Reactionary

Well I don't think anyone really jumped all over it. Of course I meant all the hype from consumers out there and gave the example of people here whose perception gets influenced by other people here without hard evidence.

Ok I'll give you the exhaust sound comment and I knew someone would jump on that, but I did qualify with the word "richness." Ask an audiophile about CD sound or performance quality and they will insist their judgments are not subjective.

Regardless, a lot of people here have commented and hyped up the sound of Racing Beat's exhaust. And based on what? Because they truly think the sound is good or because they're jumping on the Racing Beat bandwagon?

Reactionary

Well I didn't say nothing has been done with the ECU project. I said they can't seem to get it done.

At first glance, getting selected by Mazda or Mazdaspeed to do outsourced work is quite impressive for anyone's ego, but again, I'm wondering how much of that has to do with excellence and how much as to do with socio-political prowess and/or image.

dmp

Here's a serious question: Why do you care? Honestly. If you don't care for RB's products, simply don't buy them. Oh, the joys of Capitalism.

Reactionary

This is what I'd like to think and used to assume. Now I question it. Because just look at the springs and shocks. At the Yaw Power website and even people here have said one should never change springs alone without also changing to a matched set of shocks. Yet Racing Beat has done that. If you think about it, that could be quite a compromise. So on second thought, I can see that most consumers are rather mild and probably don't want the whole diehard setup but just want something cheap like slightly lowered springs. So Racing Beat decides to offer what most people want and at a cheap price probably in part because it is good economics for them and probably not because only Racing Beat has the engineering excellence to properly R & D a set of springs without a set of matching shocks.

And is their flywheel an excellent design? I've read the many expert comments on the aftermarket flywheels and it seems that Racing Beat's design may actually be the most questionable independent of conservative design goal or not.

So I appreciate comments like yours from people who have way more expertise than I do. I used to automatically assume everything Racing Beat does is better but after analyzing some of their products in a simple dumbed-down fashion (like the example above in this post), I started wondering. I think we need to actually assess Racing Beat's products more, like what we do to the other companies' products.

Saleen was chosen by Ford. AMG was chosen by Mercedes. Racing Beat was chosen by Mazda. But compare their products and I'm starting to feel a little negative. I think about Saleen and AMG and I begin to feel it's not just an issue of a company that doesn't want to go so extreme as to appreciably lower reliability. It might be more a combination of a consciously chosen business model and limited capability.

Reactionary

But I do care about their products. I was virtually set on getting the Racing Beat exhaust but then I realized I had jumped on their bandwagon. And I started thinking more about their products.

You got to think about what I'm trying to say here. It makes sense really. The knowledgeable people here have said they do excellent R & D and are honest in person and on the phone. But have we put all that peripheral stuff aside and concentrated solely on their products when they are in front of our eyes and hands? One person said the welds on the exhaust are awesome. That's the type of evidence I want. And this is the type of analysis that I realized needs to be done on Racing Beat products rather than just assuming they are all excellent products like I used to do.

I'm just like you. I want to know which company has the best products and engineering. I just don't want to assume anymore.

Reactionary

Exactly.

z00m-z00m

I won a whole bunch of racingbeat merchandise from some events so i put them on my rx-8. I did so only after visiting their facility and talking to their people. Before that I had them chillen in my garage. Now I have their sway bars on the car and the springs I had on for a while then decided it wasnt my feel. Those are back in the garage but still the company is very responsive and has a reputation for standing by and being part of the rotary community.

Reactionary

Ok here's a thought that comes up even if I don't know jack about engineering. I read that the lightened rotors are barely lightened but that is still significant for racing applications. Fine. But why not build racing rotors from a different material to truly lighten them?

Why would it someone like Charles or Richard Paul or whoever do these before Racing Beat? Because no market for Racing Beat? Well like Charles said, they decided to do the lightened rotors that are barely lighter. So why not make rotors out of a more exotic material like Charles did with his PPF? So it seems that in general Racing Beat is conservative in both thought and materials. Where they dare to cross the envelope in thought, they don't also do it in materials.

Magic8

So what's the problem? Not everyone is going to write a review on RB product because no one have no vested interest to satsify your curiosity about RB's product. You will going to have to take a risk like everyone else and purchase the product and review it yourself.

I think everyone is saying with RB that risk is minimal.

Reactionary

Good point. I see what you're saying. It's like a logical paradox. In order to assess, you have to first take the risk.

Reactionary

They definitely are slow. It's not just about proper R & D.

It just occurred to me that the owners may be living in the 60's and 70's. That may be where the BEAT part of the name comes from, just like BEATNIK. What if they really are a bunch of 60's flower children living like bohemian engineers? If they are all mellowed out from smoking too much marijuana, they may actually be using the wrong drug. Because GReddy and the Japanese companies are probably using cocaine or crystal meth and installing sprinkler systems for their facilities overnight while simultaneously churning out turbos and all kinds of goodies for the RX8.

zoom44

becuase the rotors would have to be cast. first you have to decide what materials to choose between. then you have to test those materials to see which one works for your application. then have to find someone to create the dies(one would assume something like rotors would be die cast and not sand cast) then you have to find a company that can do the actual casting and finish work. then you have to test those rotors to see if they will stand up to their intended use. if they fail at an unacceptable rate its back to step one. what after market company has the kind of resources to do that kind of manufacturing? its much simpler and less time consuming to modify the existing part to meet your goals.

grapes

Good responsible company that does their homework before rushing out aftermarket parts.

TheDosDog

[Reactionary] "They definitely are slow. It's not just about proper R & D."


I assume you mean slow to market. Every product I have ordered has arrived timely (usually in 2 days) and the customer service is fantastic. If you send them an email you receive a prompt response. Calls are returned and they know their stuff. I too visited their facility after Sevenstock 7 and met the staff. I didn't see a bunch of beatniks. Some of us just have no patience (like me)

Fanman

I think you are confused. Racing Beat is not to Mazda what AMG is to Mercedes or Saleen is to Ford. That is Mazdaspeed. That is the in house tuner for Mazda. If you look at their product line it is similar to RB's (exhaust, intake, bodykit, etc.). I'm not sure who/where you got that information in regards to their flywheel being questionable. The few people that I know that have it like the way it functions. I personally would have gotten it but I thought I was getting a good deal on another vendor's unit, but after having to buy the couterweight & hardware kit sepearatly it wound up costing me about the same. In having seen the flywheel, I'm not sure what you are talking about as from a visual perspective it seemed like a quality piece. I have the Racing Beat exhaust & I love it. From having seen & heard the Greddy & Borla units I liked the RB unit the best.

The reason why I like Racing Beat products is because there isn't hype behind it's products. In hype I am saying they make outrageous claims behind their products that later turn around to be unsubstantiated. The support that you see for their products here is from people that have/use their products and because of their positive experiences recommend them to other RX8 drivers. That to me is not hype, it's good word of mouth. I have products from another vendor, & I would say they make very good products, but I also would say they have "hype" behind their products because they are claiming 40 hp from a few bolt on parts, that in my dyno & others on this board have proven to be false.

Also, I do have their springs & sway bars on my car. If I tell people that I really like them on my car, and it improves the handling substantially is that hype or just somebody relaying their personal experience ? BTW, their spring design is specially designed to match with the stock shock. Your notion that you have to replace the shock is because in the past some other manufacturers just basically cut their springs/ported over other products from other cars so when it when on your car it was mismatched and you had to get different shocks. When RB designed these springs they started work with the stock RX8 shocks & went from there. It is not a compromise it's was intentional. It is for an aggresive street driver, that occasionally tracks their car vs. the full on race car setting. Also, they are working with Koni to have a coil over setup for people needing more aggressive suspention setups.

Also if you look at their air intake setup (a few of us have seen it), it seems more of a well thought out design then several of the other units outt here right now. Again it is designed specifically for the RX8, as opposed to some of the other units like K&N that initially caused some idle/hesitation issues, and didn't give the hp claims that they were claiming. RB says it will give 2-3 hp, and keep noise down (another issue with the K&N unit). No "hype," No outrageous claims of 8 hp from an air intake. I personally like Greddy (as evidenced by my purchase of many Greddy products for my Turbo kit), and I respect Borla. They make fine products for the RX8, but in my opinion it is no better than what Racing Beat puts out. I think why people assume that Racing Beat products are so good are from previous experiences with their products have given good results, we have dynoed their products (& they were spot on), we have driven with their products, and in looking at the designs of their upcoming products people can see what they are trying to do with their products, and how it follows their philosophy. I'm not sure why you are questioning their products, is it quality ? is it functional ?

Reactionary

Fanman, I like your comment and Zoom44's comment. I'm just asking questions instead of assuming. I just want to know what really is Racing Beat's capabilities and how good are their products really? And about the springs, I got the idea from Paul Yaw's website as well as many people on this forum.

Racing Beat Inc

Thanks to all for the comments.

Racing Beat has never tried to be the most extreme rotary tuning shop on the planet. I will point-blank tell any visitor that we are not a super tuner, but an R&D and manufacturing firm. We have no interest in tweaking and tuning street cars to produce 700HP… and then watching them explode. We have seen MANY of these tuning shops come and go over the years, we think we know the reason why.

We quickly realized that the RX-8 market is very different than the RX-7 or Miata market, and the typical owner is 1) using their RX-8 as a daily-driver, 2) isn’t willing to sacrifice ride quality or reliability to an extreme level, 3) has just laid out a serious chunk of money, and will be making payments for the next few years, and 4) is living in a state that has emissions laws and wishes to keep his car legal for street use. With that in mind… go ahead and provide me with a list of parts that don’t compromise these realizations. Pretty short list, huh? We decided to start with the most requested parts, and start our development from there.

The RX-8 has only been out for a very short time in the US. Although we could rush out with tons of new parts, any prudent business must actually determine if there is any demand to support the R&D, manufacturing, marketing, and warehousing of these types of parts. Throw in the added mystery of whether Mazda will make any significant changes to the car, thereby relegating these parts for availability to a 1-2 year model coverage, and the risk becomes greater. Sorry guys, our cars are fun, but this a business.

Since the Mazda market is rather small, we have tried to establish our pricing to reflect more “street” pricing, and we do not offer inflated MSRPs that are heavily discounted by retail shops. The last time I checked, some of these similar parts from Japan are tad on the ridiculous side when it comes to pricing, our parts are more modestly priced.

We test our parts in-house and provide these results to support our products, we do not bash or bad-mouth others products even if we have data supporting our findings. The aftermarket community quickly discovers the truth and the word spreads quickly. We don’t have to bash the other guys, you do it for us!

Our work with the RX-8 and Renesis engine continues. To date, we have tested several forced induction systems on the Renesis engine while on the engine dyno. These systems include turbo chargers, roots-type superchargers, hydro-chargers, and axial-flow supercharged systems, all with varying degrees of success and failures. We are still very early in the developmental stages of these projects, and are investigating the practicality of these systems for both street and race usage. (We have no immediate plans to produce a street kit at this time… so don’t start any rumors!)

Sorry if some of our parts take longer than expected to produce. Sometimes we run into problems with vendors, suppliers, or we just plain goof-up and the part doesn’t perform as expected! We do not try and hype the upcoming release of a product, it only makes the sales guys really get mad at me when they have to repeatedly explain the reason for a delay.

As always, I will be glad to answer any question, comment, problem, or criticism that you may have, both in writing and in person. You know how to find me….

Best regards,

Jim Langer
Racing Beat, Inc.

Reactionary

Your reply is very appreciated.

rotarygod

Thanks Jim. I was waiting for you to chime in.

I get 20000 words so I'm going to use them!

Reactionary: Since you mentioned me specifically, I'll tell you why I trust them and also trust certain others and don't trust many more. Let's go back to some history first.

Racing Beat opened in 1971. That in itself is an accomplishemtn to most other rotary tuners/shops. They played with fuel injection back in 1972. That is 12 years before Mazda themselves did it in a production rotary! They developed supercharged and turbocharged engines back as early as 1974. Mazda didn't release a forced induction rotary until 1984!!! They have 4 land/speed records at Bonneville. In 1974 it was an RX-4 at 160.3 mph with no forced induciton. In 1978 it was a 1st gen RX-7 at 183.9 mph with no forced induction. In 1986 it was a bridgeported twin turbo 2nd gen RX-7 at 238.442 mph! In 1995 after a recovery from a flip at a previous event, in a 3rd gen RX-7 powered by a tri turbo tri rotor peripheral port engine they hit 242 mph. That wasn't even full throttle due to the track conditions being so bad!!! They've built engines for NASA, industrial sesmic drilling test equipment, and military use. That is some big organizations putting their trust in your work. In 1993 their Miata set a Motor Trend Magazine slalom record at 73.6 mph. They have worked closely with Mazda on the development of parts for the Protege MP3. When you get this car from the dealership, it has their suspension and their exhaust on it. All of this is mostly info that you can get from their catalog but it is also documented in books. They have done far more than any of us knows about. that alone should just garnish them with respect but alas we have doubters out there.

Show me another reputable rotary company out there that has all of this for credentials. When someone says Racing Beat isn't good, who are they comparing them too, PFS, Pettit??? While these shops may know what they are doing from a maintanence and knowledge standpoint (nothing wrong with that), none of them has the test equipment, knowhow, or factory support available to them to do what Racing Beat does regardless of what their lower employees or groupies say. Show me another company in the U.S. that sells their own peripheral port housings. Are Racing Beat's exhausts heavy? I'd say yes. Are they going to fall apart tomorrow? Probably not. From a pure upgrade performance standpoint, eBay would seem like a prime place to shop for upgrades. You can get them cheap, everyone has high power claims, it's all lightweight, and it must have been properly designed and tested in order to be sold right? Are you sure? We all know half the stuff on eBay is crap inspite of their claims. I'm not saying that other respected rotary tuners out there are marketing bad products. It's just hard to fathom that someone could possibly insult a company that has more experience and success with these engines than any other rotary company out there. At least in this country they do. I can't speak for Asia and I know they have their own tuners there too.

The fact that there is a company out there that has tons of experience in designing and testing products (everyone and their dog has a rotary powered race car), and who gives real world honest power figures inspite of being lowered than those claimed by others tells me these guys are honest. They were also nice enough to open up their shop to us at Sevenstock and give us tech training and let us play with some parts. We saw the ecu test bench. If you think you can crack it quickly and get a big gain, go try it yourself. People are having a hard time with piggyback units right now because the ecu fights back. They know things about that ecu that we only wish we did, or anyone for that matter. They have the advantage of working with some of the best rotary people in the business. Some of them from Mazda and others on this very forum but for secrecy reasons you won't hear who they are.

This is a company that is far from Beat. In fact that are hard to beat in terms of experience and knowhow. Everyone turns wrenches, replaces parts, builds simple exhausts, mounts a cone filter to a pipe and calls it a performance mod, sells upgraded plug wires, etc... Other companies develop mega horsepower turbo kits. That's great. Use them. Racing Beat will be the first to tell you to if that's what you want. Their sole purpose is to design good solid products that perform as advertised and maintain street legaility if at all possible. They are pretty good at it and their sales of rotary performance parts tops every single other american rotary shop out there. Period.

Now to your comments about Paul Yaw. I first talked to Paul about 10 years ago. I have nothing but the utmost respect for Paul. He knows what he is doing and can do rotary work with the best of them. He inspired me to build my own flow bench and flowtest parts. Some so called rotary experts out there say this is futile. That's a poor excuse for not doing it properly. Paul is more expensive in his porting prices than anyone else out there. What he does is very labor intensive but it is done properly. Anyone can take a die grinder to a housing, make a port larger, and tell you that it flows more. Unfortunately some rotary tuners tell you that bigger is better. I can think of a couple and one of them is very highly regarded by many rotary owners. I'm not speaking of Racing Beat when I say this. Paul can do peripheral ports. They'll cost you more than a PP housing from Racing Beat but they will be done specifically to your needs. This isn't an insult to RB in any way. From a financial standpoint it isn't worth it to RB to do this. Paul does his work on a very limited and one on one basis. He doesn't have much in the way of performance products that he sells to the public. He does intend to but mostly stays busy with individual jobs. He is probably the best when it comes to 1st gen RX-7 carbs. He is also very good when it comes to custom designing and building specialty items. This is in an entire different class from RB and deosn't detract from them one bit. Different people for different specialties. I respect RB but will be the first to say that not everything they sell is for me personally. Nothing wrong with that. My goals and intentions may be different than theirs.

So I wrote another book. As yourself if that "filter on a stick" you bought for your car was actually tested. Ask yourself if all that chrome on that low priced lightweight exhaust you paid for actually made you faster. How much of those products is tested and how much is marketing hype that you believed?

Good work Jim. Keep it coming.

Fanman

Reactionary,

I have no problems with you asking questions. That is what this forum is all about. Instaed of just making rude & stupid comments like some of the other posters on this board, you are asking questions that hopefully can be answered and information shared.

How I define hype is making outrageous claims and/or pricing to that claim. An example for me is HKS. They make some of the best products in the world, and I have great respect for them & love those products, but they also charge $1000 for their exhaust or $600 for their air intake/suction kit. Is it higher quality or better than say the RB, Greddy, etc. ? Personally, I don't think so but it's the "hype" that their product has that allows them to charge that kind of premium. If you have a different thought on what hype means let us know. In this case if RB was charging exhorbitant amounts for their products over their competitors I would understand your hesitations, but i think a big reason why they are popular with the RX group is that they make a quality product, at a competitive price. Their exhaust is on par with Greddy or Borla, or their springs are right there with Tein or JIC.

Cam

iTrader: (1)

Jim,

Thanks for posting, the forum members appreciate it.
I must say, this was a a big let down for me. I was hoping RB would be coming out with an FI kit along with an ECU program/reflash. But I can understand the business side as well.

I thought I read earlier that the ECU work/research being conducted was in conjuntion with FI. So if there is not FI in the plans for the future will there not be an ECU modification released either?

zoom44

I knew it!!! :D

Red Devil

Noted the "axial-flow supercharged" comment also. Definitely encouraging.

Aoshi Shinomori

I saw that too. Richard, you might have some competiton :p

Reactionary

This is exactly what I think some of us needed to hear.