ou know what they say about opinions...

Actually when you see this piece and then compare it to the other intake systems on the market, you will ask what is so special about everyone else. This is in an entirely different league. K&N Typhoon, SR Motorsports, Rotary Extreme, HKS, etc... are all cheaply manufactured and thrown together junk when placed next to this piece. This is a work of art. The craftsmanship is superb. It was actually designed with performance in mind as opposed to being designed quickly in order to make a quick profit from those who will believe anything. The RX-8 is a very finicky car when it comes to intake mods. It isn't as easy as it used to be in terms of just bolting any old part on the car and getting gains out of it. Racing Beat put an aweful lot of work into this system and they also have more actual dyno time as well as GPS based vehicle acceleration data on how well this car performs than anyone else out there. All the rest are mere toddlers in the intake community compared to this piece.

Which other intake for the RX-8 has a proper bell radius for smooth airflow? Actually Mazda did it stock but most of the aftermarket doesn't. That's a step backwards for a simple cone filter. I'm sure there's some $1000+ intake in Japan somewhere that does but that's not even comparable in price and is probably still inferior in quality. The bell radius isn't even plastic. It's spun aluminum. The maf tube is cnc machined aluminum, not some piece of pipe with a maf fitting welded to it. The filter was custom designed to work with this unit. Racing Beat understands very well unlike almost every other manufacturer that acoustics play a huge part in performance. The size of the box, the size of the filter, and the length and diameter of the intake tubing all affect each other when it comes to proper tuning. This can't just be guessed by slapping a filter on a tube, adding a shield, and saying "here it is". That's what the others have done. K&N probably just loves the terrible feedback they've gotten from the Typhoon system. They are completely redesigning it in admittance that it is crap. I will give Rotary Extreme some credit in that they figured out that for the diameter pipe they are using with the filter they are using, the pipe had to be a certain length and protrude into the filter so far to idle good. Too bad there is no airbox, just a simple shield, and no bell radius inside the filter. That right there loses 20% in airflow and doesn't help laminar flow. If you don't test, you don't know.

Yes the VFAD is removed. When you drive this car with the RB intake though, you can't tell it is gone. There is no noticable loss of low end. The total intake area into the airbox is also larger than the factory box. Even with the VFAD removed on the stock box, it still can't flow this much. When you drive this up through the rpm range, you don't feel the intake transistion points as much. It is really just much smoother and more refined. At idle the sound is stock. Even at cruising rpm's the sound is almost stock. There is no annoying ricer droning sound. At full throttle it does get louder but not unbearably so. It sounds very nice and aggressive but very smooth. You won't go deaf from it but it is enough that you can tell it is there. This was another area that Racing Beat concentrated on figuring that the typical RX-8 owner would be more mature and want a more refined sounding vehicle rather than a louder ricer sounding one.

This intake is a tank. It is built very well, fits fantastic, looks good, sounds good, and most importantly was designed properly. Anyone can take a piece of sheet aluminum, cut and bend it into a heat shield, weld a maf flange (cnc or otherwise) onto a tube, stick a filter on it, make some claims and sell it. Almost any single aspect of this system has far more time and effort placed in it that every other intake system has in the entire product. Is it possible that the others out there do gain power? Yes. They may gain a couple of peak horsepower. While great for dyno numbers and product sales, this tells you nothing in terms of performance and certainly doesn't help you in acceleration. Racing Beat designed theirs to work good everywhere possible. They aren't even done improving it yet as later this year it will get better still with the ram air duct. The only compromise that Racing Beat made with this intake and it's pricing is that they can't appeal to the person who wants the cheapest parts on the market. That's ok though. That's not really an insult. That's smart.

I've got no complaints about this system. I feel that EVERY other intake option out there is obsolete and a complete joke when placed next to this one. $320 may seem high but this is comparing it to products that really aren't even in the same league. In reality even $150 is a ripoff for the other alternatives. They aren't worth it. This one is. People have it backwards. They aren't paying too much for a good intake system (Racing Beat). They are paying too much for crap intake systems (pick one!). Look at some of the intakes in Japan that appear to actually have some development put into them. $1000+. Racing Beat is a bargain if anything.

Not that it means much but they've got my endorsement.

- rotarygod