No. You can see from the thread that people here are more realistic than you are.

What your brother did says: "Subaru is really terrible at getting power from their cars. They just kinda half-ass it, and it's REALLY easy to find improvement points."

Unlike Mazda, who milked the hell out of this 1.3 liter engine, dialed the ECU back very slightly, and added a cat to meet emissions compliance. If Subaru had milked the STI's engine for all it had, then improvements on the STI would be crazy expensive too mod as well.

You obviously haven't actually investigated how the turbo'ing of the other Mazdas turned out. Numbers on paper, not much more. The Speed3 and Speed6 have significant oil seal and surge problems (did you know you can take a brand new stock Speed3, put it in 6th gear @ ~40mph, and punch the gas and listen to the turbo seal blow out?). The Mazdaspeed Miata was by far the heaviest Miata ever made, and the turbo system was remarkably underpowered and underefficient.

Mazda should generally stay away from turbocharging IMO :) Their track record is worse than it appears on the surface (contrary to rotary, which appears worse than it is)

My Mom's 4th cousin (5 times removed) told his cow something about my Dad's brother's neighbor's co-worker's mistress's hooker friend that made my boss's son's classmate decide to change the color of his boxer shorts.

Hey, I heard about that, too...

See! It's fact. Statistically significant, and can form the basis of any legal or scientific arguement.

[QUOTE=RIWWP;4116177]No. You can see from the thread that people here are more realistic than you are.



What your brother did says: "Subaru is really terrible at getting power from their cars. They just kinda half-ass it, and it's REALLY easy to find improvement points."

Unlike Mazda, who milked the hell out of this 1.3 liter engine, dialed the ECU back very slightly, and added a cat to meet emissions compliance. If Subaru had milked the STI's engine for all it had, then improvements on the STI would be crazy expensive too mod as well.



You obviously haven't actually investigated how the turbo'ing of the other Mazdas turned out. Numbers on paper, not much more. The Speed3 and Speed6 have significant oil seal and surge problems (did you know you can take a brand new stock Speed3, put it in 6th gear @ ~40mph, and punch the gas and listen to the turbo seal blow out?). The Mazdaspeed Miata was by far the heaviest Miata ever made, and the turbo system was remarkably underpowered and underefficient.

Mazda should generally stay away from turbocharging IMO :) Their track record is worse than it appears on the surface (contrary to rotary, which appears worse than it is)


i mean you make some good points but i really dont think that subaru is "terrible at getting power from their cars" i think that a stock 365hp/tq might scare people away or put that car in a new relm. and had they "milked everything out of their engine" it would be a 500hp death machine and who would seriously need to add any power to that? i love my 8 but it's really nowhere near that sti. sure the 8 handles beautifully and looks amazing and is a nice comfy ride, but the sti handles just as good, embarrasses people it should embarrass due to its "sports car" class and sounds as good as a rotary although theyre very dif. i just wish that Mazda could have taken the extra step in making the 8 go from great to incredible. also im an extremely realistic person. i really just wanted to see if anyone had any ideas as to why mazda never made one and i found more than one answer.

Both of these statements are factually inaccurate.

You have to take each car near the limit to determine which is better, but the STI will fall short much much faster. The STI is also not, in any stretch of the imagination, a "sports car". "Hot hatch" is closer, or "sports sedan". Not at all a sports car.

And he's a proven rotary expert?

The turbo might have contributed to some of the issues, but it shouldn't have been the primary cause of failure. It probably had a lot to do with heat issues, especially if it was modified and didn't have properly upgraded cooling modifications.

There are 2 ways to look at the power/potential thing. Mazda did a great job of getting as much power out of the engine as possible. That also means that it's almost at it's limit without significant modification. On the other hand, Subaru could be credited for setting goals and producing an engine that's able to surpass their goals without being near it's limit. Getting most of the potential out of an engine is great (assuming it's not at the cost of reliability) as long as you have no plans of modifying for performance purposes. If you want to improve the performance, it's nice to start with a platform that isn't already near the limit. I'd rather have a company overshoot their goal when designing the engine.

I'll admit that I was slightly disappointed in the RX-8 for that reason. I enjoy modifying things, and with cars I tend to favor power modifications a bit more. This was especially true for the RX-8, since it's already such a great car when it comes to handling. With a brand new car, it's hard to predict the future ability to modify a car, but with an established car I will definitely take the ability to modify it into consideration when choosing between different cars.

The key place where the RX-8 will shine is the overall feel. The STi just doesn't compare to the 8 in that regard. Regardless of what you decide to call the STi, it is definitely a performance car and it does perform well. It can absolutely compete with the 8. It's not like the the STi is suddenly out classed when both cars are pushed hard.

wow! so this thread is for rotary experts only? and i can't even post based on what i was told.
it was heavily modified 7 and participated in number of modified auto shows.
may be i shouldn't have used the word "killed" since he revived it before selling it.

This thread is for anyone who is interested in discussing the topic.
All you did was offer some 3rd hand knowledge, and you were corrected :)

^ I guess I'm just curious what your purpose of commenting was. Were you looking for validation of that statement? If not, I can only assume you were stating it as if his comment had some validity.

People are just reacting because that statement is a little inaccurate and misleading. Turbos can help contribute to more stress on an engine, but so many things can be involved in the actual failure of an engine that it's a little misleading to just say it was the turbo.

It's not that it's for rotary experts, it's just that "My brother/friend/uncle/etc said" stuff holds no water when trying to support one side of an argument. It happens a lot here and there is a lot of misinformation floating around because of it.

For the sake of being on topic, this thread should have been started about 7 years ago. Wait a minute, it was, many times over the years.

I can not be pissed with you OP, as it's over and done with. Mazda simply had nothing to gain by producing an MS 8 for the states. I can't say that i would have bought one if available, just like i would never buy a MS miata. Why spend more money on less when i can buy less and make it more, for less cost?

milkis, it wasn't the turbo that killed your brother in law's 7, it was your brother in law...Probably.

A turbo 7 did have more maintanance that had to be done and more mods that should have been done from factory but if you bought a brand new FD today and you took care of it, it would probably last you a very long time.

:hahano:
guess i can't argue with someone who still owns one.

Hahaha. The problem with owning such an old car is that people forget that the small parts inside have to be replaced. I bet if your brother in law did that and stayed on top of his maintanance he'd be ok. It's funny, I did almost a full refresh of everything outside of the short block except one thing and now that one thing is haunting me.

You answered your own question.

Mazda got just about everything they could out of the Rennie while still maintained a minimum level of reliability and fuel economy while meeting emmissions standards.

People have to admit, 230 hp out of a naturaly aspirated 1.3L engine is pretty impressive.

Why the assumption that because it is Mazdaspeed that it would/should have a turbo when the official Mazdaspeed RX8 race cars don't even run a turbo? If a publicly available Mazdaspeed RX8 did come available I would much prefer that it came with the official 20B instead of a turbo. Just my .02.

whatchu talkin bout willis... my ms rx8 has turbo........along with a bunch of other members :lol:

For the cost of picking up a greddy kit these days its not that crazy expensive to do.... if they did make an ms version for the market and it was FI it would be expensive. look at the costs of the r3 (and thats NA).

yea because that would be MUCH cheaper :lol:

Technically, there were 2.
2003 (Japan) Mazdaspeed. 300 cars, slightly tuned ECU and MS trim packages.
2004 (Japan) Mazdaspeed Version II, only 300 produced, same as before with different colors.

idk man. have you ever driven an sti? its most definitely a sports car. the 04 didnt even come with a stereo because they wanted it to be as lightweight and as much like the rally car as possible. and no offense to anyone on here or the 8 because i love mine, the STI is better than the 8 as far as a car that performs. the 8 can keep up on a track but all it does is keep up. it just doesnt have the power to pass a car like that if it hits a straight. i'll say it one more time to be clear,I LOVE MY 8, it just doesnt have the power that i think it DESERVES. and ya i know mazda did what they could and its a 1.3 and NA and what not but it just barely falls short for me personally because with all that work that they did they could only get to 232hp and as much torque as a hotwheels.
so far the best idea ive heard with this discussion is a mazdaspeed with the 20b. now that woulda been worth the extra money for sure and certainly would have had enough power to satisfy me.....for awhile anyways haha
i do appreciate the info and discussion so thank you everyone for the feedback.

I wish for a lot of things.
I know you love your 8, but there's no need to be upset because they didn't come out with FI model.
If it bothers you so much, add a turbo/supercharger. It's feasible for a decent price. Lot's of build threads to follow. Just do it right the first time.
You'll get more power with an aftermarket turbo, than you would with a factory one, anyways.

im not really upset. more intrigued as to "why not?" mostly because i just think it would have been super awesome...as to the cost of a turbo, what do you think it would cost? i have about 5k saved but i dont feel like thats enough to cover everything.

Yes I have driven one. It doesn't change the fact that the STI is NOT a sports car. I'm not decrying it's performance capability, but just because it has performance doesn't make it a sports car. "Sports car" is a type, not a performance mark. Take a look at the Bentley Brooklands. 530hp 774tq RWD 4 door sedan. Sports car? It beats the STI silly right? (well, other than the fact that it's 5,900lbs, making it only a bit faster 0-60 than the 8)

*hint, I'm just trying to point out the flaw in your thinking*

There are lots of people that insist the RX-8 isn't even a sports car, because of it's rear doors / rear seats.


You are halfway to where you should be sitting at before you begin to buy parts. Take advantage of the time spent saving to also work on accumulating knowledge of all the issues people face. That may save you even more money in the long run.

looking at close to 10K to go FI the right way
plus money for an extra engine once that one goes :lol:

You either want a real race car or you don't. You either want a cheap car or you don't. If you want both you get a Mazdaspeed 3...if you don't you get a Mazdaspeed RX8. The Mazdaspeed 3 is the street version of the Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge racing Mazdaspeed 3...so...in theory...the Mazdaspeed RX8 should be the street version of the Grand-am Racing Mazdaspeed RX8. If that happens to mean that I have to pay $45K instead of $32K...that's the price I pay for having a street version of a real racecar.