Hey you should send this to some car magazine, car racing site or something. It's great!
All falkens we get here in Greece now are made in Turkey. Don't know if yours are made somewhere else but what we get is no longer made in Japan.
Wish the best for next season. And keep those posts coming!

As always a great write up. Love Gingerman. By far the track I’m best at. Hope to catch you at one of the last events this year. I probably have one more in me this fall.
Trying to save money for a gt500 while trying to track down a dealer that will sell it msrp.

Hah! I don't think my writing is worthy of a magazine. Just a way I find comfortable for myself to reflect, but I appreciate the kind words.

Someone else had mentioned where the Falkens were made. I'd need to check the date codes. According to some other guys, when I bought them they shouldn't have had some quality issues. But like I said, I think the chunkage was all driver error here. I definitely ranked on the wheel with hot tires and understeer. BAD!

I want to try to get out to Gingerman before the end of the season. We will see how I am feeling, because right now I am TIRED haha. Definitely planning to get Waterford Hills in October for their last OTD though. Hoping to bring some coworkers with, too.

S2 4.77 Rear End

So.. I had this thing delivered about 5 hours before we had to have the car on the trailer for Midwest. Thought about putting it on.. but I didn't want to risk it. Glad I didn't, just for my own sanity.

But hey, as soon as I got back I tossed the car in the air and got to work. Slowly working on it and 3 days later it's in. The bolts for the mounting bushings didn't seize! Yay!

Some photos:


https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.rx8...da9e8b4505.jpg
https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.rx8...b70d1d891c.jpg
https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.rx8...0762fbad94.jpg
https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.rx8...b4fdac7f6a.jpg


Initial impressions: Heck yeah son! Definitely an upgrade on a budget, and the car has a lot more response. 4th gear shift from redline in 3rd is WAY less boggy, but definitely could be a bit shorter yet. Hard to say for sure from a single highway run at night.. but I'm definitely happy with the upgrade so far. Shifting feels like it can be faster too with less RPM drop. 10/10 would recommend.

I think over the winter I may use the other axle to build up a 5.12 + Cusco/OS Giken/etc unit and see how that does. Until then, I'm super stoked to race this thing.

do not put a pos Cusco etc. in there, get a proper OSG

you'll need an oil cooler setup for tracking on a 5.125 R&P too

Coincidentally I asked through email that Aussie dude who makes 5.12 r&p for rx8/7s and he told me he won't be making another batch.
On the diff, I 've read on the internets that Cuscos are just rebranded Kaaz?

Open to options, but the Cusco 1.5 way seems to be the goto for all the Subaru guys. My buddy who works in the automotive tier 1 axle supplier industry is rocking a Cusco and has nothing but good to say. He's benchmarked a lot of stuff too, so I value his opinion highly. I'll have to drive his car and see if it's proper.

Other friend is rocking an OS Giken too and is doing some serious damage on the track... so... tl;dr I am open to options and haven't looked into it past just knowing on a high level what's out there.

Good call on an upgraded oil cooler though, didn't think of that immediately as a need, but makes sense.

Whelp. Shit. Maybe there goes that plan all together. Seemed to be the only guy making em. I'll have to check out Mazdaspeed Racing.. I thought I saw a few ring gear options on their site... $$$$ but what else are ya gonna do?

Maybe he'll reconsider? Or find a used one?
osg diffs can take a beating. Don't know if those made now are made with the same resources as the older ones but maybe I'm just the "they made it better back in the day" dude. They surely seem more robust than competition with a 40% premium on price.

Pad slapped some XP12 yesterday, actually thought the pads were lower than they were. Ah well, good backups! This is 1.5 seasons of use, VERY mild street use.

https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.rx8...a4f5caa027.jpg
https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.rx8...5f1d174628.jpg

Some other fun notes on inspection of the car:

At Gingerman last time I was there I had this odd grinding noise ONLY when hitting the brakes in reverse.. never was a problem on track so I just said whatever and kept going. Came to find the top caliper bolt was not existent anymore. WHOOPS. But that allowed the caliper to rotate when reverse. Real sketchy, let's try to not do that again.

Trying to get to at least one more event before the snow starts blowing in... looks like it's either next weekend or that's it... we will see.

Don't really want to self promote too much, but figured I'd leave it here for anyone reading this, or stumbling upon it with a google search.

I developed a controller that you can use to plug into the OEM Mazda RX-8 EPS controller that allows the EPS to act standalone from the rest of the system. 4 wires, and you're done. I like making boards, so here's one that looks cool and does a job!


https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.rx8...47016d7610.png

If anyone wants more details, just let me direct you away from this website.. which is exactly what websites hate haha: www.facebook.com/GROMElectronics

Is this a good thing ? Please explain why you would want to do that.

Not me, specifically, but anyone without a factory ECM, or a different manufacturers ECM would require something like this

If you could make a board that eliminates the pwr stg , abs, , imobiliser , dash and anything else that stops you from exchanging ecus ........ I know numerous race car drivers that would be all over it !

This is definitely up the my alley, but it's tricky:

Power steering: Solved, haha.

ECMs: I can program ECUs to work with the immobilizer your car is tethered too.. however it's basically just a hardware clone, not a full disable. Just need a copy of 1 of the ECUs and then you can program as many other ECUs as you'd like.

Dash/clusters aren't tethered to the vehicle, but are driven by factory CAN signals. I have reversed engineered most of the cluster functionality and can drive it.. however getting those actual inputs from people's vehicles is different since every engine/controller has a different way of broadcasting metrics. Creating something that caters to everyone is hard, and creating something that caters to the exact 3 people with an engine/chassis combo is expensive

ABS: Just unplug the unit, haha!

It's out there.

https://www.chamberofunderstanding.c...-working-code/

Season Wrap-up Post + Winter Plans

Figured I'd make a post about the season since it's getting cold here in Michigan, which means tires comes inside and soul crushing depression sim racing season is here. Always good to reflect on the good and the bad, but first we can reflect on the objective:

https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.rx8...29cdede807.png

Ended up 16/37 and managed to scrape up a decent amount of points at each event. Seeing as points are based off the time of the winner, being in 16th with the rest of the pack almost half of my point behind feels like it was an all around good drive, and not a single track ringer. Solid mid pack, and I'm happy with it.

On to the good and bad.

The good:

• The car didn't break very much! I clocked ~3000 miles this summer between racing, driving to tracks, and the small amount of street driving the car, for the most part it only took gas and oil. That's pretty damn alright, but perhaps fairly expected for a low strung car?
• Car improvement over the course of the season was fantastic. Suspension, tires, aero, everything.. all amazing upgrades and didn't kill the bank. The car is so much more fun to drive, and has more grip than one (me) knows what to do with. I learned a ton trying to keep the car on the track, and also trying to make it go faster.
• Raced at two new tracks, that's pretty sick. Told myself I wouldn't have a problem skipping out on some events and selling off the tickets.. but ended up doing them all with a smile on my face. Definitely want to go back to them too, venturing out of your SUPER local neighborhood is always fun. Did 5 tracks this summer, 12 year old me probably wouldn't have managed that in Gran Turismo.
• I love the car and will continue to race it

The meh:

• Car kept blowing through rear caliper piston seals, found another one last week. Not sure if this is an effect of shitty auto parts store calipers, but something needs to be done about it. I have low expectation for shims helping block heat, so I may just need to start rebuilding them myself and just guess and check who makes the more durable seals. Haven't found much on this matter from searching, and it looks like rear BBKs with good pad selection don't really exist without a decent amount of modification. Will be keeping my eyes open...
• SSV solenoid is still re-plumbed as the secondary air.. I should probably fix that.. damn permanently temporary fixes
• Driver's side control arm. It's still fucked, and you can feel it in the car. Will address.
• I still want more rear camber

The bad:

• Power output for being competitive in class I don't think will ever be there, which is fine. We will see where the rules move to, and keep trying to gear it better. We have revs, not torque.. let's just gear it short and get a slamming shifter (I hear CAE is making something for the 6 speed.. wink wink nudge nude)

I think that's all of the bad, really. I love this car in a way I never thought I could.

On to winter work:

• Sunroof Delete - It's going. I'm going to try to make my own carbon fiber plug... we will see how that goes. Sounds like another $1000 Garrett endeavor with results that don't matter
• Dataloggers - I need something to capture all of the potential data I know is readily available from the car. I want to go faster, and push limits a bit. I need to know how close I am getting.
• Oil Coolers - Upgraded cores is the desire, upgraded (read: not rusty OEM) lines are a need. Will be going through that as it gets colder out
• More weight reduction. Let's get more serious than we were before. It matters. BBK for weight?? At least two piece rotors I think.. wheels, could they be lighter?? I dunno!
• Suspension tuning - I've got more bushings to press into things. Hiem everything and more camber... maybe drop the car a tad lower? I know I need to re corner balance.
• Brake Ducting - I think I finally want to add this in, I did manage a LITTLE bit of reduced braking on some hot runs towards the end of the season adding more speed in. Let's get that sorted before it becomes an actual issue
• Clutch Pedal - Reinforcement time, can't wait for it to break when I'm not thinking of it
• CAE shifter. If they make it, I am buying it. I saw they were looking for a vehicle for an RX-8 6 speed kit fitment testing
• Semi related but kinda note: More work on the reflash kernel for the OEM ECMs. Open source stuff is just fun.
• Driver's side control arm. It's time. I have my angle grinder and a can-do attitude
• Probably should get into the dealership for that fuel pump gasket recal, eh?
• Fuel surge tank?? I was getting REAL bad fuel cut while running the car to what I thought wasn't crazy low on gas.. not sure if that's worth investing time into, or just take the couple gallon weight hit and keep it mostly full. Not a huge priority but I need to write it down or it'll get forgotten

There's probably more I am forgetting... but that'll suffice for now. Nothing too wild, and if I only spend a few grand this winter I'll have called it a budget winter.

Super exciting to dig more into this thing and get back on the track soon. Until then, it's time to throw snow tires on my STi hatch and practice my Scandinavian flicks while bitching about traffic until spring when I can only bitch about traffic.

No issues with OEM rear calipers for me even with ST43s so I assume it's the parts store calipers at fault. New OEM are kinda pricey but at least the OEM seals are cheap and readily available and no heat issues.

Agreed, the RX-8 will never make enough power to be competitive in Club TR. Sucks, but it is what it is.

Series 2 fuel pump/surge tank thingy is a pretty easy upgrade and I can run mine down until the light comes on.


I'm hoping to do Pocono & NJMP next year but we'll see :)

There was a guy here who replaced the roof panel with a dry cc one. If you're thinking of 1k, might worth checking out if they still produce.
Mazda RX-8 dry carbon roof / Marsh Composites

​​​​​​​Hope everything goes smoothly during winter.
​​​​​

I may try to grab some OEM seals and rebuild my set. I think that'll yield nicer results.

Will also looking into that S2 fuel surge thing.. sounds interesting.


There's a couple of full roofs I was looking at, however unfortunately due to rule classing, alternative materials cannot be used for a full roof, but the sunroof isn't considered part of the roof, so a delete panel can be carbon. I found a couple examples of plugs, but they all either didn't exist anymore (Sneed4Speed), or they are shitty (LRB). I've always wanted to mess around with carbon fiber stuff, and this is a good excuse to give it a shot. I've got some good tips from my brother (Aero engineer who's hand laid carbon for airfoils before), so I think I can manage a roof plug :shrug:. Always willing to waste money if I learn something, even if the end product sucks a bit.

​​​​​​​Oh, that's definitely more exciting and rewarding as an experience. I am sure you will work it out.

Great job! Any tips + tricks on the diff install? I'm hoping to do the 4.77 swap sooner than later but don't want to pay shop prices on that work when its more or less a bolt-on affair.

Pretty simple take old off and put new in. If you rear end bushings are in bad shape and seized up so you can loosen stuff up, it'll be a huuuuge pain to get the rear axles in/out. Best advice I've got.

Agency Power Midpipe

Nothing too wild here, found a midpipe that seemed like it made more sense to have so I slapped it in. Honestly, the best part about it was just having new hardware and gaskets that aren't rusted. More powah to be had? Probably not.


https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.rx8...42f504d8c8.jpg

While I was under the car, I also did see one of the trans sensors leaking from the interface to the case. Gave it a nice jerk to see if compressing the crush washer more fixes it.

https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.rx8...25b2921673.jpg

Unrelated sidenote: Winter has finally come. The weather is cold, but the shop is warm. Subaru with snow tires is essential for keeping moral up. Gonna be a dark few months boys and girls.

https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.rx8...a0ef4c4947.jpg

might look closer next time to make sure it’s not leaking from the potting at the wiring end and drizzling to the case; common issue with that sensor.

Was browsing ebay and saw that the Aussie dude who made 5.1, 5.3 r&p for RX8s has stock up for sale.

not the 5.1, just the 5.3 and 5.8

there might be an old listing stating 5.1 though, but word is he’s not going to make any more once these are all sold out, which the 5.1 already is.

Aw man, you can't do me like that and tell me something is there with no link :worship:

I did try to search for it and found not much. Too much trash on ebay.

ever notice how writing a whole stream of nonsensical curse words mid-sentence is common now, but nobody ever bothers to say please any more … :suspect:


https://www.ebay.com/itm/13394918822...sAAMXQuTNTM1Cu


note that the 5.1 isn’t listed in the description despite the title (the guy isn’t dumb 😉 ), but asking him about it is free, try not to get your hopes up though …

.

Sent the guy a message, looks like he has some 5.1 stuff... HMMM

apology for if my words were inaccurate; could have sworn that was discussed on the forum some where

any way, might be best to take heed to this post:

https://www.rx8club.com/rx-8-racing-...4/#post4918386

best wishes otherwise

​​​​​​.

Made some headway on some logger stuff this week.. I'll do a proper post when it's actually all in car but I'm way too stoked on this to not post something.

So, logging data is easy. I have auto industry above standard CAN logging tools that I could just plug in to the vehicle, setup the laptop and off we go... buuuuuuuuuuut I wanted to make an autonomous logging system for the car that will always log when the car is on, and not take up room. tl;dr idiot proof so that when I am rushing around at the track, I don't have one more thing to forget about.

So Raspberry Pi it was. I already rocked one on my Subaru running off the shelf software with available drivers for cheap hardware. It just worked. Didn't have that for CAN... so I went experimenting with a few things. SocketCAN sucks, and I already had a Tactrix J2534 cable and some drivers I couldn't really ever get working.

Threw some python code together modifying some J2534 libs, and I got the dongle to communicate. I didn't have it polling though... so I went into the drivers, modified some C code, modified a lot of python.. and yeehaw we got it spitting data out.

Taking it a step further, being able to see info live on a screen is only so useful.. so I added some more code in to log it all into a format I can use my tools to review... it worked... way too well.

The end result for now, is basically cheap hardware that can log a full Mazda (and Subaru, I did test it on my GR STi) bus, and save the info to a file format I can use to professionally review. I need to add in a couple more things to handle errors, auto/start stop, log splitting and saving, status lights/etc, and some other housekeeping items but it's looking super rad so far. I will also want to hard mount this thing in a case I'll probably print out at some point too.

I also THINK I should be able to add some ECU PIDs and ABS module PIDs to the query and log list.. I just have no idea if the bandwidth of the Tactrix will be able to keep up.. we will see.

And now I have full access to my 10ms oil temp/pressure sensors I have on my display that I had thrown on the bus for this reason

https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.rx8...d752ef374a.png


https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.rx8...9e341af2d3.png


https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.rx8...cc6747775f.png

https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.rx8...99caa3ecbf.jpg

That's really cool stuff! Any plans to integrate an accelerometer?

So, I am still deciding how I want to do all of this, because integrating this stuff into something like a Solo or any "driver logger" is sort of tough. I think I want to keep all of this in the "car domain" and leave the driver logger in the "driver domain" out of sheer simplicity. Using both of those pieces of information separately, I can come to conclusions about driving and the car separately, and if need be.. resort to car data to sort out driver data and vice versa. In a perfect world, it would all be in the same device, in the same file, in the same time axis. Unfortunately, to get good driver data, you are spending a lot of money on a VBox or the like, which lacks in vehicle data. Right now I am heavy on the vehicle data with a bit of an engineering way to parse through data instead of an intuitive way. I'll figure out how to bridge that gap as time goes on.

But to answer your question:
I've got an accelerometer in my lap timer, which I can sync up to vehicle data manually if needed. The vehicle also has a lat G sensor, and a rate sensor.. which..I think contrary to older posts/findings IS on the vehicle CAN bus. If not, K line querying it is.

Having racing withdraws while we get pounded with some snow, so I stole someone else's video of their Track Mod E46 M3, and sync'd my in car with it. No idea why he kept going offline to brake, clearly you can see him braking before I am even off the gas in some places! Interesting perspective I had never seen before.

In regards to your issues with killing rear calipers.
I believe there are only 2 factories rebuilding the rear calipers in the aftermarket. One is Callahan/Powerstop and the other is Cardone and pretty much any you find are these or rebadged.
I had the same issues with Callahan/Powerstop calipers this passed year. They don't hold up. The Callahan calipers in my experience are typically painted gray, often with a sticky finish.
I think something fell off with quality this passed year either way, as I have used Powerstop calipers in prior years and they held up.

I have some of the Cardone calipers I am trying out at Chuckwalla in a few weeks, they have a tan glossy paint finish.

I imagine the Mazda calipers are the best option.

my deduction is the other car either has more lateral traction than yours or you’re simply not using the chosen line to full advantage

also that the wide line is not necessarily the fastest line if the speed gained is not sufficient relative to extra distance traveled

but mostly “seemed” like you weren’t really taking full advantage of the line being chosen, from the perspective of being a casual observer of a video.
.

I'm 100% sure that's the case, first time at that track and I THINK this was the first session after only one session in the rain the day before?? Can't recall. I did run it a few times on my racing sim in a 350z though.

What I do recall is thinking this guy was gonna divebomb me every time he went off line to brake. You can actually see me checking mirrors in the last curve where he gets a bit slidy and then purposefully running wide assuming he was going for a dive. Fast and hard point by because I just wanted him gone at that point. He's in a track mod car, which is basically 2 classes up and should have lot more jam. I was definitely faster than him through plenty of twisty bits.. but yeah. He had the power.

I do also remember the car being quite bouncy at that track, which you can also see.

Dunno, it's cool, you don't typically get a good third person view of your racing.

well I stress again that’s just viewing a video rather than being in the passenger seat, so take it with a barrel of salt. :)
.

So first time I stumbled across your thread, and first of all, its extremely inspiring seeing a average to poor condition (rust wise at least) rx8 performing so well for you. I am hoping I can also go the Copart route this spring and build a cheap car. But thats at the wife's discression since it would sit in our driveway all the time and I have another rx8 in the garage that just sits on jackstands.

Very cool seeing the electronics and 3D printing tech put into your processes. I am familiar with circuitry and basic board layout but you obviously have a great handle on it. 3D printing on the other hand I have been doing for a long time and am heavily involved with that hobby. Actually for your intake bracket cracking, infill increase may not add much for strength, but if you increase your outer wall thickness, use lower layer heights (0.10mm instead of 0.20mm) and bump temps up 10-20C you should have a much stronger part. You may know this already but just a friendly 3D printing tip.

Also I am curious to what sims you play? Would be great to play with someone if ever interested (really only ACC right now), it would also be cool to pick your brain a bit on getting a track-prepped rx8 build going.

Lastly your commentary in the thread is awesome. Its not just a progress update and self-made bullet list of stuff to do and done like most threads, keep it up.

Thank you for the kind words! Like I think I've mentioned about 1000 times, it's important for me (and I think everyone) to have a medium to reflect on the things they do, this is the way I do for all things RX-8 related.

The RX-8 was definitely worse off than I intended it to be, but accepting the fact it's never going to look like a minty fresh show car, nor a 100% thought out Grand AM/IMSA/etc car helps me get through the painfulness of how shitty it is, hah! I would definitely recommend Copart if you're after a cheapy car. Great deals to be had, even not not cheapy cars.

I think you're right on the money with the 3D printing advice. I also think me design just sucks ass, but it's super easy to just hit "go" on the printer instead of actually redesigning it. Not great, but I'll get to it eventually haha.

I've got Asseto Corsa I've used to get some local tracks, but I mainly race on iRacing. Been out of it for a bit lately with all my house projects and needing ANOTHER PC to run my VR setup. I've got plenty of graphics cards in my mining rig I could steal from, but I just haven't gotten another board together for it. I think the latest GRIDLIFE iRacing series may convince me to upgrade my general purpose desktop CPU and steal some components from that to put on another board though :D

If you're an iRacing person I would def reccomend some of the Gridlife series. Lots of fun to be had.

Small update, got some work done on the car that isn't a sunroof delete. Just me and some power tools bonding. Seized bushings on this car are no more! I'm happy I can finally adjust the camber and toe.


https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.rx8...12e493281b.jpg
https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.rx8...68e8c6199b.jpg

https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.rx8...0fc770710a.jpg

Bonus "Lift Incoming" post!

Got myself a Bendpak XPR-10S, should be good for 10,000lbs. Just checked my concrete and I've got 6 inches of it, so we are ready to go. Hoping to get the posts up next weekend.


https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.rx8...2f6a775487.jpg

The 3D printing parameters are just in the slicer, not modiflying the actual 3D model. Super easy but I get it.

As for mining, yeah I wish I didn't sell my setup back in 2017, dumb dumb move.

I only play maybe once a week, but am on ACC (Assett Corsa Competizione) couldn't handle the cost of getting into iRacing. Currently 3D printing a racing wheel for my cheap ass setup actually.

I'll keep watching the thread. Your garage / barn setup makes me extremely jealous. Some day.

Now I know why I recognized your name, didn't put two and two together that you'd be in the iRacing league too. Duh!

Small update/question.. been too cold to make more progress on the sunroof delete panel, and I've already gassed my house once by putting down a gel coat on the sunroof, so it was promptly moved outside. hah.. but I noticed this the other day when the thought of roof bracing came up. When I swapped out the roof skin on my Impreza for a non sunroof skin (years ago) I had to add in 3 support bars that weren't present on the sunroof models as the sunroof acted as a brace.

Looked at the Mazda parts, and what do ya know.. an extra brace.


https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.rx8...2dac1ffeb0.png

Looking at the sunroof, it definitely is pretty flimsy.. so I am wondering if this is just a support structure to be able to secure the non-sunroof roof into the place, or if it's actually a structural part. The bends in the metal make it sure seem like it is to me, but I am a software guy.

Going back to my Impreza example, two of the 3 roof bars were just there to support the roof skin, and only one was truly added chassis stiffening. From all of the sunroof delete posts I could find on the forum/internet it didn't seem like anyone has done much to add in extra bracing when removing the sunroof assembly. I am wondering if this is something I should be concerned about?

My first thought is no.. but my second thought is that is would be pretty simple to create a small aluminum brace to bolts into the gusset plates where the sunroof assembly does, so maybe worth the evening to toss something in??

Anyone have any insight/opinions?

I'd definitely put something in its place IMO, Shouldn't be too difficult and the pillar design is why the rx'8 has such a rigid chassis. Mind as well not compromise their design.

It’s braced, just differently to account for the sunroof. You could maybe argue it being stiffer even, but I’m not suggesting it is. Just that it’s a much more extensive amount of bracing based on appearance. So the sunroof panel itself didn’t need to be any stiffer than necessary with it being supported fully.

I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to put another brace bar across the opening after sealing it, but whether it’s needed or not likely depends on how rigid the filler panel and it’s mounting is.


https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.rx8...8c6f13e7e2.gif

The filler panel will be made by me, so we can assume a 0 add to stiffness haha. Roll bar may also help.. however definitely bracing in different location.. :shrug:

I'll see what I can make. I think I have some aluminum that's really close to the right length/width to bolt on to those guusets for the sunroof.

Anyone else made a brace for their sunroof delete?

Did you consider an aluminum sheet metal panel the same basic shape as the opening, but with a slightly larger perimeter, drilled, and riveted to the exterior? It would be a little aero disturbance, but fairly minor imo. I saw one like this on an FC RX7 and it made a lot of sense to me rather than trying to fill the hole and seal it that way. I think that one had a thin gasket that made it stick up a little higher, but I’d just get a heavy-duty industrial silicone sealer/glue and use that to seal it instead.

That's my backup plan for when my carbon fiber insert plan fails miserably

ok, a CF sheet panel rather than aluminum, this seems a lot more practical and less effort though I would use thinner material.


https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.rx8...ddde4f6c9.jpeg