Been out of the RX-8 world for about 3 years but I'm getting my old '05 Sunlight Silver back from its current caretaker as soon as I can sell my '95 Miata.

Any interesting or noteworthy revelations/products for the RX-8 the last 36 months?

 

The Sohn adapter has gained popularity. (Lets you inject lubricant of your choice into combustion chamber instead of used engine oil). Revision C ignition coils have become common, but they are delivered in revision B boxes. Goopy Performance has some neat alloy apex seals, and a very clever guy in New Zealand continues to push the boundaries of turbocharging an RX8.

 

2 that I wish I could talk myself into getting;
SakeBomb has a new ignition kit with Mercury coils.
BHR has a new long tube header.

 

I just came home from a hard drive and my fried who was following me had seen sparks shoot out from my car. He hasn't seen if it was from the exhaust because we were driving pretty fast. But the sparks had hit his car and then he had freaked out lol. Just wondering if it's normal. I have a stock exhaust with a gutted CAT.

 

If the cat wasn't completely gutted some of the internal insulation could be burning out. I don't know why that would happen though. Are you dragging something?

 

No I wasn't dragging anything. I monitor my CAT temps. It stays dead at 1117.6F when idling. At times it would move to .8 but mostly .6. Isn't that the temp of a gutted CAT?

Would this affect my engine in any way? I know these cars backfire. But when my friend said "sparks", I freaked out.

 

Hey my 06 rx8 auto/manual trans always shakes when in nuetral or switch to drive manual mode it shakes from the back i hate it. Im new to cars and am gonna study to be a diesel mechanic so all help is appreciated

 

I was reading the manual and snow tires are recommended in the winter. Would buying a tire for multi-weather purpose suffice? I see some tires say they are for all conditions, dry, snow, rain whatever? Then there are ones specifically for the snow or racing or such.

 

mazdafan1892, dedicated snow tires are the best option for traction and safety when driving in anything worse than light snow. You can drive carefully in up to light snow with a top-rated ultra-performance all-season tire like the newer Continental DWS-06. The earlier top-rated Conti DWS were a favorite all-year-round tire for many RX8 owners. Now Conti has an improved Conti DWS-06 available.

http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires....Contact+DWS+06


http://www.tirerack.com/tires/survey...jsp?type=UHPAS

 

Thanks I will look into it.

 

If you live in an urban area with light to moderate snowfall and relatively reliable plowing, then all-seasons are fine. Dedicated snow tires are less than optimal on bare pavement, will tend to wear a bit faster and can be noisy. IMO dedicated snow tires would be appropriate if you lived in a rural area, drove short distances and/or frequently drove REALLY early before those plows are out.

 

Every tire manufacturer has to determine what all the tire is going to be good at:
- Lifespan
- Dry grip
- Wet grip
- Anti-Hydroplaning (different than wet grip)
- Snow grip
- Ice grip

If you start with a maximum dry grip tire, like a slick racing tire, think about what has to happen to make it acceptable for wet grip. You have to take away from the dry grip some. Then say you want to have anti-hydroplaning, so you have to take away more from the dry grip to add the tread depth. Then you want to make it last longer, so you have to use harder compounds, further taking away from the dry grip, but also the wet grip some.

This process keeps going. To get better snow grip, not only do you need to change tread design that takes even more away from dry grip, you need to go to lower temperature compounds, meaning they can't handle the heat of harder driving, so you are completely away from a racing tire. The tires will even run hot on warm dry pavement, meaning you have lost lifespan too.

Manufacturers only have so much they can do in one desired point before they have to start taking away from the other points in a compromise.

"All seasons" thus mean that "we have compromised on everything, so it's really not good at anything, but at least it isn't unsafe in any of the 4 seasons". This is why many people call them "no seasons". They just aren't very good at anything. For many of us, they aren't even "acceptable" at anything. For the past 7 years, I've always had a set of snow tires and a set of summer tires. I don't lose anything to what I want out of a summer tire by compromising for snow I will only see part of the year, and I don't lose anything in the snow tire to get something I won't need or use in the winter.

So yes, you can do all seasons, it certainly saves space and change-over hassle, but just know that "barely adequate" might be what you end up getting... for every condition.

 

All-seasons at all four corners. It's not optimized, but a good compromise. It's not just go, it's stop and turn too. Just snows on the back are effective at only one of those.
I think the 'no season' term comes from those who simply can't drive in snow.

 

Not quite.

The difference in performance between an "all season" and a snow tire in the snow is staggering. Yes, I've done plenty of new england snow driving on both.

Some Tire Rack comparison tests, same test, same car, same surface.



And the same thing can be said for the other seasons. "All seasons" have significantly less grip in the wet than summer tires designed for high rain conditions. They have significantly less grip in the dry overall.

No Seasons = Not "good" at any season. Just "adequate" (sometimes barely).

 

I have Potenza AS tires, they were not good on snow the couple of times I had to drive it when my 4WD was down.
Do below freezing temps adversely affect summer tires, or is it just snowy conditions?

 

The temperature really matters. Every rubber compound has an ideal temperature range. Below that range the rubber gets really stiff and loses traction because it's not conforming to the surface as well, above that range the rubber starts melting or "greasing up" from the other chemicals liquifying, and that is a loss of traction as well.

Race tires have a working temperature range of like 150F to 250F. Summer tires are more like 50F to 130F. Winter tires are in the range of -30F to 40F. These are just ballpark numbers, it can obviously vary significantly from tire to tire within a manufacturer, much less between manufacturers.

Some examples from my own experience:

Bridgestone Blizzaks, a popular snow tire. Great in snow powder, but their traction drops significantly as the temperature warms up.

The Yokohama S.Drive (my favorite daily tire) won't start getting stiff till about 30F, but it overheats easily out on autocross.

The Dunlop Star Spec handles the autocross temperatures fine, but they get dangerously stiff by about 40F.

Khumho XS handle track temps very well, very consistently, but they are noticeably harder as low as 50F.

 

Ok, thanks.
I used a TireRack guide when buying mine with performance and wet traction as my qualifiers, and that's what came up.
There was another reason, but I can't remember it.

 

In other written material even Tirerack seems to suggest that ride comfort and dry traction suffers with winter/snow tires over all-seasons. And it doesn't appear that they did a comparison on dry pavement...which what the majority of winter driving, in New England and the Midwest is done. Regardless, they are a compromise, but then I'm not trying to sell tires.

 

Warm dry traction definitely does suffer for winter tires, to various degrees on various tires.

Cold (frozen might be a better word) dry pavement still feels better traction with winter tires than all seasons to me.

"Ride comfort" is something i have never actually been able to identify or distinguish on any tire anywhere on the scale, brand, whatever. I've never riden on one set of tires that makes me recognize a comfort difference to another set, despite having 2 sets of tires for my 8 to swap between, and 4 sets on my MSM to swap between.

I'm sure that's just me though, because other people talk about it, so they must see something i don't. So I acknowlege it, but I can't speak to it.

 

Agree to disagree on the worth of all-seasons. Taken up too much in the thread considering. Sorry.

 

There are always more opinions out there No problem with discussing it.

 

Since we're all talking about tire grip, if the tires screech and set off the ABS when braking hard, does that mean the brakes are good and the pads are not worn out?

 

Um, nope. Most brake pads provide 100% of their maximum braking capability right up until the material disappears and they won't brake at all any more.

The best way to tell how much pad material thickness is left is to look at it and/or measure. New pads are about half an inch of material.

 

If your hearing a sustained 'screech' from your tires then something is likely wrong with the ABS. Momentary 'chirps' as the ABS pulses would be common, but nothing more.
Your car also has a wear indicator, an alarm of sorts, that's a last resort alert for you to change pads...but you don't want to wait that long. You can also generally look at the depth of the center groove.

 

^+1
And, if you do your own brakes, don't be 'that guy' and grind the nub off of the rear pads, rear calipers screw in and have corresponding notches.