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Its been a while since ive checked in on this thread but it looks incredible Steve! Just out of curiosity how has your transmission lasted so long?! Pounding through gears like that with the amount of track time that car has had, with what appears to be a stock transmission minus the clutch is incredible. I am losing second gear and need to figure out what path to take in terms of replacing, rebuilding, or changing to a S2 trans with reliability.
stoked to hear your making progress with the car & kinda glad to see that it hasn't sold, its a great car as results are showing!.. cant wait to see your engine internal pics & hear the PP on the next videos!!!
Its been a while since ive checked in on this thread but it looks incredible Steve! Just out of curiosity how has your transmission lasted so long?! Pounding through gears like that with the amount of track time that car has had, with what appears to be a stock transmission minus the clutch is incredible. I am losing second gear and need to figure out what path to take in terms of replacing, rebuilding, or changing to a S2 trans with reliability.
The transmission is bone stock with the exception of the LW flywheel and exedy clutch! Run nothing but Redline MT-90 in it, and don't treat it like a drag car. Remember, the transmission will come out of gear with just a slight lift of the throttle before you push the clutch down, and by the time you depress/release the clutch there will be plenty of time to select the next gear with minimal stress on the transmission & minimal time lost on track.
Obviously shifting fast will yield the fastest lap times from a data standpoint, but our transmission isn't made to be treated like that, and there's always other places to gain back the lost time. If/when this one kicks the bucket I'd either look at a straight-cut setup, or a S2 transmission for sure.
Last edited by ScubaSteve8; 10-29-2014 at 07:37 PM.
Tore the engine down today with Jimmy K. It was in pretty good condition, which was expected really given that it only had 63,000km on it, had premix it's whole life, and has been redlined pretty religiously post break-in. I ordered my ITB setup today which should take approximately 4-6 weeks to arrive from Australia, and will be sending the housings out to be peripheral ported next weekend. Here are a few pics tearing down the RX8 motor, and one of my new engine before the fun starts!
Here is a photo of my new motor before we send it to be peripheral ported!!
I've just been accumulating the parts I need for my engine, and also plugging away at some other minor projects with the car. I plan to build a new wiring harness not just for the engine/stand-alone ECU, but for the entire car. Should be super light-weight, and probably a lot less confusing as well!
Since the last update I've removed the remaining wires from the car to make way for the custom harness, removed the "interior" as I decided I want to extend the roll cage to the front of the vehicle, obtained a huge pile of parts for my engine, smuggled Devcon into Canada (not easy to do), got the materials to make a front splitter, picked up a Haltech PS1000 ecu with dash, and made a gauge cluster plug to mount my IQ3 dash to.
I hope to update with more exciting stuff soon, but for now, that is all!
I'll just be putting fresh fluid in the transmission, and running it for a season or two....or until it breaks...
As for the rear diff, just fresh fluid in that as well, and install delrin mounts. I plan on running aluminum subframe bushings as well.
I got the ball rolling with my rear wing as well this week. Can't decide weather I want to go with laid back solid carbon mounts, or laid back aluminum mounts...thoughts?
Chugging along here with my engine build. Hardened rotors are cleaned up, and Mazdaspeed competition bearings have been pressed in so these bad boys are good to go! The irons have been filled with Devcon, and a few other miscellaneous things are done. I was shipped 5 of 6 carbon apex seals so that is really holding me up at this point...they are back-ordered for 60 days so I'm desperately trying to get 1 so I can assemble the motor with Jimmy K!!
Oil will now be filled from the catch-can, and it can breathe/puke from the old filler!
While I was waiting for the 6th apex seal to arrive, I got to working on the front suspension. Installed delrin upper control arm bushings, as well as the drop engineering spherical lower control arm bushings. This was actually a challenging job, as pressing the old bushings out from both the upper, and lower control arms wasn't easy. Regardless, it fun to be resourceful, and find ways to get the job done without using a press (since you can't use one).
I highly suggest anyone doing this to stick the bushings in the freezer overnight, and heat up the arm holes with a heat gun before trying to insert the bushing into the arm. Be sure to grind the UCA's flat so the delrin bushings can sit flat all the way around, and be sure to bevel the edge on the side you insert the bushing from on the UCA.
I had a ton of fun assembling my new engine today. I can't thank James Kutschke enough for all his help, taking the time to teach me something about this incredibly unique engine. Good people are next to impossible to find, good people with a genuine interest in helping others, who consistently give up their weekends to pass along their wealth of knowledge to a younger generation exist only in Jim. I turned to Jim (like most others I choose do business with) because I trust him, and was blown away by the level of commitment & passion he had for doing things right.
In building this engine I've dealt with some awful companies so far (RX8 Performance, Goopy Performance), some great companies (Mazdatrix, Racing Beat, Pineapple Racing), and some great people (Jimmy K, Will, and Arnold). I can't thank those who have made this process easier enough, and I can't wait to tell my stories of the ****-show it was dealing with RX8 Performance & Goopy Performance...but that will have to wait for another post.
In the end, if I can offer 1 piece of advice to any individual thinking of building a track car to this extent: deal with people & companies you can trust.
I was pretty much over seeing RPF1's on RX8's, and since I was planning on running an 18" setup next year anyway, I figured I'd change it up a bit. I also picked up an MS style front bumper, and was blown away to see it actually fit!! No joke, I trimmed one spot around the driver's side headlight (took all of 5min) and it's perfect. Blew me away, and I'm looking forward to making the front splitter & dive planes!
From my understanding the electric water pump should be controlled by the generic PWM output from the stand-alone. I'm not 100% confident that will be the case, but in all honesty I'm really not at that stage yet
Yep you can do PWM control with most stand alone ECU's. Could try to see if having it on super low will allow it to heat up to temp, but I've always been concerned with localized boiling in the motor if flow isn't sufficient, it's something you won't see on a temp sensor that is say in a radiator hose. With my EWP I'm going to run an inline thermostat housing like this one.
I ran mine without a thermostat for a while....but with the huge radiator and the waterpump output it ran cold all the time. Even beating the crap out of it, water temps would barely get to 190 unless it was 100 on the track
I run the alternator in the stock position, and need the waterpump housing anyway.....I just found the thermostat makes things better in my build
10-28-2014, 11:23 PM
