OfficerFarva

Any1 on this site every do the 20b swap from acostamotorsports?? If so im just curious to know how it went and how it feels compared to the 13b renesis? Thanks.

Audioslave8

20b>13b no comparison dude, didnt they claim 900whp lol compared to the renesis' puny 185whp

Im pretty sure no one on here did the swap beside acosta.... its very expensive

OfficerFarva

sry man, i meant to ask if any1 on this site had personally done the 20b motor swap on their 8, like the acosta motorsports car.

OfficerFarva

its late i cant read worth a crap...lol. Yea im sure it was very pricey, but its awesome! I mean, if ur gonna get the ssr turbo kit thats gonna cost near 10 grand. Im sure u could by a 20b for less than that.

Fanman

They want to charge $60K for the engine swap & a whole bunch of other stuff. Not sure there would be many (if any) takers. You have to realize that it is not just an engine swap, essentially everything would have to be taken out from the engine, to the tranny, to the suspension. The stock 20B "only" makes like 300 hp. The reason they are getting 600-900 hp is they are putting a massive turbo on it. A 20B conversion is nowhere close to $10K. The engine alone is like $5-$6K, then you have to change the mounts, the tranny, the whole electronics. It is easily 2X-3X that.

Sigma

Hahahahahahahahaha.

Um, no.

A full 20b swap with all the additional parts you'd need would run well over $30,000 and you'd likely lose all the creature comforts of the car -- TCS, DCS, maybe even Air Conditioning. Acosta Motorsports charges a minimum of $60,000.

rotarygod

You can buy a 26B (4 rotor) kit from Kiwi-RE for about $6700 U.S. and alot less than this for their 20B kit. What these are, are very finely manufactured pieces to build your own 3 and 4 rotor engines. Their quality exceeds the factory! The 4 rotor kit includes the eccentric shaft, 2 center housings with stationary gears and center bearings, front and rear counterweights. You need to supply a front housing, rear housing, 4 rotor housings, 4 rotors, and a custom oil pan. All of this would set you back an additional $4-6K but could be done cheaper if you had some nice second hand pieces. Basically you can build a 4 rotor engine for $10-$12K. That's pretty good. What is needed to make it all fit into the car is not going to end up costing $20K more. Acosta wants to make alot of profit off of their car. Far more than what it is worth. there is no reason why you hae to lose power steering or air conditioning. Admittedly if you are going to do a 4 rotor, you'll just make it full race ready. For a 3 rotor, you could make it very streetable and comfortable. You can buy a 20B engine for about $2500 and rebuild it for another $1500. You can see how much money Acosta is really trying to get for their system. I'm sure there is custom work involved, but not $30,000 yet alone $60,000. Not even close. Nto saying it is as cheap as a SSR turbo kit. It isn't. It just doesn't have to be as expensive as everyone thinks it does.

Fanman

Here is what they are supposed to do. I wonder if you take out the custom interior & wheels & tire stuff how much less it would cost. $60K is just ridiculous. Does sound like a lot of stuff though.

RX-8 20B CONVERSION

600HP LOW BOOST
900+ HIGH BOOST

INCLUDED IN THE CONVERSION:
⦣8364;? 20B MOTOR (3 ROTOR)
⦣8364;? 20B REBUILD
⦣8364;? 3MM RACING APEX SEAL
⦣8364;? 3MM RACING ROTORS
⦣8364;? RACE PORTS ON ENGINE
⦣8364;? T76 GT-Q TRIM BALLBEARING
⦣8364;? 60MM WASTEGATE
⦣8364;? 321 STAINLESS STEAL TURBO MANIFOLD
⦣8364;? 2 RACING FUEL PUMP
⦣8364;? INTERCOOLER KIT
⦣8364;? RACING RADIATOR
⦣8364;? SECONDARY FUEL RAIL
⦣8364;? PRIMARY FUEL RAIL
⦣8364;? BOOST CONTROLLER
⦣8364;? SEQUENTIAL FUEL MANAGEMENT SYSTEM
⦣8364;? IGNITION COILS
⦣8364;? MSD'S
⦣8364;? 4" STAINLESS STEAL DOWNPIPE
⦣8364;? 4" STAINLESS STEAL EXHAUST SYSTEM
⦣8364;? BLOW-OFF VALVE
⦣8364;? FLYWHEEL
⦣8364;? CLUTCH SYSTEM
⦣8364;? 3-SECONDARY INJECTOS
⦣8364;? 3-PRIMARY INJECTORS
⦣8364;? STEAL BRAIDED FUEL LINES
⦣8364;? ALUMINUM FITTINGS
⦣8364;? MOTOR & PIPES POLISHED
⦣8364;? CUSTOM 20B ALUMINUM OIL PAN
⦣8364;? TACH ADAPTER
⦣8364;? OIL COOLER
⦣8364;? OIL CATCH CAN
⦣8364;? GURU HIGH PERFORMANCE TRANNY
⦣8364;? STRONGER REAR AXLE
⦣8364;? RACING PULLEY KIT
⦣8364;? MATHING TWO TONE CARBONG FIBER INTERIOR
⦣8364;? CARBON FIBER EYE LIDS
⦣8364;? CABRON FIBER DOOR STILL
⦣8364;? 19" HYPER 5ZR WHEELS
⦣8364;? "RACING BRAKES" UPGRADE BRAKE ROTOR KIT
⦣8364;? MAZDA SPEED RACING BRAKE PADS
⦣8364;? ACOSTA MOTORSPORTS FRONT BUMPER
⦣8364;? MAZDA SPEED REAR STRUT BAR
⦣8364;? $60,000

Sigma

Getting it built and into the car wouldn't cost $20K more. But paying someone else to do all the work, and having to replace virtually the entire drivetrain (no way the crappy MTX could take the power reliably) and you end up certainly getting close.

For the guy who needs to buy the stuff ready-made and pay someone to install it all, You've got a good $8,000 for the motor, $7,000 for the turbo and EMS, $6,000 for the transmission, and $2000 for the rear differential and axles -- that's $23,000 and we haven't even gotten into how much you're going to have to pay someone to install all those parts and spend ungodly hours getting them all to work. Add in all the other stuff that Acosta is including in their swap and it's not difficult to see how they get to $60,000. Though the margin is indeed large, it's not something totally absurd like 80% profit. Particularly considering that you'd be tying up one of their bays for probably weeks.

Yes, for someone who knows what they're doing and how to do it, a straight swap wouldn't be that bad. But, take it to a shop and tell them that you want them to do something that's never been done before (or only done by one person), would involve a fair bit of custom work and involve a LOT of playing around until it worked, and you wanted to do it right by beefing up the drivetrain and a $30,000+ price-tag is not difficult to comprehend.

Broke_Apex_Seal

I am thinking of a 3 rotor NA set up where you keep all the fun stuff like dsc/tcs !!!!

OfficerFarva

well, if u every get it workin broke apex lemme know how it is. I'm just curious cus i like NA power of FI hands down. It's more "pure". And a 300hp 3 rotor car sounds like fun.

Sapphonica

Don't forget to factor in the cost of a flatbed & truck to tow it to the track, unless by some miracle you could figure out how to get it to pass a smog test.

Oh, also you'll need to factor in the need to refuel every 75 miles or so? Since the 2 rotor Renesis gets such bad gas mileage, the 3 rotor must be single digit.

Now, a 3 rotor with a low-pressure turbo that passes smog, gets at least 15 mpg, & keeps all the creature comforts of the stock 8...that would be something!!!

staticlag

While were dreaming, how about making the 4 rotor all wheel drive?

guitarjunkie28

if you guys want a realistic ballpark price, i'm doing the conversion on my buddie's t2 right now...

he's just under $11k for parts...including the radiator, a bunch of expensive greedy gauges, and crap like that. we're keeping the stock twins for now.

as far as i'm concerned, there's not much of a difference between doing the swap in an fc or an rx8--the engine is a seperate entity all its own.. i can make it run on a stand, then just mount it in any chassis. the only "custom" (so to speak) part is the actual mounting in the vehicle, and in the rx8's case, changing the tranny and diff.

so depending on if you're cheap or spare no expense, look at $7-20k for parts and about 100-200 (depending on how nice it is) hours labor @ whatever the shop charges you.

so some shops are pretty dumb with their labor prices.. $150+ an hour (some people think so highly of their work), let's say about the cheapest way you could get it done is your 7k in parts, and maybe 60/hr labor @ 100 hours on the conservative side.

so 13-14k i'd say is the "bare bones", just enough to get you rollin' reliably bare minimum way to do it. obviously you'll save a bundle by doing all the work yourself. you'll save a buttload more if you get a good 20b that you don't have to rebuild right away.

do the bare bones, upgrade the turbo, blow it up, rebuild, break drivetrain components, replace, do it all again.

guitarjunkie28

for comparison, i could probably do a 400whp cosmo 13b swap in the neighborhood of $12-13k nicely...parts and labor all said and done, etc...

i'm not trying to sell my own services here, just stating that you can have a REALLY nice engine swap done with more power than you'll ever need on the street for less than the cost of the bare bones 20b... do the 3 rotor if you've got a bottomless budget or want to impress people.

OfficerFarva

Sounds like a hell of a project. Good luck with ur friends car, and thanks for the prices.

guitarjunkie28

all good. if you wanna have some fun, i'd do the 13b cosmo swap with a gt35r/.82 hot side.

hondasr4kids

Don't worry about smog. No matter what you do it will not pass smog inspection. the motor is older than the car so that makes it not emission legal from the get go.


Putting the motor in is the easy part. Unless you plan on getting rid of the factory gauges (just a start) then a good stand alone will work also. But if you want to keep the factory stuff (gauges, DSC, etc) then you have a nightmare in your hands. But the first one that firgures it out let me know because I'm game.

lafrad

I do NOT see a nightmare on our hands.

We have these new full control ECU's coming to frutation, and there is nothing saying that you CAN"T have the Mazsport or Megasquirt ECU run the engine, and let the Stock ECM run things like Throttle by wire, Traction control, power steering and A/C.

Since the Standalone ECU doesn't listen to the stock computer anyway.. it should be A LOT easier than you all think....

guitarjunkie28

the drive by wire is the problem we ran into with the ported engines. i want to make that go away!

hondasr4kids

For the 20B you have to get rid off the drive by wire. You have to isolate the motor from the stock ECU completely and the Renesis TB will not fit on a 20B.

I think is actually not as hard as we think. I been thinking about it for a little bit.

The ECu issue. You are going to need the stock ECU and a standalone. You don't have to use both ECU's if you don't mind getting rid of the factory gauges. The 2 ECU's will share is RPM singnal. As long you take the stock ECU out of controling the motor (which it would be letting the engine harness unplugged) and use a Halteck to do the motor. The reason I would use Halteck is because is the only one that I know that comes with wiring harness. Then take out the CEL bulb out of the gauge cluster. Then the tranny I think you would leave it plug just the way it is. I don't see why the Halteck will need it. But would the 8 tranny mate to the 20B? Not sure.

This is the part that I think would be the hardest but not very sure if it is even a problem. Then you have the subframe. I think the stock engine mount would work considering they are about the same location, but not sure on this. The oil pan is the other issue. The oil pan on a 20B is HUGE. So this is where the major mods needs to be done and the steering rack if it is any issue for bump steer. The Renesis sits farther back and down than any other rotary motor I seen. I haven't got to see the details of the subframe of the RX-8 so like I said, I'm not sure how this will apply to the 20B in the 8.

Most that I mention above is not for sure. Is just things that I think would be the mayor problems and the way I think it will fix it or make it work. The best way to find out is if someone takes the time to try it. I think Mazsport can help alot about the ECU problem.