the reason small mods dont do much is beacause the ecu does not let them

I think that the 8 is too technologically advanced for its own good sometimes, at least from a tuning perspective. Clearly the engineering that Mazda put into the 8 has worked against some of the aftermarket engineering.

I agree with rotorGod, patience is a virtue. The ECU is MUCH better understood now, the best is yet to come.

Hey RSD - can you give Ike a kick in the goolies for me ? :icon_tup:

nah, he's a good guy.

That won't happen. And if it does, it will be fixed, patched, replaced, whatever is necessary, probably BEFORE the car is available to buy.


There is too much of a following by tuners, young kids, old guys, etc, for the EVO X to be "hard to tune". The RX8 is probably only modified by 10% of its owners, maybe even less. Those who DO modify, probably only 10% of those even consider going turbo, different ECU, etc...

With an EVO, or STI, I'd venture to say 75% or more of their owners modify, and go shooting for big numbers, at that. There just isn't enough aftermarket support for the RX8 to get big "fast". This isn't an FD, people. Even that took 5-6 years to develop a good ECU for...

I'm not big on modding my car, anymore. I used to, but not so much now. Notwithstanding, speaking for myself, I would go turbo in a heartbeat if it wasn't:

a) So DAMN expensive...
b) Limited to two choices...with everything else on the "brink" of development for years and years...
c) So DAMN expensive...
*Did I mention how expensive turbos are?

If the after-market just suddenly flooded with viable and quality upgrade parts for prices that were relative to those of other cars, makes, models, etc. for the 8, then I'd go and play but just not like I used to...

FD is unreliable, dude. Most unreliable of the rotaries. I stand by my words. RotaryGod said it better than anyone else could have.

I dunno, My 94 FD has 25K miles on it and it has only been in the shop once for an idle adjustment. I think that is more reliable than my 04 8 with 23K miles which has been in the shop several times for problems like an engine, engine mounts, two smog pumps, headlamps and a few other annoying issues.

Don't those cars have a Motec? Great, they've managed 215whp with a $5000 ECU mod...

Are you honestly making speculation on the reliabilty of a car with a turbo kit that has barely been released? And please tell me you're not implying that RX-8s are getting 40whp from the mods you listed.

Hondata (not even custom tuned), intake, and exhaust, will yield more on a Honda than every bolton know to exist for the RX-8.

Please don't take what I say about modability as bashing. Some of you are taking it personally and acting like I'm putting down your first born. I love both the S2K and RX-8. All I'm saying is that if modability is high up on your list, the S2K and the RX-8 aren't two cars that come to mind.

been out on road course 3 times with z's and m's, they don't blow us away. i beat a few on occasion. driver is most important, but same driver would prolly get close times driving all 3 cars. may even beat the others too.

i'm not turbo guy, but the tuners around my area tell me that 10:1 compression ratio is not ideal for turbo. yeah, u can make it happen. but its not gonna be pretty. all say with that high compression stick with NA. gut and port job. rx8 best friend is light weight. so run some more laps and eat less carbs, that will make ur ride faster for sure.

lol, we all know how girls pack. :cwm27:

+1, all i need for the road course is 300hp. tops. i can live with 260whp alread on track, rest is up to driver. anymore, and u just giving audience a sliding show.

10:1 compression isn't that high anymore. I mean, the new Turbo Mini is 10.5:1. Its all about the tune!

I went on a wine tour (the Coonawarra http://www.coonawarra.org/home.asp ) for about 5 days with my wife. We managed to fit one medium and one small luggage bag, and on the way back : 57 bottles of wine.

Admittedly there was wine on the back seat, in the rear foot wells, and stuffed every which way in the boot/trunk ... but we were well impressed with our haul.

And cheers to the local friendly police officer at a small coastal town called Robe who advised us about where the police were patrolling along the nice sweeping roads on the way back ...

I read an article a year or two back where SCC magazine invited 4 tuners to play with their tuned Z cars at Willow Springs. The also brought out the Nismo Z, and some guy with an SCCA "stock class" Z racer. With wheels, tires, suspension, and a better locker the "SCCA driver" beat the best tuner car by 2.5 seconds on the track, with the stock horsepower!

Going fast on the street from one stoplight to the next is one type of fast. Putting down consistently fast lap times is another. Sometimes they coincide, as in the Evos and WRX STI's. Other times they don't (the E30 M3 and RX-8 spring to mind). Camber curves, weight balance, and perfect bump-steer aren't sexy on the street but damn sure will pay off at the track!

BTW- Racing Beat can get 300 hp out of a well-ported 1.3 liter rotary, but it'll have the idle characteristic of a paint-mixing machine! I've seen their dynos...

Im not taking it personally, I love this types of friendly discusions :)

but the thing its that most honda tuners lie theyr asses off when it comes to hp gains to the point of manipulating a dyno to show gains that are not true, remember the company that sold some stages for the rx-8 claiming huge power gains? :cwm27:

the rx-8 right now goes from an average of 178 to 185 rwhp to close to 220 rwhp with the mods I mention in fact amemiya got 224 rwhp

we are comparing new cars, like the 350z and g35 they have some more time with theyr turbo kits but it was obvious from the begining that this engine could not handle large amounts of FI, they begang to blow from metal failure almost from the star

but this things can be argue for a long time you have your opinion and with time you will be proven wrong

We're talking about present time. Not some mystical far off place where RX-8s put down 500whp with turbo kits and can get 50whp with a few boltons.

224whp? Hahahaha. Great, and just a K&N will get you 12hp, they said so... Show me one person on this forum that gained 40+ whp with the boltons you mentioned and I'll give you a public apology.

Again! Compression on a piston engine is NOT the same as compression on a rotary engine!

"Modability" has never been a big selling point for me, because it seems to suggest poor engineering. If the Evo, Z, and a bunch of other cars all respond better to bolt-ons, I have to ask why, with the current horsepower wars, don't they come from the factory with these improvements built in? If an Evo can get 35hp from a new intake, it means Mitsubishi doesn't know how to make a damn intake. Correct me if I'm wrong, but "highly moddable" seems to be another word for "poorly designed."

You're wrong. The intake on the Evo for instance, much like the RX-8, is actually designed quite well and an intake won't do much. Cars like that Evo that respond so well to boltons are usually detuned for emissions, reliabilty, and driveability reasons.

Not as much the reliability of the engine as the rest of the drivetrain. While it would be fairly simple for an Evo to come from the factory with 300+ whp it would have a trickle down effect. You'd need a better clutch, upgrade that and you'd need a better transfercase, upgrade both of those and you'd need a better diff. By the time you're done with it the car would be thousands more than it currently is and it would be easier and cheaper to let the owners mod or not mod how they see fit. For a good driver with 300+whp in an Evo you really wouldn't have to do much more than a clutch, if that. But lets face it, the people out there that are good drivers are few and far between. There are a shockingly high percentage of people out there where the Evo or STI is their first MT car. 300+ whp and awd with a newbie driver can mess things up in a hurry. Hell, it doesn't even take that much WHP, I've owned a AWD turbo car since the early 90s and just about every one of them had soem sort of drivetrain complaints. A very large portions of those problems can be chalked up to driver error and people not knowing how to launch and drive AWD cars properly.

You could maybe make the argument that some of the older Hondas that had such restrictive intakes and exhausts were poorly engineered. But considering how reliable those cars were/are it's tough to argue with what Honda was doing. They were engineered well, Honda just didn't extract the most horsepower they could out of them.

Actually it just means "product of a compromised design to appease the bean counters" Who think all cars should be gutless, unobstrusive, unremarkable appliances that take people from point A to point B with as little fuss as possible, and generating the most revenue to the seller for theleast ammount of investment while appealing to the "average buyer"--You know, the middle aged, multi ethnic middle class worker with exactly 2.3 children, who rents/owns (but still makes payments on) a house, and has $10,235 in credit card balances.

ok, I will, it will not be today or tomorrow, but I will prove you wrong.

I was able to prove to people that the renesis in race trim cam make close to 240 rwhp with only boltons and a microtech ecu, I was call a liar by a lot of people when I said this, since it was a long time ago an there was not so much expirience with the renesis at that time.