Hey, I'm just getting ready to start performance modding my '04 RX-8 (6-speed), and I was wondering where would be a good place to start.

Most cars I would start with a Borla exhaust and an AEM cold air intake, but I was wondering if the rotary might have a different starting point.

Thanks!

 

you can start there, or start with suspention work. Its up to you, and what you want to do with the car

 

Start with lots of money

 

That sounds like a good place to start.

Check us out here we have tons of RX-8 Parts on our site.

http://www.fluidmotorsports.com/s-84-rx8.aspx

If you find a lower place elsewhere we will beat it!

 

Thanks for the pointers. I've never had experience with rotaries, but I generally like to work on simple power upgrades first and then move on to more involved things like suspension. The only good tracks near where I live are drag tracks so I tend to postpone handling a bit.

 

Getting started is a good place to, well, get started. My first RX-8 and I think I'm hooked for life. Nothing like it.

I've been reading through a large number of the various threads out there on the trade offs of various parts -- this model cold air intake vs that model. That's a great resource but for someone new to the RX-8 the relative merits and bang-for-the-buck aren't apparent. I've read anumber of posts on the RX, for example, where the take is that the intake and cat-back give relatively little and are best viewed as aesthetic enhancements.

Without really getting into details of models, what are the sort of items considered "must haves" or "no brainers"? What are the ones considered worth a bit of cash for the benefit?

Pulleys?
Oversize oil pan?
Electrical? Coils, wires, spark plugs, etc.
Tuning?
Cold Air Intake?
Cat-Back?
Air Filter (e.g. K&N High Flow)?
What's not on the list?

What's real? What's BS?

Ranx

 

start by going to a track day.

 

The best thing you can do for your 8 is learn to use the search function.(jk)

We cant really give you good advice without more information. Planning on racing track or drag? Budget? whats more important to you power or hadleing?

 

Intake
Exhaust
Ignition Coils
Sway Bars
Shocks and Springs or Coilovers.
Short Shifter is also a good one. (Axial Flow)

It really depends on what you plan on using the car for, Autocross/Track Days, Drag/ Daily Drive ability improvement.

Let me know if I can be of help shoot me an E-Mail and can help you out.

 

must have...

suspension mods ( either coilovers or a good spring/shock combo, also sway bars )
short shifter
Better tires
Accessport or even just the racing beat flash

The rest is going to depend on what you want out of the car.

 

Thanks for all the replies. All good and valid and, of course, I didn't expect any definitive list of rights or wrongs. Obviously power, price, performance and dBs are always trade offs.

I'm not initially thinking for racing, per se, but I have a buddy who goes on rallies through the hill country here in central Texas and the 8 seems like a good fit for the twisting, hilly roads up there.

Otherwise it's freeway driving and the around town.

I've read through the forums and do use the search function. The problem I've found is trying to dig out the comparisons between different sorts of mods. There are a lot of comparisons of parts within categories but it seems hard to find the "oh, yeah, I'd definitely get the cold air intake done before anything else."

I just traded in a Mazdaspeed3, obviously a different sort of animal, but if someone asked me the first thing I'd recommend for a mod, it'd be to get a short throw shifter. Get new brake pads and dump the cheap Ford crap. Pop some new motor mounts on to help with the wheel hop and drive without the traction control. Oh, yeah, and get the all weather floor mats.

I'd consider those the "no brainers" but would be ready to don the flame retardant suit. Maybe the MS3 is easier because it doesn't come out of the box as refined as the 8.

 

..... so much misdirection from people who dont know what they are talking about.

based on what you've said, you're in a tough place. Getting rid of the cat and leaning some areas out can give you a few horses and a bit of mileage. and you could try the light flywheel stuff, but other than that any real gains are gonna require FI(nitrous, turbo, super)
there just simply arent any other things that will give you consistent and tangible gains of any real amount. basically you can do every bit of tuning and bolt ons in the world and have a hard time getting 220whp out of it....

 

Because you aren't going to compete in any type of motorsport, I would say to keep the mods to a minimum. There are horsepower mods that provide very little difference over stock. A new intake is one of them. Even the best have proven to only provide an increase of about 3 hp. They do look good and make more noise though. There is a DIY for a mod to the stock intake that will provide about the same. A resonated midpipe or a hi-flow cat will help more. A cat-back will possibly help you drop some weight from the rear if you choose the right ones. Other wise, they sound like your going faster. To tune the engine, the best at the moment is the Cobb AccessPort. If you purchase it from MazdaManiac and you will get more maps than are available from other vendors. The simplest of suspension mods would be to add swaybars. Of course you can go further and upgrade the shocks/springs, but you may want to wait a until the car has over 50k miles and the parts have weakend & the ride has degraded. Swaybars, and suspension upgraded in general, are said to reduce wheel hop. But, this is a sports car, not a pony car. It has an independant rear suspension. It wasn't made for drag racing.Tires are the most important part to keep the car glued to the road. Installing upgraded tires in a size of 245/40x18 is a popular upgrade that won't change your speedometer/odometer readings (which reads about 2 mph high).
I don't find the oem brakes to be that bad. Many had problems with brake squeal. I didn't. Others complained about brake dust. Porsche says good brakes dust. I'm not tracking the car at the moment so I got some ceramic pads that don't dust.

YMMV

 

alnielsen & paulmasoner

Thanks! You guys are hitting the nail right on the head. Making the vehicle louder just for the sake of rumble without gains in performance. One of the things I like about the 8 is the unparalleled quiet.

 

Wow this thread has taken off while I've been gone. Lets see..

My target is not to ruin daily drivability (therefore it must stay street legal), and to be able to have some fun in the 1/4 mile. I just moved here recently, so all I have found so far are drag strips. But I have been widening my search for decent tracks, so handling will eventually be a consideration (and the primary location of my enjoyment).

You guys brought up a good point with sound. I have no intention of sounding or looking modded more than I have to. Those kinds of things almost never draw good attention. On that note, can anyone with the Borla exhaust tell me if it noticeably adds dB's? And is it even worth it? I've heard that rotaries require some amount of back-pressure, but I can't seem to find anywhere that says it so I'm questioning that. If it's not worth it, I'll probably look into sway bars, they're always a pretty cost-effective upgrade.

 

I'm definitely going with the sway bars for the first mod. Have to find a mechanic here in Austin first.

From what's said here and in a number of the other forums, my take is that unless/until I go FI there's really little one can do to get much more power. And I sure as hell don't want that nice rotary jet engine whine turning into a MSpeed3 rumble for the sake of 5 or 6 hp. If I go with a turbo or a supercharger later, well, then I'll live with the noise but expect some real performance gains.

Probably the BEST thread I've found on the whole site is the one titled "Mods I regret" A lot of information in there about disappointments. It's also interesting to note which mods are recommended by their absence from that thread. For example, I don't think I read one person regret modding the sway bars.

https://www.rx8club.com/rx-8-discussion-3/mods-i-regret-thread-120549/

 

heres a link to some cool mods done by others, mostly R7's in the Mazda catagory, but still some incredible rides, you can also subscribe to the mag issue if thats your thing........ http://www.turbomagazine.com/feature...iew/index.html

 

Man, that's crazy. A 2.0 liter, three rotor, turbo-charged engine...Sizzle. Gimme.

Interestingly for all the stats I didn't see any hp or ft-lb measuremenbts...or maybe I just missed it.

 

That is probably the worst logic I've ever heard...

 

Really? I'm flattered. It's quite an accomplishment to attain the "worst" in any activity though I suspect your statement is the simple logical fallacy of a sweeping/accidental generalization.

Abduction isn't an unusual mechanism of reason as long as as one can reasonably assume that that which is adduced falls within the domain and is not, therefore, a post hoc ergo propter hoc argument. The latter is always a possibility and I'd gather you make that assumption in your "...worst logic I've ever heard..." comment.

Have you read this thread?

It contains comments from a few seasoned veterans and one is even a moderator. While there are obvious disagreements in specific, there were also some telling remarks. After reading them I did a hunt on the intake and exhaust upgrades and found the comment by paulmasoner to be spot on. I found little by way of real hp benefits and it does appear that FI is the way I'll have to go if I want more power.

I'm not looking to drag race or track race, er, at least not yet, but I am going to hit the hill country up here by Austin and it is full of rather torturous roads.

It may be that alnielsen's comment about the rear suspension not needing serious upgrade is right. On occasion I've experienced a "here we go" feeling when going around corners. Last night when accelerating to get out on a main road I managed to break the back end loose. His comments about the tires being the best way to get the car to stick to the road are likely true and part of this is just being a tightwad and not wanting to buy new tires for a brand new car.

Have you read the thread in the link?

The many mods people regret contain putting on CAIs, coil overs, cat-backs, getting the wrong size in tires, cosmetics, and so on. One may thereby infer that a n00b can make serious errors in those areas and that some of them are a downright a waste of money. Sway bars aren't a major cause of regret though (a) they are common mods and (b) more expensive or equal in price to some of the other mods. In light of an explicitly stated premise from a number of folks here and elsewhere that sway bars are a mod to consider, it is reasonable to adduce from the lack of regrets for such mods that I'll likely be happy with such a mod or, at least, not regret it.

I'll readily admit to the category of "ignorant n00b" and am attempting to remediate. I'd be especially ready to learn of discrepancies in my modes of reasoning as those are likely more important to me yet.

 

Your decision to go with sway bars is a noble one. If you read my signature they are next on my list too. I just found your logic humorous....

Based how you said
This is your logic:
You walk into a room where everyone is eating feces. Everyone says how gross cat poop is and how pungent people crap is. But no one is talking about how bad dog **** is. Why would you eat the dog ****!?

I'm sure the Turbonator wasn't in that thread. Are you going to go Turbonate your car now?

My comment wasn't an insult. Just pointing out how backwards that seems.

Keep up the effort researching mods. Stop wasting time writing novels to defend yourself.

 

Thats exactly what i have haha.

 

Sheesh. You aren't being insulting? You go from one backassward logical fallacy to another. I'm less interested in discussing induction, deduction and abduction than in discussing traction, combustion and injection. I can recommend some books on the subjects though if you're interested.

So.....let's discuss RX-8 mods shall we?

From what I've read on the forums, the sway bars are a good first choice. Sounds like you are headed that way with the Agency Progress sway bars. I've got a set of those coming from Fluid! I'm stoked.

I found it a bit odd that nobody seemed to complain about buying sway bars as they did with tires and tire sizes.

Are you buying the AP Sway Links as well? I didn't order them but wonder if that was a mistake?

It looks like you're upgrading suspension almost exclusively right now. Why those particular choices?

****
What's a Turbonator (other than the things in the nose)?

 

The AP sway bars are on the way from Fluid. I've ordered the Cobb AccessPort from MazdaManiac. I'm seriously looking at tires. I was out on the winding roads near my house tonight and suspect I'll like the sway bars. These roads are hairpin at points and up hill and down. That's why the tires might be on the list. The wallet's starting to squeal though.

On a side note, after charging up hill and down, I got pulled over by a cop.....Turns out the paper plates from the dealer had expired. Whew.

 

-a decrease in back pressure will create a stronger vacuum to "suck" out the remaining gas in the combustion chamber at the end of the exhaust stroke, i believe the term is scavenging
-an increase in back pressure makes the scavenging process harder, resulting in a decrease of power.