showing off my grand am cup rx8
 

Ok, so I don't own an rx8, but I drive a rx8 in the grand am cup for H.B.A.R. racing. We are making our debut in laguna seca. Here are some pics of the car enjoy.

COOL~~~

could you tell me what parts can make the 8 fast?

That's awesome! How do you like the 8? :D

And what the hell are those sparks in the third pic!

Well since we are in the ST class. there is not much that we can do. WE are allowed open computer, route the stock intake box, pulleys, and anything past the headers is open. I can tell you that you don't need a motec to go fast. I would love to tell you about the wonderful exhaust we have, but right now it is top secret, until its finished and we get tecked. We are running unorthodox pulleys. I am not sure they do anything for power at the moment. I can say that we are putting down about 220 to the wheels...ITs all about exhaust and computer tuning!!! The RX8 is such an amazing car. The breaks are dead stock and stop like crazy.I out break miatas all day long. and if anyone knowes about racing then you know they stop crazy. On this car there is no need for aftermarket breaks. Just some good pads. The car is so neutral its amazing. If there is anything else youd like to know please just holler

PS. the sparks are from the muffler that broke because we ran to lean.

looks like the cat fried,,

There is actually a muffler there....and we don't have any cats on the car

Can you share with us your race schedule?

Did you do any suspension mods? And what brake pads are you running? If you are tunning the stock PCM, how are you leaning out the AFR?

Nice pics, and good luck in your efforts!

220whp with just exhaust and tuning sounds awesome.
So what are you using for computer tuning, or is that top secret too. :)
Hopefully it's an emanage since that's what I got with my turbo kit. I'm getting the emanage support tool soon and will be reading up on how to tune this thing.
So much stuff, but it'll keep me busy for awhile.

Yes...please, give us more information!

So computer, exhaust, and removal of the cat = "about" 45-30HP?

Teach us...we would all love to know how that was done. Details...well, without the secret stuff PLEASE!!!!!

Thanks for posting!

We are running race jic flt a2's not ones that you can buy in america. The break pads are cobalt. We are sponsored by them. If you want a schedule please go to www.grand-am.com.
We are devloping a program that will allows us to completely tune the stock pcm. Right now we have a program that can slightly tune the stock pcm and an emanage on top of that. WE decided to go with that to keep our abs....this car has amazing breaks...and handels well...all the power in rotary motors is in the exhaust...most exhaust on the market are just for sound...we have a single exhaust coming out the center...that is all i can say...sorry..maybe in about 3 months we will produce an exhaust for the masses..but until then...lol sorry

First off I'm not bashing you in any way so please don't take any offense to this. I definitely agree that power is all in the tuning but I disagree with the exhaust on this engine. The past rotaries have had wonderful power unlocked from the exhaust but this car is different. Since you can't touch the exhaust manifold and can only play around from there back, there really isn't much you can keep secret nor is there a whole lot of power you can get. You might have gotten a few horsepower from the exhaust but the days of 30%+ gains from the exhaust are gone. Most of your power came from retuning the ecu and not your "secret" exhaust.

secrets suck :D

I wonder how loud an open exhaust manifold would be :) Does the exhaust need any backpressure?

Damn, I gotta get that job. What suspension setup are you running? Are you allowed to change that in Grand Am? It doesn't appear to be stock.

And Wheels/Tires? The rears, from the angles of the pictures anyhow, look huge -- like 295s or something. But could be the angles, as it seems an unusual choice for a (relatively-speaking) low-powered car that you want to maintain neutral balance on.

Pretty damn loud!

You never need exhaust backpressure. Show me a race car with backpressure and I'll show you a loser. Backpressure isn't more important at one rpm than another. It is an all or nothing phenomenon. This gets many people very confused since lots of people say you need backpressure to make low end power. No you don't. The real problem is having too much flow and too little velocity for your needs. Notice this doesn't mention backpressure. A pipe/muffler/manifold/etc... can only flow so much at a certain pressure. At lower rpms you have less exhaust gas flowing through the system. A smaller pipe that hurts power at high rpms and causes backpressure at these rpms may not be a restriction at a lower rpm. Therefore it may not have any backpressure. The problem is when you have too much flow and too little exhaust gas velocity. The pressure waves in an exhaust are very strong and need to be utilized to make good power. When you use an overly large exhaust pipe you do 2 things. You slow the air down and you cool it. As the air slows down, it loses energy. If you had a high velocity exhaust, it would have more energy in it and run hotter. This added velocity also helps pull the gasses from the following exhaust pulse down the pipe with it. When you make that pipe larger, you weaken this momentum. I am ignoring other things in a race exhaust such as megaphone effects but this should give you a decent idea of how it works.

:eek: I'll bet it is.

Bliss mentioned: Why are you running a muffler on the track? Wouldn't a race exhaust setup that RG talked about in brief be better?

Some tracks have noise restrictions. Mufflers don't have to hurt power. It is easy to get a muffler that works good but doesn't hurt power.

You can bash...that is ok..We have gone through about 25 different exhaust designs so...i know the hard work that was put into this.. The owner of the team is the person that designed the rotary motors for the boating world.

Nobody has bashed anything...don't be so defensive :)

I'm not bashing. I'm not even doubting your power output. I'm stating facts. There is no secret untapped power in the exhaust after the manifold. There's a few hp but no miracles. Most of your power came from tuning. Lots of people have gone through multiple designs looking for that last horsepower. That's what you need to do in the racing world to be the best and as a good race team you did.

Why do rotaries retrofitted into boats have any relevance?

hes just saying the team owner knows his way around rotaries

I'd almost wager that a boat rotary and a 8 rotary are as different as apples and oranges. Unless they are sticking a renesis in a racing boat...now there's a thought.