The first 1000 miles
 

Well, as I said before, we picked up our new Titanium 6 spd GT w/Nav last Wednesday, 7-16, and my wife and I are very happy with the car.

After putting about 400 miles on it around town for a few days, we decided to take it up north for the weekend. We live just east of L.A. and decided to go to Santa Barbara, via the long way...up to Frazier Park, around past Mt. Pinos, down the 33 to Ojai, and then over the 150 to the 192 and the mountains around Santa Barbara.

Upon passing the 550 mile mark at La Tuna Canyon, I layed the accelerator on the floor and didn't let up until the speedometer flashed 140 mph. The car swept around two large turns and a drop on its way to top speed, and never so much as quivered (the only thing that made me stop was the thought of my weekend ending early if I was caught, I'm sure that must be the reason why my hands were shaking...yeah that's it).

As we wandered up some twisting roads toward 166, we determined that the 8 will easily take 20 mph corners at 45-50 and 30 mph corners at 75...Whhhhoooooooeeeee!!!!! Outrageous!! Later, the navigation came in handy as we came upon two motorcycles running down through the turns toward 166. We were able to see on the nav that the road was straight after the rise ahead; the motorcycles however, not knowing what was around the bend, slowed down to 70, while we kept it hammered at 100 coming out of the sweeping corner, and in the process squirted past the motorcycles like they were standing still!!!

By the time they came over the rise, we had blasted through the straight and were rounding the next corner almost half a mile away! We slowed down after that and were paused at the stop sign when they came up behind us laughing and asking what kind of car it was. After spending a few minutes with them and giving them one of a few brochures my buddy had given me when I purchased it, we were on our way again to more corners.

The whole weekend was filled with moments like these; spine tingling turns and head pinning straightaways with a car that was more than willing to accomodate, punctuated by conversations with strangers about the car.

We came home exhausted on Sunday evening, after sending the car through some of the greatest and most fun roads we could think of, but the car on the other hand seemed ready to go, willing, waiting for the next command...except for one thing. Every once in a while, the oil light comes on. I checked twice on the way back down, and the oil level was fine. However, every few miles, the oil light came on for a few minutes, and then extinguished. The dealer thinks that it may be a faulty oil sensor, but will check it out thoroughly on Wednesday morning. Meanwhile, I am still driving it, my buddy at the dealership says that if it blows up, he'll just give me another one. Now that's customer service!!

I'll keep you all posted on what they find.

See ya on the byways!

I want one, I want one, I want one...

Truly amazing. I am going to have soooo much fun with this car. Thanks for the review.

-JiM

Now THAT'S a review! I won't do what you did, but I am glad someone did it and posted their thoughts. Very impressive - looking forward to mine all the more.

I hope for your sake and safety that those NAV records are ACCURATE. I would never trust anyone else in a situation like that.. drive the road first and make sure it actually IS straight over the hill or you won't be posting here for very long.. Sounds like fun though.

It's surprising how accurate those maps are, but would I do it myself - NOT A CHANCE!!!

It's great to hear owners enjoying their RX-8s.

That's a novel way of using the NAV. Make me wish I had ordered the NAV. Wouldn't it be great if the NAV can be switch to rally style direction calls?

"... 40, right 3 into left 5, don't cut..."

It would be damn cool if someone could write a program to do something like this.:)

I would just like to know the co-driver lingo. What does all that mean? Sorry to be so ignorant.

Every crew uses their own unique code and abbreviations, but they're all variants of:[list=1][*]distance to the next corner[*]direction and severity of the corner, and[*]any extra information about the corner[/list=1]The distance is usually in meters; the severity is often quoted as a number from 1 to 6, vaguely correlating to the anticipated gear needed; and the extra information can tell whether it's safe to cut the corner, whether the surface is unusually "slippy", or anything else that they decided was worth recording when they reconnoitered the route.

So "... 40, right 3 into left 5, don't cut..." translates into "in 40 meters there's a medium fast right-hander which leads directly into a faster left-hander with some sort of hazard on the inside."

See, their way is much faster. ;)

If you're interested in further reading on the subject, try this page by Nicky Grist for a light overview, or this one for probably more info than you wanted. :)

Cool!! Thanks a lot.