Joshua Patrick Roberts

Hello all my name is Josh but my friends call me fryboy,

So just wanted to say hi I'm new to the community and wanted to introduce my self.

here is my story......

I traded my dsm (95 4g63 gst 5spd) and put up $1000 boot for a very beautiful Rx8 8 days ago. Drove it for 5 of those days and the car ran great, handled well and everything worked.
The car has all the bells and whistles leather heated seats, moonroof and all. On the 5th day of owning it I took it out on the backroad near my house for some spirited driving and then I heard BOOM! And PUH PUH PUH.
I had it towed home as I figured the engine had blown.
After further investigation I seen that the leading plug wire on rotor one had came off with the spark plug in it so I took the driver wheel off to find that the previous owner had JB welded both leading and trailing plugs into the block on the rear rotor and JB welded the leading plug on rotor one as well. Apparently he had stripped the threads out and that was his bandaid and sell it to an unsuspecting buyer (me). He will not return my calls of course.......
Ive called every shop and Mazda dealer within my state.
No one will touch it not even to try and tap and helicoil it.
They all want to R&R at the cheapest quote of $5,398.89.
My question is I'm fairly mechanically incline I've build several vehicles from the ground up. I currently own a 350z, 96 gsx, 01 camaro ss but, I have zero experience with rotory engines.
Should I just LS swap it which was my initial thoughts as it's up my alley of mechanical abilitys or is there any other options as I do not want to replace the stock engine because it is the low rev version that redlines at 7k mated to the 4 speed auto.
I wanted this car for the rotory experience I really don't want another ls car I already have one is there a cost effective solution to this problem for another rotory? I would not mind the 5k engine replacement if it was anything other than what it already has I would like around 300-350 whp goal which is what my Z has with basic bolt ons and cam and tune.

Regards fryboy

200.mph

iTrader: (9)

you will never get 350hp out of your 4 port auto, its the slowest and least wanted 8. to do a propper ls swap in an rx8 budget ~20k. cheapest way is a rebuilt engine but you are better dumping it and buying a 6spd/6port. if you want to keep it you can do a rew swap ~15k

sorry for you shitty luck but you should have come here first, we all would have said run away from the automatic. any rotary you buy in the future its necessary to get a rotary specific compression test first

gwilliams6

Ditto to what 200.mph said. Sorry !

NotAPreppie

If you want an LS RX-8 swap without breaking the bank, your best bet is to contact Daniel A. Nadal in the "LS Powered rx8" Facebook group. He does turn-key swaps out of his garage near Phoenix, AZ and his quotes start around $6500 + your car. I've yet to see a negative review of his work but that's not a guarantee.

He quoted me about $9k + my car to swap in a 400 hp LM4 (heads and cam) with T56, including working dash, ABS, AC and passing OBD emissions inspection.

I've seen him advertising a completed Shinka with an LS1 and some minor upgrades for $8500.

You can pick up a reman Mazda engine for about $3k + shipping/core (don't even know if they'd accept your old engine for a core since it's been damaged this way). Doing the swap isn't particularly difficult if you have a lick of common sense and can read the DIY on this forum.