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Okay, because of the newbies, I've started work on a draft FAQ for the forum. It's not done yet, and there are parts that need filling in. Still here's the first 3/4 or so of it. Comments and such are welcome. Feel free to email updates to patrick.bridges@acm.org.
RX-8 Frequently Asked Questions
This file is an attempt to answer some of the frequently asked
questions encountered at rx8forum.com. Please note that much of the
information in this document is based on speculation and incomplete
information, as Mazda has yet to announce much formal information on
the 2004 Mazda RX-8.
1. Introduction
1a. History
The RX-8 is the result of a number of years of research and
development at Mazda. The original RX-7s, the last production Mazda
rotary car, was a much lauded 2-seat sports car, with the latest
generation based around Mazda's 1.3L Twin-turbo two-rotor rotary
engine called the 13B. The twin-turbo 13B produced approximately 250
horsepower. The RX-7 was withdrawn from the US market in after 1995 at
roughly the same time as the US demise of the Nissan 300ZX and Toyota
Supra because of a crash in demand for sports cars. The RX-7 continued
production in Japan until 2002, when the line was shut down and
converted to production of the RX-8.
In 199X, Mazda debuted a new car, the RX-EVOLV, at the XXX Auto
show. The RX-EVOLV was the direct predecessor to the upcoming RX-8,
featuting a a freestyle door design (rear doors open suicide-style)
and a new version of the rotary engine, the RENESIS. The RENESIS
introduced at this time was a normally aspirated 1.3L two-rotor
normally aspirated engine producing approximately 280HP.
In 200X, Mazda debuted the first pre-production RX-8 at the XXXX Auto
show. This RX-8 was obviously derived from the RX-EVOLV concept, but
had updated styling. The next year, at the XXX Auto show, Mazda
unveiled another RX-8 prototype with minor styling changes. It was
clear then that the Mazda RX-8 was going to produciton.
1b. Vehicle Overview
We know that the RX-8 will have four freestyle doors, and four real
bucket seats, and is a rear-wheel drive design based around Mazda's
Renesis rotary engine. Like Mazda's previous RX-cars, the RX-8 will be
a sporty car and is expected to have excellent handling and good
acceleration. Rumor has it that the RX-8 actually has a stiffer frame
that the original RX-7, which was renowned for its handling. Because
the RX-8 has 4 doors and 4 seats, but is sport oriented,
classification of the car into categories like sports car, sports
sedan, etc. is difficult. Current expectation is that the car will be
about this same size interior and trunk as a BMW 3-series sedan.
The latest specifications on the Renesis have it generating 250 HP
with a very flat torque curve and a high redline. Mazda claims to have
addressed many of previous difficulties with rotary engine designs in
the new Renesis, including improving emissions and gas mileage, and
reducing oil consumption. See the section on specifications for more
details on the engine.
2. What are the specs of the RX-8?
2a. Body-design, Size, and weight
Current specifications have the RX-8 with a wheelbase of XXX inches, X
inches longer than the Mazda 626. Doors are suicide-style, with the
front doors overlapping slightly on top of the rear doors. While the
RX-8 has no B-pillars to impede ingress and egress from the rear of
the car, the front edge of the rear doors is apparently reinforced and
bolts into the bottom and top of the frame when closed to provide
additional structural rigidity and safety in side-impact situations.
The frame itself is built around a center-tunnel design, with a great
deal of reinforcement branching off of a high transmission tunnel that
runs the length of the car. Mazda engineers have been quoted by Road
and Track saying that this design is even stiffer than the RX-7,
despite the lack of a fixed B-pillar. The engine sits low behind the
front axle in the RX-8, providing perfect 50-50 weight distribution.
In terms of weight, there is a lot of speculation as to how much the
car will weight. Mazda has traditionally built lightweight sports cars
(e.g. the RX-7 and Miata), and the RX-8 should be no exception. Almost
all involved expect the RX-8 to come in at less than 3000 pounds. Road
and Track estimated the weight of the test car they drove at 2970
pounds, though additional information that has come out since then
hints that the RX-8 could be even lighter, with some rumors having it
weighing even less than the third-generation RX-7. At worst, that
would have it under 3000 pounds. (The touring editions of the RX-7
weighed in just below 3000 lbs.) At best, that puts it in the 2700
pound range, since the more lighter, more track-oriented versions of
the RX-7 tipped the scales in that range.
2b. Engine
* Overall design
As mentioned above, the RX-8 is based around Mazda's RENESIS rotary
engine, the successor to the 13B rotary Mazda put into the
third-generation RX-7s. Unlike piston engines, rotary engines have
very few moving parts - the rotors and the crankshaft. In the case of
the RX-8's Renesis engine, this means 2 rotors and a crankshaft. When
well taken care of, rotary engines are very reliable. They do not take
kindly to abuse such as low oil or overheating, however, and many of
the stories you hear about unreliable rotaries were from ones that
were abused or from early 3rd generation turbo-charged RX-7s that had
heat problems.
* Improvements over the 13B
The new Renesis engine has new porting layout with side exhaust
ports. The design and placement of these ports improves the
performance of the engine by removing the overlap between the intake
and exhaust phases present in earlier mazda rotary engines. In
addition, this also improves emissions by allowing unburned
hydrocarbons near the walls of the engine to be carried over into the
next combustion cycle.
* Performance
Because of its rotary design, the renesis is a very smooth,
high-revving engine, not a torquey big-block engine. The Renesis
generates an estimated 250 horsepower at 8500 RPM, with a torque peak
of 162 lb-ft coming at about 7500 RPM. Roughly 90% of this torque is
availble at 3000 RPM, however, giving the Renesis a very flat torque
curve and very linear power delivery. An approximate engine
torque/power curve is attached below. (XXX ADD TORQUE CURVE ATTACHMENT
HERE XXX)
2c. Transmission
Current information has the RX-8 coming with a standard 6-speed manual
transmission mated to the 250 HP Renesis desscribed above. Rumor has
it that a 5-speed automatic will also be available, but with a lower
red-line on the engine because of issues with torque converters at
high RPMS. Rumor is that this will resulting in a peak of around 190
horsepower in the automatic. We have consitently been told the the
RX-8 will come with a carbon-fiber driveshaft to reduce the weight of
the car.
2d. Wheels and Brakes
Standard wheels will apparently be 18x8 aluminum rims, probably
carrying 245/55R18 z-rated performance tires. There are hints and spy
pictures showing that 16-inch rims will also be available, probably
for the automatic version of the car. Brakes will be approximately XXX
12 XXX inch ventilated disks in the front and XXX 11 XXX in the rear,
though smaller brakes may very well be used with the 16 inch rims.
3. How well will it perform?
3a. General
Overall we really don't know for sure. The engine has good power
numbers and the car should be light, so we expect performance to be
good. The RX series cars have always emphasized handling over
straight-line performance, so keep this in mind. Cars like the 350Z
and Mustangs *will have* more power and torque, though in heavier cars
and with worse handling. As far as straightline performance, Road and
Track guesstimated "roughly 6 seconds" for the 0-60 times in the
pre-production version that they drove. The production version might
be faster, and R&T didn't have access to a testing setup when they
drove the car. They did say it chirped off the line and felt fast
seat-of-the-pants.
3b. Will it outperform my friend's Foomobile when I pull up next to him
at a stoplight?
A few points here - 1. Because we don't know exact specs on the car, we
can't say. Power/weight ratio is what is really important here, so
while the RX-8 will have less power than the Z and other similar cars,
it also weighs much less. 2. It really depends on the driver in most
cases.
4. When will it be released?
Current guesstimates have the RX-8 being available May/June 2003 as an
early-release 2004 model. It is expected to be unveiled at either the
LA or Detroit auto show in early January. Some sources have the
unveiling at LA, some have info available at LA with the actually car
unveiling at Detroit. Again, we don't know for sure.
5. How much will it cost and what options will be available?
6. Where can I find pictures and articles about the RX-8?
7. What other related cars might Mazda have planned?
RX-8 MPS
RX-7
Rotary Miata
Couple of corrections/filled in blanks:
-Tires are 225/45R18
-Dimensions are 69.7" width, 52.8" height, 174.2" length. Front/rear track is 59.1"/59.5". Note the length is shorter than the 626. Wheelbase is 106.3".
Please review it and give feedback. Once everyone is pretty happy with it, it might be a good idea to put it up as a sticky in the RX-8 discussions group... Maybe that'd cut down on the bozo posting.
May I humbly suggest a few additional things:
-Include a link to a website or two (such as howstuffworks.com) to point people to a basic tuturial on rotary engines.
-change this line to "Cars like the 350Z
and Mustangs *will have* more power and torque, though in heavier cars with argueably worse handling" just to avoid sparking some heated debates with 350Z and Mustang enthusiasts.
No need to give me credit at the bottom though, you did all the work!
Feel free to link to it for now, but I expect that later once we've run through it once or twice more, I expect I'll post it to a thread titled something like RX-8 FAQ: Please Read Before Asking Questions and see if the moderators wants to make it sticky. Then I can just edit that that post whenever we have updates.
As far as the rotaryengineillustrated site, I'll make that change when I get to campus tomorrow. Thanks for the suggestion.
Originally posted by Sputnik Get it to a finished point, then we'll let the admins figure out how they want to integrate it into the forum.
---jps
*Nod* Sounds good to me. It's not there yet - I need to clean some things up and do a proof-reading pass or two. For the record, do you want it as pure html or in forum-post markup style?
Looks excellent so far. You might consider adding a summary section at the end (or linked to another page) to give the known physical numbers such as length, wheelbase, tyre/brake size etc (like most magazines do).
Originally posted by pelucidor Looks excellent so far. You might consider adding a summary section at the end (or linked to another page) to give the known physical numbers such as length, wheelbase, tyre/brake size etc (like most magazines do).
*Nod* Done. A new Draft Available. Please check this one carefully, as I think we're close to done.
-Patrick
*EDIT* Moderator edited only to correct link syntax...
The RX-EVOLV is the direct predecessor to the upcoming RX-8,
featuring a a freestyle
**Delete an "a"**
**Just before 2b, "more lighter" should be changed to "lighter"**
more lighter,
**Delete a "be", just before 6**
or might not be be produced at all, while other colors we
don't know about could be added.
**Grammar - "were supplied" instead of "were been been supplied**
Additional corrections and suggestions were been been supplied by others on the RX-8 forum.
**Reword, possibly something like - US and European models are quite often packaged and priced quite differently.**
Pricing and modeling between the US and Europe is frequently quite different than in the US.
Great work so far. I found a typo on the weight under section 2a:
"Current specifications have the RX-8 with a wheelbase of 106.3", width of 69.7", 58.8" height, "
(should be 52.8" height, )
Another minor thing that doesn't need to be added is a mention of gearing. The weight and the gearing ratios are the 2 most important unknowns in the performance equation.
You have a good mention of weight but none of how the gearing would increase torque coming from the renesis. In section 3a:
heavier cars and ones with arguably worse handling. As far as
straightline performance, Road and Track guesstimated "roughly 6
seconds" for the 0-60 times in the pre-production version that they drove.
could be changed to something like:
heavier cars and ones with arguably worse handling. Because the RX-8 will have an extremely wide powerband and produce its peak torque and hp at high rpms, Mazda can easily increase the effective wheel torque with aggressive gearing. As far as straightline performance, it will mainly depend on the weight that the rx-8 ends up at and the gearing ratios that are chosen by Mazda. Road and Track guesstimated "roughly 6 seconds" for the 0-60 times in the pre-production version that they drove.
Someone PM me when this thread slows down (along with the corrections and additions), and I'll see what we can do about linking it to the e-mail verification letter all now subscribers get, and to the main page.
Decided to go for a WM option so I picked up a Snow Performance kit! I just wrote a bunch of details and then lost the draft so I'll just post my progress as I add everything.
The bracket and pump ready and the wiring and WM line connected and tucked away. I ran the wiring and WM line out a grommet in the trunk and under the car on the fuel line rack up to the engine bay.
Looks pretty clean!
Now for the fun part!
Thank you for reviving a quaint 18 year old thread. I had never seen this one before. So much enthusiasm in 2002
10-04-2002, 02:02 PM
I resisted the urge to call it the Foomobile 10000 Cobra GTRSX Type 9. 
