Alright. I held off posting in this thread until I got here. Because I think the "Tib," as it is so gayly called, is a good little car... for 16 year old. I like the idea of a good-looking, cheap two-door that gives the look and feel of a sports car. But the execution is flawed... all the weight is in the nose, making it understeer horrendously, and with no LSD your supposed 270 whp has got to make that thing torque steer like a pig.

Don't buy an RX8-- you're exactly the kind of idiot who thinks speed is only something that happens between stoplights, and you paid thousands of dollars that you'll never see again to be as "fast" as our 8's are stock. In fact, stock for stock, you can be taken off the line by Civics, if that is your definition of speed. No one's impressed at the frankly pathetic power your car puts out-- 270 hp (unverified)? Come on. I know it's more than a 8 puts out stock, but good lord, you paid thousands of dollars, blew your warranty, and made it run like **** just for that? And you still can't even turn properly? Go ahead and "trick out" your suspension so you can blow thousands more to get mediocre performance trying to fix the flaws of a mediocre car. You remind me of the dickless wonders in "Tibbys" who hang around the car wash until 2am showing off their neon underbodies and PVC air intakes glaring at me while I drive by with something they all wish they had.... a girlfriend.

So go ahead and "mistake" my car for something fast, son, and I'll mistake yours for something that won't end up a flaming chunk of plastic twisted around a tree with your jawbone lodged in its useless steering rack.

 

Oh, and instead of considering an Elise, consider coming back to reality.

 

Perhaps we're being a little rough on the OP. If you read back, his comments may have been ignorant, but I don't think I detect any malice. In fact, I sense that he's trying hard to fit in, learn, and defend his ride and pride.

 

Whoa whoa easy there bud. I cant help it if youre angry that you didnt buy a mazdaspeed 3, which blows the doors off your rx8.

 

*cough* torque steer *cough*

 

There you go again with the straight line ****. Just buy a Mustang and be done with it. Meet me at any road course or autocross course, and I'll show you what it is to have your doors blown off. And how is the MS3 relevant to this discussion at all? I sure as hell didn't mention it, and I didn't see anyone else bring it up either. We already have threads about that.

 

I detect malice, and I wonder why the OP keeps bashing the 8 if he claims he's interested in buying one. Leads me to believe he's either a hypocrite or a troll.

 

I love 16 yr olds like him. Brag about how fast is his Uber 270hp Piece of ****.

No matter how much he spend, its still a piece of ****.

Oh Mazdaspeed 3 what ? Who wants some FWD Torque Steer ? Hmm oh wait. Their Track time aint even that fast :-(

Your piece of **** cant beat us. period.

 

Whoa, where did that come from? Perhaps I was mistaken about the malice thing. I detect it here.

 

You're pretty quick to catch on. It only took you 16 pages...

 

better late than never

 

Haha, OP's last post just made me lol a little bit.

 

Where in the hell did that come from? Obviously you have learned nothing in the 16 pages of a thread you started. Very few people on here care about straight line or q/t times. We like curvey roads, auto-cross, road course racing. The Mazdaspeed 3 will not come close to hanging in the curves with our 8s. I do take it back. If we could have the best of both worlds we would have a car that could cover the 1/4 in 10 sec and still trash everyone else at VIR. But we can't have it that way, so we chose to enjoy our car in the curves.

If all you care about is straight line, I have a GTO I would LOVE to sell you. 0-60 in about 5 sec. (less with a good launch) and will kill my 8 in the 1/4. Just don't try to keep up with me when the road starts to bend or you will end up in a tree.

Get a life and grow up before you kill someone else in your stoplight drag racing.

 

1) Decent bolt-ons would include suspension upgrades and lighter weight wheels wrapped in sticky tires. Nothing aside from a turbo/SC seems to do much of anything.
2) Not very. Blown seals are VERY commonplace in FI applications - if you're going to run boost, I would recommend keeping the pressure low.
3) Reliability is fine. Keep in mind that nobody posts on a message board just to let everyone know that everything is rainbows and puppy dogs. I flooded once, but with my upgraded starter/battery/plugs (should be on all new 8s now, iirc), I'm pretty confident it won't happen again.

If you're ever questioning the lack of 1/4 mile times, go take an 8 out to play down a twisty road. You'll have a blast. Or just get involved in autocrossing with the SCCA (even in the Tib) and I'd be willing to bet you'll start to care a lot less about how fast your car can clear the 1/4.

 

To put it short. I have 34,000 miles on my 04. Not one problem. I used to work at a place where I had to move my car every evening. I rarely let it warm up and never had a problem. Would I suggest that to other 8 owners? No. Was I lucky? Maybe. To me it is very reliable. But I am very particular about it's upkeep.

As for bolt ons, the help the 8 but you are not going to get large gains. You can flatten the toque curve some, help it rev quicker, make it sound more agressive,...etc.

Major hp gains just read through the turbo threads, Petit s/c, and axilflow s/c thread.

The question is too complicated (and debatable) to get any quick and easy answers by starting a thread. I have been on here about a year and I am still learning and still trying to plan out all the mods. Before I started reading on here I had some stuff planned and started to work on. But I changed my mind. Such as with the Garret Turbo.

There are a lot of experianced people on here who know what they are talking about. There are tons of people who have tried different things. Take a look at each individual, see how they use the car and make your own assesment as to if you think it will work for you or not.

Does this mean you don't want to buy the GTO?

 

I'm not sure why bolt ons don't give you any significant gains, but I know the weak points in boosting are the apex seals (sealing the rotor to the housing). They just can't hold any serious pressure without blowing out. If you keep your car NA and take care of it, it'll probably last longer than a piston engine. Problem is, most people don't take care of their rotaries properly so you see a lot of junkers.

 

From everything I have read from the aftermarket companies is that Mazda just did not leave much room for improvement. The airbox flows well, the exhaust flows easy, etc... There are just not much left to be gained. Some one here believe that when the ECU gets cracked completely there will be the potential for bigger gains.

I am honestly not the one to give much advice on mods or mechanics. I just don't have enough experiance. There are some good guys on here that can though.

 

Suspension upgrades are offering people a lot of satsifaction as it's the one place the RX-8 is a little...soft. You could also go the Nitrous route for relatively little money. Check our Charles R. Hill. He's the man in the know about nitrous on this forum. There are a few successful Turbo and S/C applications. The Greddy kit is not really one of them. There was a lot of extra stuff you had to do to get it where it was making decent reliable HP. By the time you were there you were in Petit Supercharger cost territory.

As far as big gains guitarjunkie has the mazsport type I kit and is making 336hp at the wheels on stock internals. It's out there in F/I but the NA gains are much smaller and the cost per hp is going to be higher.

 

i'll give you credit here. this thread was going downhill fast and it seemed like you really were just a troll looking to see how many posts you could get everyone to put up for such silly comments. while there were plenty of those, this was a good way to bring things back and get your questions answered.

as for answering them, most have already been and as far as reliability it just comes down to how you treat an 8 and how much research you have done. if you get an '04 (or possibly even others) and haven't gotten the TSBs done and decide to pull it out on a cold day to move it and turn it off you are almost surely going to flood it. if you know to let it warm up and you know to check the oil every other fillup, the issues are no more than with any other car. know what the car is and isn't as well as how to treat her and she'll treat you quite well and put a smile on your face every time you hear that sweet rotary sound all the way to 9K.

 

The first time you drive one and hear that rotory screem and then you hear that beep you will get a sence of satisfaction like nothing else. This is so ricer and I hate to admit it, but, when I go though an underpass or tunnel I love to rev it to redline so I can hear the echo of the exhaust. Gives me a chubby thinking about it.

 

Answer: Its a 1.3 liter engine! Its tiny. Its little. Its s-m-all. Without boost Mazda has squeezed out almost as much as it can give.

 

It's already the most powerful un-boosted 2-rotor produced. They've engineered about every drop of power out of it, short of forced induction. Personally, I like that. Show's that they've made the car to be all it can be... not like the Mustang where you put on an intake and exhaust and get 35hp... all that tells me is that someone slacked off when they designed the engine.

Big power? There's a potential for 400+ whp from the Renesis with forced induction, but you'll pay well for it. 3-rotor swaps are also popular, but that costs even more.

 

Originally Posted by supercarfan
It just doesnt seem that theres a huge potentital for big power.

The pic in my Avatar is the 26B, just put that in to your new RX-8.



Here is the DYNO sheet,,,,did I mention,normally aspirated ?



And here is a pic of Racing Beat 1400 HP ducted fan turbo three Rotor





Enough of an idea of the POWER capabilities of the Rotary?

 

My wife has an 2003 Tib. GT, 6 speed and this is the second time we had to replace the clutch. I had to cut out a piece of the engine bay for a CAI to fit and during cold weather, the car dies out. I think it's to much air and not enough fuel. Don't get me wrong, I like them but just the fact that I had to make fixes like that, just doesn't cut it for me. But I told my wife that Im going to pause on my 8 so I can work on hers. Im going to get a stage II clutch from somewhere and get a better aftermarket intake. But we'll see.

 

Awww ...... a FRAM Filter ................... SHAME ON YOU !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!