I will give it some more time to "learn" what it needs to, then I guess Ill buy the cables to tune it and give that a try. Im going to find some time to dyno my car here in the next few weeks.

I'm having the same issues in the lower rpms. ..there's just nothing there..
..guess I should have ordered the programming cable. ;(

I was just doing some more testing driving around and WOW there is NOOOO power in the low RPMs(1k-4k) in 2nd or 3rd gear. Let the RPMs drop to 1k in 2nd and in 3rd, I had the pedal to the floor and the car just sputtered along until 4k or so. Thats awful. Im really debating on whether to try and buy the cables and try to tune it or just get a refund. hmmm....

Would any of you from GB#2 be willing to take the unit apart and post some pictures about the ignition controll circuit (small separated board)? This might help others wanting to do the upgrade themselfs ...

call me a newbie.. but what's GB#2?

Ah, thanks Hskr8, much appreciated information. Just trying to stay on top of things with this thread since I'm waiting on my CZ stage 1 to be built and shipped.

I second the request for the Pictures of the new board..........have the old pictures from the first Cap mod to compare them with

RPIRX-8 has pictures of his new CZ and my old one.

Give me a couple hours, I will post them on my site and put the link up here.

Hope the pictures will help to find what the latest changes are...

PRPIRX-8 would you please post pictures of the soldering and the component side of the ignition board, just in order to be able to understand what the latest circuit is.

Might be interesting to check out the possibility to disable the ignition control as a whole in the unit ...

Ok, pics are up here (http://www.justindotcom.com/CZ%20Unit%20Pics/Forms/AllItems.aspx). Pics are named appropriately.

On Sat night I made the decision to keep the unit on and try to let the ECU learn out the pinging that was occurring. Today I turned it off cause the pinging got worse over time. I also took the maps from Speed Racer's unit and compared them against the maps from my newer unit, drastic difference. When I was testing things during the day sat with Speed Racer we put his unit in my car and it worked perfectly. So my next move (as soon as I get that USB cable) is to:

1. download Speed Racer's maps to my unit
2. Pull the neg batt terminal for a bit
3. Reconnect the neg batt terminal

Hopefully this should work. What I'm worried about is if this new ignition circuit will make even Speed Racer's maps act differently coming from my unit versus his.

Pretty bad. Very sluggish all around and bad pinging at WOT.

rpirx if you're getting pinging you are too lean and need to add some fuel back in.

yah that seems to be the issue. just waiting on the cable so i can play w/it. Heh, but I was getting some pretty sweet gas mileage with the pinging!! :-)

:)

whats the fastest way to get that cable to plug into the CZ and my laptop? I know the person in Taiwan who makes them said fastest he can get it to me is 2 days.

In order to see the ignition circuit....we need a picture like the first one posted with the wires moved out of the way as much as possible. Can't see much. The old CZ is the much older unit with the seperate switch and the dip switches. Have a look at the picture from the last update

I'm hoping this new ignition circuit doesn't cause the old maps to act differently on the new unit.

Well, met up with DJFishstix tonight to try out some more tuning on the unit. Came to find out that at 7000rpm my Air Flow Voltage input is 2.99V. This is apparently extremely lean as DJFishstix was running somewhere near 3.6V at 7000rpm. I see lots of tuning in my future :-)

Rpirx-8 did you have a chance to take any new pics of the ignition circuit...or can you compare yours to the pic I posted if you can see any differences

sorry danobre, I will try and do that by monday.

Well, met up with DJFishstix tonight to try out some more tuning on the unit. Came to find out that at 7000rpm my Air Flow Voltage input is 2.99V. This is apparently extremely lean as DJFishstix was running somewhere near 3.6V at 7000rpm. I see lots of tuning in my future :-)

wo there hold on. you mean thsoe are the voltages going our from the cz right? your 2.99v is out from teh cz. what is/was the mafs volts going to the cz? it sounds like fishstix stock voltage would be around 3.8-3.85, entirely normal. but yours is waaaaaayyyyyy off!

exactly what i was thinking. I am thinking this why i am getting ridiculous pinging pretty much all through the revs and throttle positions. Looking back at my runs stock, I only really need to lean out the mixture above 5k. Below that I am running between 14.58 and 13.96 AFR. So i'm wanting to know if there is a way to set the CZ unit to just not change anything below 5k. Zeroing out the tables there doesn't seem to work.

It really depends on the throttle position.... because at anything less than 60% (someone correct me here) the system is in closed loop mode and is constantly tuning for 14.1:1. I am not certain if it is like that for the rest of the low end rpms as well and not just throttle.

Slavearm

yep the pinging is most likely caused by your too (way too) lean afr.

For those in GB#2 and who are experiencing rough idle and power loss below 5K there is a new fix for this. See this thread: http://www.rx8club.com/showthread.php?t=39064&page=1&pp=15

I didn't have wire cutters that would fit, so I used a pair of needle nose pliers and gently worked the capacitors lose. Fixed the idle and power loss problem for me.

Pics of what to do are at bottom of page 1

Hskr8, glad to hear that you problems were solved with this fix. I assume that you are a happy camper with this mod now? Did you do any tweaking to the CZ fuel map?

I will do my fix tonight.