General Help - Turbocharging
 

Hello all,


First, I would like to introduce myself to the forums. I have purchased my first RX8 - its a 2007 GT. I am looking at starting from the ground up with hopes to turbo this car. I have a # of years of experience on other platforms, Mitsubishi, Toyota, Hondas. This is a project, and it starts with R&D. I have searched the forums and found a lot of helpful information in the Newbie's guide. One items specifically that I cannot find is regarding the Intercooler set up.


1.) What Intercooler do you recommend (I would prefer a front mount set-up)? I am hoping to find one that fits the best using a stock front bumper with the Aero lip.


2.) Is there a website that sells "kits" for cores & piping? Maybe a site similar to what ExtremePSI.com offers -- one that sell "packages" for the Mazda platform.




I appreciate everyone's time and assistance!

read the major hp sub forum till your eyes bleed. theres tons of threads on boosting an 8. look for 9krpms threads, its very well documented and he has a great set up

Moved from new member subforum.

The inter cooler is the least of your worries and the last thing you should be thinking about at this point. Proper, prior, planning.

prevents piss poor performance

No disrespect and just to clarify -- I understand this is a project which requires research and development on my part... I am NOT looking to attempt to bolt up an eBay turbo, become the next "Brian Spilner" and see how fast I can go. This is my research stage -- I am continuing to read the forums and I have found a lot of great resources out there that discuss all kinds of aspects in this endeavor. I am simply asking of others that have already done this to get recommendations for parts that have had success with for the RX-8 platform. I was using intercoolers for an example, if someone knows of any vendors that sell "kits" (pre-bent piping, cores, etc.). While doing my research, I am also working on projections for cost.

Yes, I can do some measurements for my core and piping -- But why reinvent the wheel, if there is something out there that works?

First you have to decide if your car is in good enough condition to be turbocharged, then determine what your goals are with the car, then determine your budget for that goal, and then start looking for a kit that can get you to that goal. Once you decide on a kit, then research the hell out of that kit and then decide if the endeavor is worth it to you.

But really you need to start reading other build threads to get an idea of what is possible.

Just the fact that you are asking for a "kit" means that you haven't done nearly enough research yet, since no complete kit exists, and the people that try to market a "complete kit" are actually lying and the kits still needs a ton of work (up to and including custom fabrication) to get it to work right.

An intercooler is the least of your worries here. Custom piping to whatever intercooler you choose is dead easy compared to the other crap that you have to solve that is deadly to your engine.

Fair enough, and point taken. I will continue to read the build forums so I can gain a better understanding of what I am in for. Thanks!

I'll throw you a bone here; two of your easiest options will be either:

1) Greddy turbo kit; discontinued I believe now but you can find a used one or maybe check if some vendors still have some of the brand new kits available; I got mine from BlackHaloRacing.com. Even brand new the Greddy kit requires a few mods and is not 'out of the box' ready for installation.

2) Rx8performance.com has a very nice kit and is probably the closest one to "complete" that you might find; find a build thread by a guy named gregs and see what he's done with this kit; if i was in the market for a new kit this is where I'd look first TBH.

Of course there are plenty of other options but these two are the closest to a 'kit' that you're going to find. Honestly, it was well put before; "read until your eyes bleed" because there are many great build threads each with people doing things a bit differently.

If you are to go the route of one of the above mentioned you will still need to think about tuning, gauges, fuel delivery, ignition, turbo upgrades, etc, etc, etc depending on what your goals are. Its more or less a measure twice cut once scenario only in this situation it's a read 400 billion times and build once. But don't just look through recent threads, search things, pull up old threads from many years ago, click on links for threads in other people threads and just keep reading, reading and more reading because this is unlike any other platform you've worked with in the past. If you still saving up money to go FI then you need to be constantly researching so you don't waste you're money. I know when I decided I was going to save to go FI i probably searched through this forum for close to 2 years (I was in university and saving was slow!) before I decided on the route I went.

Common rx8 turbo locations:
low mount (greddy, r8-performance, etc.)
top mount (turblown, esmeril and most custom builds)
rear mount (don't go here)

I've just finished getting parts together for my greddy build. My 2nd hand greddy kit was about half the price of my overall build cost once I sorted all the additional parts. The only original greddy parts are the coldside piping, exhaust manifold and downpipe and the turbo (which I had to rebuild). The reason I went for the greddy as it's very well documented on this site. Now that my eyes are bleeding (I.e. in hindsight), if I were to do this again I would have gone straight for the top mount setup with a quick spool flange. Pretty much Fazdarx_8's build.

BTW, don't trust dyno results from companies that make rx8 turbo kits.

After about 2 years of reading, I started my build and have had to backtrack a few things. That I should have not gone cheap on or cut short to begin with.

I like how people bring up the RX8 Performanve kit like it is common or has been used successfully. Gregs has has been the only person I have heard of to get one installed and running and he has provided little in terms of results or comparisons to his old Greddy/BNR setup.

Some Top mount kits seems nice (SFR and PTP), they are much easier to work on, etc. but also provide many other challenges depending on what kit you go with. My buddy has the Turdblown top mount kit and has spent at least another 2k fixing shit and still doesn't have and OMP (which I think is a big no-no). And having that kind of heat in that area does some damage, so serious heat shielding needs to be fabricated.

When I was talking with Easy_E1 this summer he said the heat shielding was a big issue with the SFR kit as well. He'd know better about it, but he showed me a whole bunch of melted heat wrap. That car hauled some serious tail though.

Yeah the standard DEI wrap type of stuff doesn't hold up. My buddy barely drives his RX-8 (2015 STI daily driver) and that shit was toast. He went with some commercial grade stuff this time around, we shall see how it holds up.

Fiberglass doesn't last but I've had good luck with the DEI high temp stuff. I wrap mine in hvac foil tape, after the adhesive cooks off it provides decent heat shielding. But YMMV.

The PTP kit is far from complete. The exhaust piping is pretty good, but I found some slag and welds drippings hanging down in the pipes so clean them up before use. The maf housing is undersized and on a bend so it would take a lot of work to get it usable. The intake/charge piping is meh, but the inter-cooler is decent if you're into that kind of thing. It's a very pretty kit on the outside, but it feels more like a prototype than a finished product. I'm not saying it's bad in comparison to other options, just that it's on par.

So far i've kept my OMP with it and had no problems other than a wandering vacuum line melting, but I threw out everything but the exhaust piping. I can't imagine trying to tune with the maf housing that came with the kit.

Yeah a local fabricator here made the manifolds for the PTP kit, it is a way better kit than the Turblown IMO for a few reason, the main being the ability to retain the OMP and the manifold design. It's a pretty good top mount solution. Intake piping is pretty easy to address but yeah every kit for the Rx-8 needs work to get right. Although, some like the Esmeril are a lost cause just because the wastegate placement is horrible and that is not that easy to fix.

I had no idea you were boosted Harlan. I thought the only PTP kit running to date was slash

I agree with 9K on the Rx8Performance kit comments; and gregs has been pretty non-existent lately but from all accounts his car is running great (but it is the only documented one I've seen). Not to mentions it looks like a beautiful kit but I'd like to hear of more people using it and showing results.

The Greddy definitely has the most support from the Rx8 community in that 90% of the kits out there are derived from it. I was really eye balling the Rx8performance kit but it just seems to me that it will be way more cost effective with more forum support to just upgrade my turbo on my Greddy kit. I do have to say that I'm pretty impressed with my T618Z though; been a solid 3 years of turbo putting about 30000kms on it @ 9psi peak with absolutely no turbo related issues

Yeah I have heard his car is running well, but from what I gather it has always ran well with the BNR setups as well. However, giving that guy $6,000.00 up front for anything would be like loaning a crack head $6,000.00 and expecting to get it back.

I am sure the cool weather up there helps you a lot in terms of reliability with the turbo, the heat is a PIA to deal with. I think you will be more than happy with the BNR 60-1 or an equivalent.

I'm still running the rx8 performance kit and still very happy with the quality. No issues to report. There have not been any major changes in the performance side being i have been extremely happy. The car is still running on just wastegate, very soon I'll get around to working with the ebc for more boost. In terms of comparisons between my previous BNR kit and rx8 performance is a pretty large margin however both worked very well and kept me happy. Time is very limited so it's a difficult choice choosing to be on the forum or enjoying my cars. Haha only downside to running a greddy kit is the turbo manifold is is on borrowed time before it falls apart and the snail is small which is a restriction if you decide to turn the boost up.

Agreed the cooler climate here is more than likely a huge factor in terms of turbo rotary longevity, (I only have to sacrifice driving the car for 6 months of the year!) Yeah I am more than likely going to go the 60-1 route with 11 blade turbine when I decide to upgrade.

I am also just running on WG right now though, my EBC has been sitting in a box staring at me for the past 2 summers waiting to be installed haha. Just been very busy with working on the road the last 23 months. That and dropping my DD Tahoe on some 24" wheels and then deciding I wanted 26" wheels wasn't too easy on the wallet either..... anyone want to buy a set of 24" wheels with only about 1000 miles on them?? :D:

I recently found this as a Greddy turbo replacement . Less than the price of the BNR upgrade and comes with :
Larger turbine wheel diameter
9 blade turbine wheel as an option for faster spool and more flow.
Larger turbine housing exit area
Actuator options
25g compressor (billet option) which is comparable to 60-1

There would be a few fitment issues to deal with but I really think it would be well worth the extra effort . With the 9 blade turbine this could be just what we need for a fast spooling reliable 350whp setup.

Kinugawa Turbocharger 3" Anti Surge Cover TD06H-25G / T25 Flange / 8cm

That looks too wide to fit on the Greddy manifold. But exact measurements would be needed.

It's a T25 flange which is the same as the Greddy

https://www.google.co.nz/search?q=t2...04%3B800%3B600

The bolt pattern for the downpipe is the same but the actual opening size where the turbine is , is bigger so it might require some grinding on the inside of the downpipe to match.