This looks like fresh news as it's dated 11/24/04 yet! :) Hfalex (of astraracing?)posted some news in the Competetion (racing) section.

These folks seem to be doing something big over there... if you look at www.astraracing.com, read about the Mazda RX-8 Sport Cup racing going on, click on the link on the left "First Roars from supercharged RX-8 from Astra" check out the engine bay! W:eek:W!

There are a ton on pics in their site of the RX-8 racing team and their recent racing - check them out on the top main menu choose 'LIVE", "Realtime E-Gallery", "Mazda Gallery" you'll find lots of juicy pics dated yesterday 11/24!

Their site says "Astra Racing works in partnership with Mazda to organize and manage the Mazda RX-8 Sport Cup. This partnerships has grown strong in 5 years of Mazda MX-5 Sportcup and will now florish with this all new championship."

Let's wish these guys continued success, and hope they get their line of performance/suspension parts for us all. I just can't NOT show that beautiful engine bay on more time from their site.....

I found a couple threads by hfalex, he is part of astraracing(?) this dated 4/27/04 with some good info and saying they will be marketing performace kits for us soon, but that was last April.

Also these parts potentially sound the kind that dreams are made of, for example, if they market what they are using - Fully adjustable (height, caster, low and hi-speed bump and rebound) dampers. Double spring (helper and main spring) and uniball. Sway bar also adjustable (hard, medium or soft position). Made by us (Astra team).

http://www.rx8club.com/showthread.php?t=26820&highlight=astraracing

second thread yesterday by hfales where I 1st saw this and got excited

http://www.rx8club.com/showthread.php?t=45787&highlight=astra

Come on hfales, tell us more, I'm sure everyone is cheering for astraracing success!

Looks like its an Italian company, also looks liek a roots supercharger,

Right, right. And a blow through. Dumb way to do it. It is always making pressure against the T/B when you are in cruise. Thereby taking power and making heat.

400 degrees fahrenheit without it even pressurizing? Nah thats not heat :D We don't need no stinking intercoolers with intake temps 5 times above ambient without even seeing positive pressure :D

Supercharger by stealth . NOT :p

Hopefully Hymee and Dr phil , find a more suitable hidding place for the Australian Twin Screw supercharger it should be placed Downunder ;)

cheers
michael

It's also a nonintercooled roots supercharger! They should get a few psi before it dotonates. I wonder if that supercharger will suck that dryer duct apart?

Give them props for trying..... but I don't know about the lack of intercooler......

Ciao evreybody.
As all of you noticed we're still working on that car (a competition car for hillclimbs). In that moment we were only testing the "volumex" unit belt allignment.
Next week we'll finish the first test, with a air/air IC and better looking pipes ;).
The engine will develp about 350hp@7800rpm and 29kgm of torque#lower revs regime with 98 fuel.
Now, the main limit is the originally derived gearbox (syncrhonized) so probably we'll choose a lower power set-up. ASA a dogbox will'be ready (Hewland 6 gears+R?) we'll be able to let the car race with full power.
The base racing car weight now is 1130Kg with 30Kg of fuel, final drive is 41/8, but we'll improve both.
:)

A Hewland gearbox? How much money are you spending on this car?

Every base racing rx8 costs about 70000€. The Volumex version...is still under work, so now i don't know... but more or less the final cost (not price) will be about 95000€.
A cheap (ehmmmm ) racing car if you think that a base Mitsu Evo 8.5 grp.N costs about 130000€ and it's the cheaper.
Ciao
Alex

Ouch. Hope everythings works out in the end.

Me to ;)

Right, right. And a blow through. Dumb way to do it. It is always making pressure against the T/B when you are in cruise. Thereby taking power and making heat.

Are you saying this for this set-up or all kits that are before the throttle-body?

Most roots/twin-screw have a bypass valve so that you aren't pressurizing when cruising. I don't understand your coment.

-Mr. Wigggles

Since I'm the one who started in on these guys I should be the first to cut them some slack. It's a long hard road developing a race car into a competative and reliable unit. They are braking new ground everywhere. They can't buy parts in a bubble pac. Carry on Italia.

Mr Wiggles, We all know that if it makes heat it took work. So blowing into a blank space causes the build up of pressure for which you paid the price to produce. Now I do not know how those blow off valves work. If they take pressure to operate then they use power. If they are open all the time based on demand and manifold pressure they might save some, but they are still spinning the rotor in standard air.

On the other hand if it were after the TB then it would be operating in a partial vacuume. The amount of vacuume would be related to the amount of power required.

The positive displacment blowers have the advantage/disadvantage of being Pumps. So the amount of air is exactly related to the speed of the rotors. Minus leakage etc. So if it is going X rpm it is doing the same work as it would be if you had full throtle. Dumping the air is a must or your forcing all the air back through the clearances. I don't think the relif valve will bring the air back the equal. Therefore you pay the tax.

I hope I made this clear, I have trouble doing that usually. If I failed let me know and I will try again.

This is the most important application of the "r18 volumex" unit we are using now on the 8.

http://www.hfalex.it/S42.jpg
1.759 liters engine, 4 cyl., about 600hp.


We have good experience on this engine and we hope to use a similar system on the 8 before summer 2005.

Unfortunately most depends also on the budget and interest of competing and winning the European hillclimb championship.

In the meanwhile we're working... ;)

Is that supercharged AND turbocharged?

to make 600 hp on a 13B you're gonna have to build it like a motherf*cker to keep it in one piece.

Is that supercharged AND turbocharged?

Yes.

Yes.

All hail hfalex... :D if you can do that to our rotary... you are a god! ;)

This is the most important application of the "r18 volumex" unit we are using now on the 8.

http://www.hfalex.it/S42.jpg
1.759 liters engine, 4 cyl., about 600hp.


Am I misunderstanding this...or are you not even using a rotary engine in the 8?

Am I misunderstanding this...or are you not even using a rotary engine in the 8?

I believe what is meant is that they have experience with this super/turbo charger combo on this regular piston engine. It produces 600HP from 1.8 litres.

They will take that knowledge and work at doing the same technology to the rotary in the eight.

Mummm... let me see.. if we can get the same % increase but based on our engine size.. ummm that's about 432HP :D That's not necessarily reality, but it's a nice thought! :D

Don't get carried away with your dreams guys, this is pure racecar it has nothing to do with your car. It's like comparing a Piper to an F-16. A Piper Saritoga might be nice to have but can it compare to the F-16. But then you can't take your family to Vegas in it. Or you might say a Rolex to a Patek Phillippe. A Rolex can keep time but it will never be the art that is the Patek Phillippe.

Nothing on that engine is going to work on the street. Did you notice that it is about 800 lbs lighter then yours? It's kind of like NASCAR You think those Torus out there are front wheel drive V-6 four doors?? Race cars are different things.

Both of them are right.
About std racing 8s: our cars have been prepared under the grp.N FIA regulation ( www.fia.com) , so it means that chassis can be reinforced (i.e. you must fit a roll-cage), but engine has to be original. You can modifiy Ecu mapping, sw and hw but not the wiring loom and the new ecu has to be plug 'n drive, exhaust system, and so on...but you have to preserve the kat functionality and pollution results.....and so on.

With this restrictions the engine develops on the dyno about 263hp (260 the worst and 265 the best at the end of season...after about 2000Km of racing use), rev limiter is still at 9500rpm.

So, even if at the beginning of the development we were quit worried about the 8s engine reliability, now we are very satisfied. Just to know, the cheap Mitsu Evo8 needs the engine to be rebuilded after about 1100-1300Km of racing use.

On the other side we had big problems with the clutch disk at the very first beginning (now has been replaced by a modified 6 single-spring disk my2004 or a sintherized no-spring disk my2005). During the season we has been obliged to fix problems also with the wiring loom (becoming mad with high temperatures), and with the gearbox (fixed with new forks and with induction treatment of all the gears, forks, synchro).

Now the car is really reliable. During the last 10 days we did about 1000Km of test on circuit...just only refueling. :o

Hfalex, regarding our engine discussion so far please just to clarify....

1) You are preparing (at least) TWO entirely different engine setups I think. 1st - CURRENT "std racing 8s" engine is the grp.N FIA regulation mod engine of ~263hp, and 2nd - the OTHER is the "r18 volumex" combo supercharger / turbocarger engine you hope to develop by next year with 350hp@7800rpm and 29kgm of torque on 98 fuel?

2) When you say a "PLUG'N DRIVE" ECU... does that mean you redid the WHOLE ECU, not a piggy-back to revise the mappings, etc? But even after doing this you maintain Euro emissions standards? And you COULD SWAP IN/OUT this modified ECU without wiring loom or other changes to a stock car (if someone wanted to for track use:D) ?

3) When you say ~263hp on the dyno, do you mean at the rear wheels 263hp, a healthy ~80hp gain over the ~180hp stock? OR did you run the engine on a dyno out of the car to get that number?

4) On the "std- racing 8s" mods can include "Ecu mapping, sw and hw". What other engine sw and hw did you modify, if any?

5) I found what I believe are your rules here http://www.fia.com/resources/documents/1208076023__AppJ_2004_Art_254.pdf. Is this correct? Fairly stock cars you guys run, at least mechanically speaking. Sounds like a lot of fun competition :)

Thank you.

Yesterday we tested it for the first time on the tarmac... we burned a brand new clutch after 2 hard starts-runs... maybe 363hp is too much for it... ;)

263 hp to the wheels?

363 @ the crank...as usual for ec95/1 and all the other (std, din, sae, etc...)

[QUOTE=Spin9k]Hfalex, regarding our engine discussion so far please just to clarify....

1) You are preparing (at least) TWO entirely different engine setups I think. 1st - CURRENT "std racing 8s" engine is the grp.N FIA regulation mod engine of ~263hp, and 2nd - the OTHER is the "r18 volumex" combo supercharger / turbocarger engine you hope to develop by next year with 350hp@7800rpm and 29kgm of torque on 98 fuel?


Yes, correct. The grp.N FIA is the model which competed in the 2004 italian championship. We fitted this specs engine also under 3 street legal cars.

The supercharged engine will, probably, compete in the European Hillclimb Championship in 2005. It has NOW, with only the supercharger, about 365hp. With the Turbocharger combo we hope to hit the 480hp with 102 fuel.



2) When you say a "PLUG'N DRIVE" ECU... does that mean you redid the WHOLE ECU, not a piggy-back to revise the mappings, etc? But even after doing this you maintain Euro emissions standards? And you COULD SWAP IN/OUT this modified ECU without wiring loom or other changes to a stock car (if someone wanted to for track use:D) ?


Correct, again. A " plug 'n drive" Ecu is an Ecu which complies also FIA grp.N regulation. We mantain the emission standards on ALL the 20 8s we have competing (NOT on the Supecharged version now...). You don't need to modify your wiring loom at all, but it needs to work with the racing exhaust we're using now (complies 93db emissions).



3) When you say ~263hp on the dyno, do you mean at the rear wheels 263hp, a healthy ~80hp gain over the ~180hp stock? OR did you run the engine on a dyno out of the car to get that number?


When i speak about power and dyno i always speak at the crank, as SAE, DGM, DIN etc... says. The gain so is only 33hp (more if you thinkk that we never saw 231 hp EC95 but the best was 221hp, most 218hp...)


4) On the "std- racing 8s" mods can include "Ecu mapping, sw and hw". What other engine sw and hw did you modify, if any?


Astra is a "rally 'n racing" company which only sometimes builds or tunes street cars.
By the way Astra work since 1988 (i presume) in the World Rally Chmpionship with Lancia, then with Seat and last with Ford in the JuniorWRC.
If you like WRC you'll be pleased to know that we had pilots like Tommy Makinen, Gardemeister, Fiorio etc...
In circuit with Maserati and now Mazda (since 99 MX5 and since Astra is the Official Mazda Italy racing dpt since Feb. 2004).
Maybe you remember also the 500hp Lancia Delta wich won the PPO class at the 2000 Pikes Peak (or 2001???). It stands in fornt of my office ;) .




5) I found what I believe are your rules here http://www.fia.com/resources/documents/1208076023__AppJ_2004_Art_254.pdf. Is this correct? Fairly stock cars you guys run, at least mechanically speaking. Sounds like a lot of fun competition :)

Correct (again...) :)
Thank you.