1. trans/diff oil fluid should be fine - may not shift a smooth as you might wish though

2. Frame - no reliability issues, but all frames/chassis flex some with hard cornering. There are several mods to increase chassis stiffness if you are interested including strut tower bars. Depending on how high performance you want to go with the handling, there are many other suspension mods that you can consider - read around a little to get some basics

3. Tracking 2-3 times a year seems pretty typical for most members - not excessive.

4. Of course the dealer hated the cooling kit idea - they will hate every mod you consider except the MazdaSpeed ones that they sell. There are many high quality and reputable vendors that have developed specialized products for the 8 - read some of the feedback from people who have used them to assist you in making your decisions but the dealer will always say not to do them.

5. Zaino is a great product, but expensive and take a long time and a lot of effort to use as directed. There are a lot of good/great ones, but I am a Meguiar's fan and use NXT for the paint and their Gold Class leather wipes for the leather as they both work well, last long, and don't take a lot of time to apply.

 

Care to explain this in technical detail? More than just "higher octane is higher, and more expensive, so it must be better!"?

I'm really struggling to figure out how octane reduces wear in an engine, but I guess I must be slow. Enlighten me.

 

Thank you Jar_RX8. That helped a lot.
dsmdriver, I'm curious about the same thing. I'll try some wikipedia articles and let you know if I find out.

 

Good luck finding anything. Octane doesn't work that way.

 

octane level is like fabric softener. the more you have, the gentler it is on your engine.

 

uh lets see....

oh here it is.
did this a while back all of the cheap diy mods for the 8 and some. mainly reliability mods.

https://www.rx8club.com/series-i-tech-garage-22/rx8-reliability-mods-cheap-diy-102143/

 

upgraded racing radiator for the few that live in hot temp wheather.

 

Eh? Man ... you forgot to say "octane is to engines like fabric softner is to clothes...". The way you said it, someone may put some huggie in their tank and think it'll give them softer woolies hehehe.

I don't beleive a higher octane than is recommended isn't necessarily a life altering measure however, I tend to use the higher octane because the engine runs rough on our 95RON stuff down here. But in Australia, our petrol isn't as refined as yours is in the states...

Actually ... here's an interesting topic - and without doing a search I don't know whether it's been covered before. I know what octane is, the best way I can explain what I know in simple terms is that octane is hydrocarbons which are used to attract the oxygen atoms from the air inside the combustion chamber. The more hydrocarbons (the higher the octane) the more oxygen atoms that get joined into the structure and thus, the cleaner and hotter the burn. But ... there'd be a point where it wouldn't matter how many oxygen atoms are in the chamber, as efficiency would apex ... probably somewhere near manufacturers specs?

Anyone want to help me out with my theory? I hope I made sense!

 

Just google "octane level", you'll find many links that detail what it is...

In short, it is a rating on the ability of the fuel to resist combustion due to pressure. It doesn't clean your engine better, it doesn't give you better fuel economy, and it doesn't give you more power*




* Your car can sense lower grade fuel and can retard ignition timing, which may give you lower horse power. But we're talking about fuel and the power in the fuel, not the resulting power in your car.

 

So, how would using a higher octane fuel than recommended by the manufacturer provide greater longevity over 95RON?

 

I went for 6 months running on 91 octane fuel and had no problems driving around on the streets. Economy was about the same as I get now with 98 Octane and felt no discernable loss in power. I changed back to 98 octane because of the track work i was doing and didn't think it good to change back and forth from 91 to 100 octane. Not much help to the thread starter, but in response to Cromax, I had noticed that the few times I filled up on Mobil fuels, whether 98, 95 or 91 (when it was available) were just plain crap, felt like **** and I did a dyno recently while running Mobil 8000 (98 RON) and they had to pull 2 of the 3 runs short because of pinging. BP and Shell fuels I have never ever had an issue with. Economy is slightly better with BP Ultimate and I use .

Andrew

 

Great discussion!