In 2021 I had picked up my 3rd Rx8, recently junking my 1st. This 3rd one is a 2004 brilliant black with next to no rust on the chassis. Which is rather rare up here in New England. The car was bone stock and was owned by an older gentleman for the first 75kmiles and about 5k miles with the 2nd owner who wanted a winter car instead. Strangely he ended up buying an rx8 shinka that was rusted and beat up for like 4k more than what I bought his car for, with a low compression engine at 70k miles. I believe he ended up selling the shinka.

I will try to maintain this starting post as a go to spot for info on the ongoing build specs and critical decisions.

For Diagrams and a list of components please see my google sheet: Link

REW Initial Goals

1. Get the engine in the car Achieved 2024
2. Achieve starting and Idle Achieved 2025
3. Move under own power Achieved 2026
4. First voyage to get gas Achieved 2026
5. Achieve Pump gas power levels 450hp
6. Obtain E85 for 450hp+

Current list of mods/decisions

Engine Block

• Worked with Adam at REC for the REW block built by parts with all new components (when using an engine builder DO NOT COMPLICATE THE ORDER BY BUNDLING......go buy your own clutch, injectors, FuelPR, etc. Adam kinda screwed me on some things because he thought an FD clutch would work with the rx8 transmissions. Where its the FC Turbo2 clutch setup that works with the Rx8
• S5T rotors with FD bearings. I went with the 9.0 comp and not the 8.5 mainly because this is what was available at the time. I also wanted to straddle the line between a more responsive buildpath and not solely peak power focus.
• Rx8 E-shaft
• ACT Streetlight Flywheel kit with counterweight (loving this and honestly think its easier to drive than factory Rx8 weight)
• REW front cover (no water pump housing/ Alternator mount......this was a mistake, you should try to reuse the factory FD alternator mount and water pump housing.
• No omp, premix only, but with the ability to add an omp later.
• REC Apex Seals
  
• CNC 0.5" Stud kit
• CNC FD Streetport(intake and exhaust)
• Race clearance rotors
• Oil mods
• Balancing (required with separated counterweight and flywheel)
• Assembly and Shipping

Engine Supporting Components

• new Rx8 oil pickup tube, which comes with the oring
• Nicon Rotary Oil pan
• Full function trigger kit (tuned by Shawn says that the rx8 toothed kit has issues, get the 36-1 HALL sensor kit)
• ACT ZX6-XTSS - XT-M/Perf Street Sprung Clutch and streetlight flywheel
• CX racing Engine mount/crossmember (not designed with the nicon pan, may require modification to lower the engine. I was very happy with how rigid this mount was.
• REW upper intake, valves removed. (could probably retain these or make your own and run off of the ssv or vdi solenoids.)
• Rx8 throttle body (made an adapter and custom tubing)
• JDL side mount AC and Alt does not seem to fit at all, need to redesign to be higher. (he has redesigned version, which doesn't tension the alternator correctly)
• Davies craig 150 EWP setup with custom radiator.....honestly I would suggest trying to make an Rx8 off the shelf radiator work.
• Oil cooling system overhaul (Improved racing remote filter and 185 thermostat with the Rx8 coolers, straightened fins and thermostat deletes)

Turbo

• BW 8474 IWG 0.92A/R, T4, TwinScroll, Iron CHRA (I was advised Iron was better for rotary heat)
• Turbo Manifold to be 3D printed/designed once Engine is in. Final manifold is printed out of Inconel 625. Stainless prices for dlsm 3D printing appear to be around $600+post machining
• Oil pressure regulator/reducer was necessary... buy the Turbosmart 40psi turbo pressure regulator.
• Air2Air intercooler, located infront of radiator

Transmission/drivetrain

• Rx8 JDM 5 speed
• S1 Stock differential 4.44 (will be going to a Kaaz1.5 way and a 3.909 R&P from an auto FD diff.)

Electrical

• Adaptronic EMOD013 (should have just done a haltech probably) I went with the new haltech PnP
• Rx8 harness (yet to be modified)
• Antigrav battery from sakebomb, behind driver seat in trunk corner. (these freeze under 40f and you will destroy them if they charge/discharge)
• Sakebomb IGN1A coils......honestly a huge waste of time and money, the rx8 revC coils are likely perfectly fine and can be changed out later if you have misfires.

Fueling

• 2x 1000cc ID primary injectors
• 2x 2200cc secondary injectors
• CX racing 4 port Lower intake (comes with secondary fuel rail) (I would avoid this and go with the other intakes on the market. Really the Rx8 needs a forward leaning intake to avoid the firewall.)
• FF primary fuel rail (should have payed attention to AN sizes to avoid buying so many adapters.
• JDL manufacturing surge tank dual walbro450 pumps...... (I ditched the surge tank and just used the hanger with fuel mats instead. ).......honestly you can probably get your own aluminum disk and cut holes for bulkheads instead of this hanger.
• DWFF160 fuel filter
• Radium fuel pulse damper (they sell primary rails with this built in I believe)
• Radium flex fuel sensor flow kit
• Continental flex fuel sensor
• Fuel lab regulator + gauge
• 8an sender and 6an return lines......honestly just run 8an feed and return and never worry about sizing issue until you hit 1000hp range

 

Welcome, I'm attempting an Air to Water as well. Hope your build moves along quicker than mine. Oh and I'm sure the haltect elite ECU will retain power steering and all stock functions since they bought out adaptronic along with all the Rx8 canbus data.

 

it’ll cost you is all since there’s no off-the-shelf PnP harness. Shawn can build one though.
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Planning on getting some pictures this weekend.

Back when I was looking into my gauge cluster I came across a guy who makes a few different kits for the Rx8. One of which is a power steering kit: The downside being that this kit does not receive wheel speed to turn off the power steering.

So far the Rew upper intake, CXracing lower intake(comes with LIM fuel rail), and CXracing engine mount have arrived.

Luckily happened to be black friday sales so I also picked up a sakebomb IGN1a kit. Working on ordering the Turbo now, potentially may go with the 8474 to have the potential ceiling for more power.

So far the US support for haltech has not been very helpful when it comes to the Rx8 specifics of Power steering, dsc, traction, etc. They really only said that I should go with the 2500 if I plan on doing a 6 injector setup. Considering I will still have a lot of work to do once the engine is in the car I may hold off on purchasing an ECU for now.

 

The Haltech Elite series can tie into the CANbus of the rx8 and control a large majority of that (ABS, TC, stock gauges, PS, and others).

 

You can get the patch harness from boomslang as well.

https://www.boomslang.com/haltech-el...lpPuwj7e-U8#!/

 

For that price tbh I am probably better off just taking one of my extra harnesses and repining it to the Haltech connectors.

Contemplating turbo choices between the 8374 and the 8474. While I will be on pump gas for a while, both are probably overkill. However thinking towards the inevitable future I think I would rather have the ceiling that the 8474 provides.

 

you can buy a patch harness to do that better

https://autosportwiring.com/mazda.htm

edit: didn’t see the boomslang link above, yeah I’d just do that instead.

Thanks for the link Warrior.
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I thought it was expensive too.
Tuned by Shawn starts at 2400 for elite 2500 ecu and plug n play harness
Haltech sells their elite 2500 for 2,090 and 695 for the bloomslang, it’s best to go with tuned by Shawn. He is having Black Friday sell preorders currently.

 

I’d recommend you contact him and have it quoted directly. Because there are other things you need which aren’t listed and what I was quoted in February was quite a bit higher number for everything to be fully functional. There may have been several items you might not choose to have that were included on mine and pricing may have changed since then. So I don’t want to post the number he gave me then. That’s why it’d be best to contact him and go over your needs for what’s applicable now.
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also seems like you didn’t recognize that the guy selling the EPS device posted earlier is an RX8 owner on this forum, this is his thread:

https://www.rx8club.com/rx-8-racing-...8/#post4911170
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Thanks, yeah it seems at this point ECU wise I will need to just talk with people. I will give Shawn a call and work out some of my questions.

 

Picture dump, mainly been occupied with a bunch of changes to the garage layout.


 

Small update, we have been messing around powder coating random things like yeti cups, wrench handles, and even old Rx8 rotors. Also setting up air lines all around the shop.

Sadly I missed the blackfriday deals from JDL manufacturing. But decided to pick up a bunch of things anyways.
-Rx8 A/C compressor mounts
-omp blockoff
-Rx8 dual fuel pump hanger + two walbro 450s
-alternator bracket
-EWP adapter with fill neck (soon to buy a Davies Craig unit)
-Rx8 shifter bushing kit (honestly am just curious how it would make my other car feel)

I also hoped that the stop tech brake rotors would have come in by now after a month of waiting apparently they wont ship for another month or two. I suppose I'm pulling the engine in that time anyways.

 

@TeamRX8 Replying to your PM, your inbox is full and apparently needs to be cleared.

I was planning on using the spoiler function as a way to declutter the thread. Mainly to avoid having a diarrhea of pictures to scroll through when people reply to a post with a ton of pictures. Are the spoilers a pain to use on the phone? I remember someone saying that you mainly use your phone for the forums.

 

Post holiday update.

I heard back from Shawn. Main points he gave answers to:
-The Haltech 1500 or 2500 will interface with the Rx8 CAN system. I had asked about features such as ABS, DSC, TC, Power Steering, Throttlebody, GaugeCluster, A/C, etc.
-For a trigger setup he suggested going with the FFE 36-1 wheel as he has experienced more trigger errors with the Rx8 wheels.
-For my short term 350hp goal he suggested that I could just do a 4 injector setup on the 1500. However I would like to avoid having to change computers and fuel lines if possible in the future.
-I also asked about harnesses and jumpers. He offers either a service to repin the rx8 harness to the Haltech connectors. He also has a jumper that integrates the chassis side of the harness into the haltech for a pnp solution.

The Sakebomb IGN1A kit with the Rx8 jumper harness has shown up and looks great.

The perfectly running renesis has now been taken out and torn apart. The only snag I hit was the bottom A/C bolts.
At around 80k miles on the stock engine I did measure a couple of the sideseal clearances and they were just above the 0.016 maximum. (no sohn and to my knowledge no premix)
Another thing to note was that the rotor apex slots are not splayed apart like I had seen in my 120k mile engines that I had taken apart.

 

Interesting note on the FFE trigger wheel. Did he state a specific, common issue with using the rx8 wheel? Haltech just claims its a "negligible" upgrade, but I know Shawn has experience with them so I am curious of his explanation. I also have no clue with "end float" is with the trigger wheel. A quick google didn't turn up much info for me.


For the "future proofing" of more fuel past 350whp,
- The 1500 vs 2500, I believe you can just jump the secondary injector signal wires to run 4 injectors. I know its been done, but never followed up with the results.
- For the fuel lines, just bumping up to -10AN feed and -8AN return would future-proof the build.
- Most of the aftermarket fuel rails have 4 ports for 4 injectors, so no changes there aside from removing the plugs and inserting new injectors.

If you end up getting his PNP adapter and harness I'd love to see it. Now that I am splicing my harness it is making more and more sense how he went about it, but if there are any obvious secrets he has in there I'd love to see them (referring to my questions on limited I/O from the Haltech 1500/2500 vs sensors and inputs from the OE harness).

 

I will definitely be poking Shawn more. However my next purchase will be the rest of the engine and an oil pan so funds will be heading in that direction while I research options. Too bad Nicon is still blocked from selling, maybe I will end up making my own oil pan? Also kind of sucks that the oil pan is needed to mount the engine.

Shawn had just said that he sees more trigger errors with the Rx8 wheel configuration.

The end float they are referring to would be how much the E-shaft can slide in or out of the engine. I assume the FFE wheel is just thicker to help resolve this. I would also expect that the mazda tolerances would help avoid this issue.

 

Interesting, I cannot for the life of me find the endplay tolerance for the renesis. I was curious if there was a distinct difference or not. None the less, its a valid reason. Idk if its worth the investment without troubleshooting the reluctor sensor from the rx8 first, or at least that what I'll be trying to do. Reluctor sensors are just a lot more sensitive to the positioning distance from the trigger wheel than a Hall Effect sensor. Pretty much if you are able to get it as close as you can without rubbing I am sure it would work fine.

 

you can get rid of end play and the entire thrust bearing setup using this instead

https://www.enjautoworks.com/product...aring-support/

which then allows pulling the front cover off/on without worrying about that dumb thrust bearing falling out.
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the e-shaft end play for the Renesis is at the very end of the Mazda engine rebuilt manual in the Technical Data section





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Why don't we all use this? This seems great. How does it prevent end play though? It looks like the eshaft will still have some endplay with this installed.

 

it comes with a new spacer assembly that replaced the thrust bearing setup completely. The e-shaft is then locked into the bearing collar and this prevents the fore-aft movement of the e-shaft except for whatever clearance there is between the internal bearing ***** and race.

It’s fairly new and when I posted it on RX7Club a lot of people are skeptical of using it on the street, but E&J told me their street car has been using it without issue for over a year. The thing is, if it wears then popping the front cover off and swapping in a new one is not going to be all that bad since it’s PnP, unlike the thrust bearing setup.
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https://www.enjautoworks.com/product...aring-support/

Wow, that's actually genius!

 

I wouldn’t go that far. We’ve yet to see how far one can go before needing to be replaced. REC refused to install one on an RX7Club members engine build they were doing. Which I get that they don’t want to be accountable on an engine warranty for something they’re not sure of or experienced with yet. For myself the ease at which it can be changed makes me comfortable with using one, but we need to be honest and admit it’s fairly new (~1.5 years) and the long term mileage results aren’t fully known.

It will start out tight when new and in engine operation itself I think the wear is going to be minimal. How well it does against a high force pressure plate that is shifted often is where I see it taking the greatest end-loading on a general use vehicle. Because most people wil take that cheaper route than the higher cost of a softer multi-disc clutch.

It was originally intended for high power drag engines that are susceptible to e-shaft flex that’s exacerbated by free-play.
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