I mentioned to my cousin that Rotormaster, Hymee, Blitz and various other tuners are developing forced induction kits for the 8 and he posed an interesting question.

WHY BOTHER?

He's a rotary buff and drives a RX4 with a Pac built 13B Turbo, so his remark was not targetted at the RX8 directly.
The method to his madness is :

WHY NOT JUST DO AN ENGINE SWAP?

The logistics of the transplant should not be too difficult since you could fit a 13B Turbo without a sweat and a 20B should be able to be shoe horned in.

The cost should also be substantially cheaper than purchasing an off the shelf turbo or s/charge kit and hell of a lot cheaper than developing your own.

The scope for power development should also be much greater since there is plenty of parts and knowledge behind tuning the 13BT and 20B.

Imagine having a 350+kw 20B under the bonnet of your 8?

I wouldn't be able to wipe the grin off my face, that's for sure.

Just interested whether anyone else here has ever considered this or given it some thought?

It's interesting that the most popular conversion for the series 6/7/8 RX7 is to drop a 20B under the bonnet, why not do that to an 8?

 

Later down the track i would consider the engine swap however the challenge is to get the existing NA RENESIS MSP engine upgraded to a different level without a total transplant .

Once you start transplanting engines its no longer an RX8 IMOH .

cheers
michael

 

A 20B in an 8 was done about a year ago by a forum member here, forgot his name, but it got some stupidly high HP figure out of it. Prob with doing this is you have to replace everything, not even the tacho, speedo, etc work without the RX-8 ECU so you'd have to replace all that. It's certainly an interesting idea though and if you could do it without having to mod the chassis too much, then you'd probably get a few takers.

 

I believe the Microtech MTX8 should be able to do the job capably.

The more I think about my cousin's wacky idea, the more it seems appealing.
Intriguing to say the least.

Any other takers?

 

Interesting...

One of the main reasons would be that you (generally, in Australia) aren't allowed to swap in an engine that's older than the car.

For the purposes of the arguement here, any peripheral exhaust ported rotary engine is not allowed to be in an RX-8. There are probably loop holes and different regulations from state to state but that's the basic rule as I understand it. Of course, it's only illegal if you get caught. (Right, L&L? )

Digging deeper into the memory, you're probably allowed to have an "older" engine if it meets the same emmissons requirements as mandated for the year of the car. This is fairly easy for something like an RX-4 13b swap into a 1985 RX-7 but less easy for a 1997 13bT swap into a 2004 RX-8.

 

Typical red tape always spoils the fun us enthusiast are looking for.
My cousin discovered this the hard way.

A few years ago he attempted to transplant a 13BT into a R100.
This car was a ground up rebuild and the donor vehicle was stripped down to the shell in preparation for the project.

After countless hours spent stripping and preparing the vehicle, he discovered that he couldn't get the R100 engineered, let alone registered in Sydney with a 13BT.

Apparently there are "loopholes" in Sydney but they are so complex that even the RTA employees cannot decipher them properly.

A risk,yes, but so is turbocharging or supercharging the Renesis.

 

Without the ECU there is also nothing to control your Air-con, stereo, airbags, headlight levelers, central locking, cruise control, DSC.....

This damn car is a rolling computer.

 

Wildcard

You make a very interesting point, which is similar to the discussion a mate and I had over a beer a couple of nights ago: can cars like the RX-8 ever be a classic, given their reliance on such a core piece of technology, much of which is pretty proprietary. To maintain these cars, say, 30 years into the future, you're going to need a WDS or equivalent CAN scan and flash tool. That may sound simple now, but you'll probably also need a "classic" computer as well -- but which one?

It's all going to be much more complex than is the case with carburetor, points ignition and non-ABS braking classics.

 

www.acostamotorsports.com

You're welcome

 

Great conversion to a 20b RX8 but at a wooping $60.000 US dollars$ 78.000 Australian big ones approx .

Noojoc are u still interested in a cheap performance upgrade . :D ???

cheers
michael

 

This is a good thing! What do you get when you cross a computer with anything... a computer. Computers shall dominate the world!

Time to start hacking! :D

 

This bloke spent US$60K, but who said that you had to spend that much?

Still interesting nonetheless.

 

$60k gives you a track car. I guess it would be cheaper if you wanted a street legal car. However I can imagine it would be a whole lot cheaper.

skc

 

If there is a lot of reliability we will see 3 rotor 20B in the market...

When the PULP in Shell and BP is back to 50cents/L

 

had the same idea early on, and have "chatted" with a few guys. to get a decent 20B setup you are looking at around $15k - $20k + labour. we are not talking about some dodgy backyarders who blows up engine on the dyno while tuning etc. and obviously, a half decent 13Bt setup will be less. however, it will not be a "proper" RX-8 without a Renesis engine (whether it has been force inducted or not).

not long ago the silver RX-8 from south america with 20B setup was up for sale on eBay, cant remember what kind of $$$ he wanted, looked great and im sure if done properly, it will go hard, but, in my eyes, its not an RX-8.

im sure most people bought the 8 based on its new technologies ie. Renesis engine and its N/A driveability. if you are after a more powerful roraty engine, there are many series 8 RX-7 imports on the market.

on the other hand, would love to see a first 20B powered RX-8 in Oz :D :p

okay, i go now :D

eric

 

On the subject of cheap(er) performance upgrades, the cheapest form of instant horsepower gain is Nitrous Oxide.

And before anybody says it, YES, I've been watching too much Fast and The Furious.
Ever since I saw that movie, I've been toying with the idea of Nos injection (both with my S14 200SX and DC5 Type R).

Obviously too much gas pumped into a piston engine will result in the engine being of no other use than as a boat anchor, but what about Nos on a rotary?

I'm curious whether a Nos application can be safely and reliably adapted to the Renesis?

 

You HAVE been away a while! Type Charles R. Hill into your search box.....

 

Cheers!