PatrickB

RX-8 Frequently Asked Questions

Version: 1.0.2
Last Update: October 9, 2004

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, rumor, and incomplete information, as Mazda has yet to announce much formal information on the 2004 Mazda RX-8.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction
1a. History
1b. Vehicle Overview
2. What are the specs of the RX-8?
2a. Body-design, Size, and Weight
2b. Engine
2c. Transmission
2d. Wheels and Brakes
3. How well will it perform?
3a. General
3b. Won't the lack of engine torque be a problem?
3c. Will the RX-8 outperform my friend's Foomobile 5000 when I pull up next to him at a stoplight?
4. When will it be released?
5. How much will it cost and what options will be available?
6. Miscellaenous
6a. Is the RX-8 the replacement for the RX-7?
6b. Will there be a turbo, or a 3 rotor model made available?
6c. What other related cars might Mazda by developing?
7. Where can I find more information, articles, and pictures about the RX-8?
8. Summary
9. What clowns wrote this debacle of a FAQ?

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 The RX-7 was withdrawn from the US market in 1995 at roughly the same time as the US demise of the Nissan 300ZX and Toyota Supra because of a crash in demand for sports cars.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 October 1999, Mazda debuted a new car at the Tokyo Auto show, the RX-EVOLV. The RX-EVOLV is the direct predecessor to the upcoming RX-8, featuring a freestyle door design (rear doors open suicide-style with no B-pillar) and a new version of Mazda's Wankel rotary engine, the RENESIS. The RENESIS introduced at that time was a normally aspirated 1.3L two-rotor normally aspirated engine producing approximately 280HP.

In 2001, Mazda debuted the first pre-production RX-8 at the Tokyo Auto show. It was clear then that the Mazda RX-8 was going to production, probably debuting in 2003. This RX-8 was obviously derived from the RX-EVOLV concept, but had updated styling. At the 2002 NAIAS auto show in Detroit, Mazda unveiled another RX-8 prototype with minor styling changes. We now know that the RX-8 will most likely debut in Spring 2003 as a 2004 model year car.

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 red line. 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 106.3", width of 69.7", height of 52.8", and overall length of 174.2". Doors are suicide-style, with the front doors overlapping slightly on top of the rear doors. The rear doors will open only after the front doors are open. While the RX-8 has no B-pillars to impede ingress and egress from the rear seats, the front edge of the rear doors is apparently reinforced and bolts into the bottom and top of the frame when closed. This provides 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 behind the front axle in the RX-8, providing perfect 50-50 weight distribution.

In terms of total weight, there is a lot of speculation on how much the car will weight. Mazda has traditionally built lightweight sports cars (e.g. the RX-7 and Mata), 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 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. The rotary motion of the internal parts makes rotary engines very smooth up to high RPMs compared to high-RPM piston engines with similar displacement. 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. For more information on how a rotary engine works, and how it differs from a piston engine, you could look at the web pages at RotaryEngineIllustrated.Com or HowStuffWorks.Com.

* Performance

Because of its rotary design, the RENESIS is a very smooth, high-revving engine, not a torquey low-rev 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 available at 3000 RPM, however, giving the RENESIS a very flat torque curve and very linear power delivery. An approximate engine torque/power curve derived from information found at a European website is attached below.



* Improvements over the third-generation RX-7's 13B Rotary

Compared to the twin-turbo 13B in the third-generation RX-7s, the new RENESIS engine has a large number of improvements. One of the largest changes, besides the lack of turbo-chargers, is a new port layout with larger exhaust ports on the side housing instead of the peripheral housing. 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. The design of these ports also improves emissions by allowing unburned hydrocarbons near the walls of the engine to be carried over into the next combustion cycle. In addition, Mazda also claims to have improved fuel efficiency about 30% at idle, and wardsautoworld.com posted at article estimating around-town mileage of about 23 MPG. This is in contrast to the 18 MPG the RX7 got from its 13B powerplant. Despite these changes and having no turbo-chargers, Mazda estimates, as stated above, that the RENESIS will generate a peak of 250 HP, as much as the twin-turbocharged 13B in the third generation RX-7.

2c. Transmission

Current information has the RX-8 coming with a standard 6-speed manual transmission mated to the 250 HP RENESIS described above. Rumor has it that a 5-speed automatic will also be available, but with a lower redline on the engine because of issues with using a torque converter at very high RPMS. This will supposedly reduce the peak power in the automatic to about 190 horsepower. The RX-8 will feature a limited-slip differential, perhaps a Torsen (TORque-SENsening) limited slip differential. Another interesting detail is that we have consistently heard that 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 18x8JJ aluminum rims, probably carrying 225/45R18 Z-rated performance tires. There are hints and spy pictures of the car with 16-inch rims, so those should also be available, most likely for the automatic version of the car. Brakes will be approximately 12 inch ventilated disks in the front and 11 inch 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 RENESIS 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 engine power and torque, though in much heavier cars and ones with arguably worse handling. In addition, the RX-8 will have an extremely wide powerband and produce its peak torque and hp at high rpms, so Mazda can easily increase the effective wheel torque by using 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 a 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, had more satisfying torque at the low end compared to previous versions, and felt quick.

3b. Won't the lack of engine torque be a problem?

In general, no - engine torque numbers are misleading if you don't take into account gearing. The torque number you're looking at is estimated engine torque. What is actually important for performance is wheel torque, and this is highly dependent upon gearing. High-revving engines like the Renesis may have low torque at the crankshaft, but that doesn't mean they will necessarily have low torque at the wheels. In the end, it's torque at the wheels that counts. For more information on torque, horsepower, gearing, and how these relate to overall performance, visit this website.

3c. Will the RX-8 outperform my friend's Foomobile 5000 when I pull up next to him at a stoplight?

Some important points here -
A. Racing on streets is a really, really bad idea. Plain and simply, it's a good way to end up in the hospital, in jail for putting someone else in the hospital, or just plain dead. Take it to a track or an autocross event.
B. It really depends on the driver in most cases.
C. Because we don't know exact specs on the car, we can't say anyway. Power/weight ratio is what is really important here, so while the RX-8 will have less engine power than the Z and other similar cars, it will also weigh much less.

4. When will it be released?

Current information which I deem quite reliable has the RX-8 being delivered to customers starting no later than May 1 2003 as an early-release 2004 model. It will unveiled at the NAIAS 2003 auto show in Detroit in early January. Some sources say that more information may be available at the LA auto show, but that the car almost certainly will not be shown at LA.

5. How much will it cost and what options will be available?

This is all very speculative at this point. For a variety of reasons, it seems likely that Mazda will bring in a base version of the car at significantly less than $30,000, with rumor putting the base price at about $26,000 and a loaded version at about $31,000. We've seen pictures of what appears to be a preliminary European (Swiss) price sheet that looks real that had a base 5-speed automatic version for under 40,000 swiss francs and a nicely equipped 6-speed sports version for under 50,000 swiss francs. If you care you can translate these figures yourself, but be aware that it is very hard to judge how US pricing and packaging will be set up from that. US and Eurpoean models are quite often packaged and prices quite differently. Still, options and colors were listed on that sheet and those frequently will carry over.

We know that a sunroof will be available, for example. We've seen it on the Swiss price sheet and we've seen spy shots of cars in the US with sunroofs. Rumors have xenon lights, a Bose sound system, leather seats, and a navigation system all available, though which will be standard and which will be options we again don't know. As stated above, 5-speed automatic transmission at reduced red-line along with 16" wheels appears to be another option for those who don't want to row their own gears (heretics!). We've have heard about torque converter issues (as mentioned above), so best guess is that it' s a true automatic with a torque converter, not some sort of auto-manual like that in the latest MR2. Personally, I'd guess that there will be a manual mode on the automatic similar to the ones used in the Acura TL and the Infiniti G35, but again we haven't heard any word on that.

As far as colors go, the Swiss price sheet listed several colors. I list them below in order of how certain we are that they'll appear in general and in the US in particular:

Red (seen in a spy-shot car in the US)
Silver (seen in a spy-shot car in the US)
Yellow (seen on the last pre-production prototype)
Black (hard to imagine not having this available)
Titanium (Mazda's titanium is called "titanium grey", a grey seen recently on the Mazda Miata special edition)
Blue Pacific (a dark blue color also available on the Mazda6)
Grace Green (a dark green color also available on the Mazda6)

A white RX-8 has also been photographed undergoing winter testing in Germany, but some rumors have said that a white RX-8 won't be produced. Of course, some or all of these colors might not make it to the US, or might not be produced at all, while other colors we don't know about could be added.

6. Miscellaneous

6a. Is the RX-8 the replacement for the RX-7?

No. The RX-8 is a different model that will enable Mazda to produce and sell a 4th generation RX-7 if it does well enough. The RX-8 is a four door, four seat sports car, the RX-7 is a two door, two seat sports car."

6b. Will there be a turbo, or a 3 rotor model made available?

As far as we know, Mazda has no definite plans for a turbo or 20B version of the RX-8 at this time. Although both seem unlikely, this is an exciting time for Mazda, and we just can't say for sure that neither option will ever be available from the factory. In particular, see the information on the RX-8 MPS below.

6c. What other related cars might Mazda by developing?

We really don't know. Mazda is understandably focues on the success of the RX-8 right now, and until they see how that pans out, anything else is simply speculation. We summarize the main rumors below for completeness, but please remember that at this point all we have is speculation and rumor.

* RX-8 MPS

Mazdaspeed, which used to be a separate performance company, has been taken over by Mazda as their performance division and has already produced some very interesting cars, like the Protege MPS. Paris 2002 unveiled a beautiful concept Mazda6 MPS, and we're hearing rumors about the development of an RX-8 MPS with about 300 horsepower. How this would be achieved (turbocharger? supercharger? 20B 3-rotor?) is anyone's guess. The likelihood of this car being built will of course depend on how successful the RX-8 is.

* RX-7

Another rumor has Mazda interested in reintroducing a 2-seat/2-door RX-7 built around the RENESIS, perhaps using whatever version of the RENESIS engine is used in the RX-8 MPS. Again, though, this is all rumor and speculation, and will likely depend on how successful the RX-8 is.

* Miata

Two different rumors surround the Miata. One (the most solid) has the Miata being redesigned using the body platform used for the RX-8. Because so much of the 8's stiffness comes from the center tunnel, a convertible should be easy to build off of that platform. These rumors have this car using a piston engine, not a rotary.

Another rumor concern a rotary version of the Miata - This seems much more speculative. The MX-5 Miata is a very successful car with its current engine and frame. While reducing the number of body platforms Mazda uses might make sense (see above), it's very unlikely that Mazda will ditch the piston engine as well, because then what you have is a convertible RX-7, not a Miata.

7. Where can I find more information, articles, and pictures about the RX-8?

So far, the April 2002 Road and Track has the most recent in-print preview article about the RX-8. It's available online for those who haven't seen it before.

If you don't find the information you need in this FAQ or that article, looking at Rotary News or searching through the old threads at the RX-8 Forum website might be a good idea. If you still don't find what you need, post a question asking.

8. Summary

2004 Mazda RX-8
Expected Release: Late spring 2003
Body Style: 4 freestyle doors, no B-pillar, 4 seats
Dimensions: 69.7" width, 52.8" height, 174.2" length. Front/rear track is 59.1"/59.5". Wheelbase is 106.3".
Weight: Most likely under 3000 lb. Road and Track estimated 2970lb, though other rumors place the weight less than that.
Drivetrain: 250HP@8500RPM/162lb-ft@7500RPM Normally Aspirated 1.3L two-rotor RENESIS Wankel rotary engine. Rear-wheel drive 6-speed manual transmission standard
Steering/Suspension: rack & pinion with variable power assist along with double-wishbone front and multi-link rear suspension
Wheels: 18x8JJ, most likely 225/45ZR18
Performance: 0-60 approx. 6 seconds, 1/4 mile approx. 14.5 sec according to Road and Track drive of a pre-production RX-8

9. What clowns wrote this debacle of a FAQ?

The original 1.0 version of this document was written by Patrick G. Bridges (PatrickB on rx8forum.com) on October 4-7, 2002. Additional corrections and suggestions were supplied by others on the RX-8 forum, including Grimace, wakeech, pelucidor, Rich, Buger, and NOTA V6. Corrections or new information should be sent to PatrickB by e-mail or private message for inclusion in later versions.