Since your from Cali, you will fell the power loss that you get at this high an altitude with a naturally asspirated car. It pulls great up here. I've been a few times through the mountains. The farthest Driven would be from Denver to New Castle .just drop it down a gear on the steep inclines and your cruising passed every 4 and 6 cyl. on the highway. Turbo it and you won't have and problem.My bros GN and Diesel just fly up those hills with no problem. If you have run your car down the quarter expect a 1.5-2 sec drop in time. My runs up here have been no better than 15.9 and I only got that once. Mostly I get 16.3 16.4. That's before my car got a new motor this past August. Wouldn't hold compression and now it's idleing rough. Gotta call the dealer on monday. My worst runs have been 17.9, bad take off and the car would not go ito second for nothing.

Damn!

I was thinking about getting a turbo'd subaru or audi before i move out there. Ill be in the mountains alot and when i drove my uncles audi allroad with the turbo, it had great pick up with the turbo. I think if you live in the mountains, you definetly need a turbo in your car. That way you have an equal stream of air going into each cylinder or what not. And you dont have to worry about the thin air and compression :)

This is my first post! Normally i just read and get everyone's opinion on products, but your question about mountain driving made me speak up. Everything Crazy said about your car running slower at elevation is true. Coming from Cali you will feel like the car is slower, sorry but there is nothing you can do about that. However, I have a group of friends with a wide arrange of cars and here are some of the comments that they had to say about my 8.

Situation, rx8 vs. highly modded STi
Going uphill sucked don't want to talk about it. Going downhill different story altogether.
My friend had a hard time keeping up when it came to the corners. The only thing that kept him close was his power from the bigger turbo. He was right behind me as we started, but once we got to any turn, he had to hit the brakes hard. All I had to do was hold on tight and let the car speak for itself.

Situation rx8 vs. Crossfire
After changing the oil and washing both the cars, we went out for a drive. Hit the first turn, enough said. A couple of days later all my friend could say, was I wasn’t allowed to lead on anymore mountain drives. He said that once we hit the second turn, and everyone after that, we would enter into the turn and the 8 would just sit down and keep on accelerate where he had to slow down just to keep his line.

Situation rx8, rsx, audi a4 1.8T, mazdaspeed6, crossfire, AE86
My friends and I went on an aggressive mountain drive, and everyone of them said that they wouldn’t go unless I was in the back.

Every car and driver have their moment to shine. In a straight line I loose. It is my personal opinion, the 8 was built solely for the purposes of mountain driving. Nothing else can compare to the handling. As for snow, I have a fullsize blazer for that. Plus, they say this years winter will be rather mild.

Hope this helps some.

^ I complete agree. The most fun your going to have in the 8 is in the mountains. I drove one of my buddies evos threw a few turns and it really didn't compare. (at the time he was hitting 13.5s on the quarter now he's hitting 12.7s) He has the power to pass you but not on the turns. Sea level the eight is an alright dragster but taking the turns hard and fast is alot more fun. But I still love to drag at Bandimere. Be careful going down hills you'll be going 55 and in a split second you could be nearing 10

What year is your car. Have you got a replacement engine yet?

I have an 05 with 27K miles. I took it into the dealer but there was no need for a new engine...yet.

(i have the REVi, act prolight fly, Clutch Master stage 1 clutch, and RP short shifter)

wow you have more miles than me. I have an 04. Needed a new motor this past August at 24,000 miles. I think I have like 25,500 now 1,500 on the new motor and it has high idle. I also have an ACT prolite flywheel but not installed yet. My bros house burnt down so now I have no access to a lift and tools. ACT clutch was put in when the new motor went in. Be carful the dealers try to blame bad engines on the after market intake. Atually they try to blame everything on it. And AM exhaust.

Where do you go for your work. I have been working with Burt Mazda over on Arapahoe and 25 for my warranty work. The service manager’s name is Ed. I took my rx in after i replaced my gear oil and 2nd and 5th started to grind. After it was all said and done i got a new transmission sent and put in under warranty. During the initial conversation with ed, i mentioned that since he had the transmission out anyway, he could swap out my flywheel with an aftermarket one. I needed to replace my clutch as well, so I asked and he said that he would install what ever clutch I wanted. He can’t warranty the clutch anyway, even if it was from Mazda. The total cost to me was for the one hour of additional shop time for the tech to swap out flywheels.

I go to Lakewood Mazda. It's the closest and used to have the best service.
Come on over to ColoradoMazdaClub.com and join the forums there. meet alot more Mazda owners than here. If your not already there.

the mountains... ooohhh I love the mountains in this 8. buffalo has it right, the 8 is totally made for the corners... it's not going to be beaten if it has a decent driver behind the wheel that can do more than go in a straight line. :)

it's not the greatest car, no, but it's definitely under-rated.

wow.. i don't own my rx-8 anymore but its good to see that people are finally posting on here.. when i was around this club was dead!

Pettit instal
 

1 left on my schedule. Anywere from Florida to DC then over to Vegus and back to Florida. For more info go to Pettitracing.com. Cost is same as a shop install in your garage. Call Pettit for details.

I take my 8 to Burt on Arapahoe as well. My work place is across the street up from McDonalds. They have been pretty good so far. My 8 is an 04 AT and has 10 K on it. Had a CEL, and car was dead once so they replaced the plugs, new battery and a stronger starter. Works fine so far after those changes. I just get my oil changes there. I leave it in the garage for the winter because I don't like the front getting sand blasted from the road sand during and after snows and then the chips in the windshield so it sits mostly until the streets are cleaned. It has the summer tires on it so its useless in snow anyway. I thought about snow tires but that's all I have done it think about it. Still a good car I think.

I'll be in Vail for two weeks :). I havent read any of the CO posts, but just wanted to see if anyone lives in vail...

Colorado Springs
 

New to the Forum. Im runnin in Colorado Springs.

Welcome Army.
 

You can post here if you want but most of us are on a coloradomazdaclub.com that are from here. There are several down in the springs so you have picked a good time to start up.

Hope to talk with you soon.

Welcome aboard! Glad to see some more RX-8 folks in Colorado.

Welcome from The Springs!

Hey guys,

new owner of a velocity red 6spd gem named Kasumi. Running in Littleton.

Welcome aboard! Glad to have another 8 owner in Denver. If you haven't checked it out yet, we've got a great local site too for meets and stuff. http://www.Coloradomazdaclub.com. The RX-8s are beginning to take over. Haha.

What year is your ride?

2004...

4th Annual Spring "Rotaries in the Rockies"

-The Annual Spring meet is always by far our biggest Rotary meet of the year! Every year we plan on taking this meet to a new level. This year is no exception!

Here is the plan....

Fri May 16th - Tuning with Steve Kan (PM me or call 303/929-1998 if interested
Details: (http://www.rx7club.com/showthread.php?t=736849)

Sat May 17th - Rotary dyno day and BBQ at Import Sports (Importsports.net) *Details: 10am - 5pm located at 7667 E. Iliff Ave Denver, 80231, $50 for 3 runs

Sun May 18th - Spring Rotary Meet 4:00-6:30pm at the new Club Auto Museum
-Details: Located at 11100 W. 8th Ave in Lakewood www.clubautocolorado.com
We will be ordering Pizza and Soda (Chip in $5 per person if eating)

Sun night - At 7pm we will be driving to Hamburger Stand at 1st and Union to the car meet / car cruise.

*Dyno day prizes will be awarded for the following categories
-Top hp RX-8
-Top hp 3rd gen (excluding me)
-Top hp 2nd gen
-Top hp 1st gen
-Top hp Other Rotary

-To schedule tuning with Steve Kan call me (Mike B) at 303/929-1998.

Wow, this thread is dead.

disappointing, isn'tit? ^_^;

yeah...Rx8club.com scared a lot of people away with the constant "search" replies and things of that nature...among other problems. Check out www.coloradomazdaclub.com. A much friendlier environment.

I still like this site when I am looking for information or messed up threads, I'm just saying the other place is friendlier.

Yup...feel free to check us out at Colorado Mazda Club. We had an RX8 meet back in April, and had 10 RX-8s show up (and a couple of RX-7s). I'd love to get some more RX8 folks on the local forums. If nothing more, keep an eye on the meets and stop by. We are averaging a couple of different meets per month. If we could get another 8 meet together, that would be great.

Check out this thread for some pics of the last RX8 meet: https://www.rx8club.com/rx-8-multimedia-photo-gallery-6/colorado-rx-8-meet-144494/