Racing Beat Focus Group
 

I was invited to attend Racing Beat's RX-8 focus group. (Thank you Racing Beat). Here's a little update on what we saw and learned there.

When I arrived there were a couple of RX-8's parked in the lot and more arrived shortly after I did. We ended up having all the colors represented. I knew most of the folks that attended from SoCal RX Club meets. We had a little mini meet and checked out each others rides while we waited for everyone to show up.

Racing Beat's Jim Langer met us and conducted a short tour of their facility. They have a full machine shop there, an engine dyno with a stock Renesis engine mounted on it with a K&N filter , an ECU Test Bench and parts of exhausts, engines, supensions etc everwhere. We were introduced to some of Racing Beat's staff including Jim Mederer thier Chief Engineer, Takayuki Oku thier Chief Exhaust Designer, and Damon Wong

After the tour we got down to the business portion and we were asked to evaluate a new product that Racing Beat has under development for the RX-8 (you'll have to wait to see what it is, sorry). After we filled out the survey forms Jim's wife brought pizza and sodas and we all settled down for a little feast.

After dinner, Jim Mederer demostrated the ECU test bench to us. The ECU test bench allows him to control all of the inputs to the ECU and to study the effects of ECU changes without introducing unknowns. He also spent some time answering questions. Here are some of the responses that I remember.

On what he thought was the most serious performance defect in the RX-8 Jim responded that he believes that it is the non-return fuel delivery system. Since the fuel pressure regulator is located with the fuel pump in the tank there is no way that a constant pressure can be maintained in the manifold to the injectors while under stong acceleration. This is due to the weight of the fuel in the long line being forced to the rear of the car during acceleration. This results in a dip in fuel pressure and pressure drop in the line due to increased flow just makes the problem worse. If a constant pressure is not maintained at the injectors the amount of fuel delivered to the engine can not be properly determined by injector timing.

When asked what performance modification delivers the most "bang for the buck" Jim replied that in his opinion it is sway bars. He said that Mazda designers don't seem to understand how important sway bars are to handling.

After the Q&A session Jim and Damon showed us a run on the engine dyno. The engine mounted on the dyno had a K&N intake installed on it. To say it was loud is an understatement. The engine dyno is located in a room that has 8 inch thick concrete walls. The engine noise was clearly audible above 6000 RPM even with the door closed. After showing us how the test data was collected he did a repeat run with the door to the dyno room open. The noise was astonding, it was actually painful above 8000 fortunately he didn't keep it up at high RPM very long.

I completely enjoyed my visit to Racing Beat and thank them again for a fun evening.

Mike

Re: Racing Beat Focus Group
 

Sway bars? Are these different then anti-roll bars? Where do they go? Are there some on the 8?

Re: Racing Beat Focus Group
 

Sway bars? Are these different then anti-roll bars? Where do they go? Are there some on the 8?

sounds awesome.... does that mean that RB's sway bars are really high quality and the biggest improvement i can make?

i believe sways are the same as anti-roll bars and go under ur car... not like the strut bars that go in ur engine bay

i have the front RB sway bars on order they should be good. and wow i have there exhuast it is just WOW and about the K&n about all the problems with idling... should i get it or not what did the test actully conclude about the intake?

To my understanding... RB has found that the K&N unit does as they claim... it makes some hp. Much more and better than RB original thought possible. The problem is the induction noise... and as we all know engine heat (needs heat shielding).

Word has been that the K&N heat shielding works and problems have settled down. I dunno. I'd prefer a custom heat shield that covered it with a top like RE's, or just buy RE's intake. The other choice is just wait a little and get HKS's intake...

thats what me and BIU are doing we gonna wait for HKS's

When will hks's come out with theres?

The K&N intake does cause a rough idle and the noise at 6K+ is off the scale. This will most likely be true of all the tube and filter intakes. Personally I would pass on a tube and filter intake, you will not be happy unless you want your car to be as loud as an F16 at takeoff.

This topic is already being discussed in the tech section.

Thanks for filling us in Zoom2X.

Re: Racing Beat Focus Group
 

Did they talk about anything that can be done to address this?

ne sites where we can get more info bout the sway bars?

Thanx for the great info... Now, I was just wondering, since RB did chassis dyno, did you get the see what the horse power is like at the crank?

To Yanje and e46328: Did you see where ranger4277 just said that this topic is already being discussed in the tech section?

BOTH your questions are answered in that other thread - in the Tech Garage section, thread Racing Beat Focus Group update.

(Yanje, if you want more information about Racing Beat sway bars - go to the Racing Beat web site, www.racingbeat.com . Or check out the Wheels, Tires, and Suspension forum section, where you'll definitely find threads discussing suspension components like sway bars)

Regards,
Gordon

Great info Zoom2x. I was invited to the focus group as well, but no longer live in Socal.
Any word on when the RB ECU product will be ready?

Re: Re: Racing Beat Focus Group
 

I asked that. He responded that it would be a lot of work to retrofit a return line system into the 8 and that if you did the ECU fuel map would have to change. Mazda apperently tried to address the problem to some extent by having 3 different fuel maps for the engine. One map for gears 1-4, one for 5-6 (the ECU determines the gear by comparing engine rpm and vehicle speed) and one for deceleration. The decel map actually shuts down spark to the rear rotor under some conditons. He said that one of thier future projects would be to map the fuel pressure change curve for various acceleration profiles. He cautioned about using fuel maps that were tuned on a chassis dyno as the acceleration effects can't be taken into account there. I proposed using an accumlator to maintain the pressure during acceleration, he said that that would change the fuel pressure curve and might just delay the onset with a corrisponding delay in recovery but that it was an interesting idea.

No mention of when the ECU project would be completed. My guess is that it still months away.