Ive had my RX for 6 months now. Its my daily driver. I would really like to turbo the car but ive seen that alot of people are having problems with a blown engine. I planned on using the greddy turbo kit, greddy sp2 exaust and a BOV, not sure which one yet. I planned on leaving it at stock boost. Has anyone seen reliability issues with running stock boost or is it only when they are running higher boost/replacing the ECU etc...

Basically im asking how reliable the greddy kit is out of the box.

 

With the emanage there are varying results. I think it largely depends on what flash your car is running. You will likely need to get it tuned at the least, but even once you do that the emanage just isn't predictable enough in my opinion and alot of people have had a hard time locking in an AFR with it. I would highly recommend getting the Interceptor by Mazsport. With the Interceptor you can lock in a tune and not worry about what the stock ecu is doing.

That being said. I had planned to use my turbo'd Rx8 as a daily driver, but that has not worked out as well as planned. Things will always take longer than expected. Things can and will break from time to time, luckily for me they've so far been minor things <$100. If you critically depend on your car to get you to work, I personally would not recommend using it for a project car. Luckily my girlfriend allows me to drop her off at work and steal her car during the day, but I am now looking into buying a junker second car, probably a neon, or escort.

All this can be summed up simply by - you will absolutely love it when it works and absolutely hate it when its broke.

 

The GReddy kit was developed with a certain flash, M I believe, so if your car is on a different flash, then no it won't be very reliable out of the box, and you'll more than likely have problems. I don't think the N would be much of a difference, but if you have the R flash, make sure you get it tuned ASAP. I have been running the interceptor x ems, and GReddy turbo for about 1.5 months now and haven't had any reliability issues so far. I have done a lot of stop and go driving, a roadtrip, and quite a bit of redlining, and I have had zero problems. Although I have a beater, I only use that when I go to SF, bad neighborhoods, or places with a lot of hills. So my 8 is basically my daily driver. I think that as long as you tune it with a proper ecu (standalone), you'll be fine. Happy boosting!

 

If you are willing to put some effort into learning about ur car, ign and fuel systems, e-manage , etc.... I highly recommend it.. Although u would have to put a lotta time into fiddling with A/F.. But so far it has been a really fun journey (frustrating at times)....

If u can get another ecu besides the e-manage, then even better....

 

Or, you might have one of the cars like mine that simply take it and keep going.
Though my system is not the Greddy, it is essentially the same thing since it uses the same engine management and layout.
I have zero problems (other than ones I cause myself by fooling around with stuff) and nothing has broken.
I drive mine about 15k miles a year and just drove it clear across the country last week with no issues.

 

How many miles total have you put on it since you got the turbo? So even running the greddy stock the intercepter would be a much better idea? Would it be greatly harmful to rely on the emanage? Also what is the effect on gas milage?

 

Stock I got 17mpg. With the emanage I got 12-13mpg. But the emanage was running really rich, so I'm hoping with the Interceptor and tuning it should be better, but I haven't calculated it yet. The 12-13mpg is also based on pretty much constant spirited driving. If I drove normally it would probably be a little better.

The emanage has worked for some, and hasn't for others, you take your chances with it. Some of the problems people have had are: Stalling at stops, runs like **** when cold, ECU adapts to emanage's fuel alterations via STFT and LTFT, blown engine, power loss over time - corrected by resetting computer, and severe backfiring - primarilly when without a cat.

Not everyone has experienced these problems, only some do. But, no one seems to have any of these problems with the Interceptor.

There's also a hp advantage to the Interceptor since you can adjust ignition timing. But its also expensive. You can always try the emanage, then go to the Interceptor if need be.

 

so with a greddy and interceptor X, will i be able to take my car from cali to vegas? i do that 8-10 times a year and it isnt uncommon for me to sit in stop and go traffic with the AC on full blast for 6 hours in 125F weather.

denward

 

oh sweet jesus

 

Yeah, that is going to be real rough on any car, let alone one as potentially temperamental as a turbo RX-8.
Between the bad Cali gas and the under-hood temps which will hit close to boiling outside the engine, I think you may not be very happy.

I'm already sweating the fact that I am moving to Phoenix where I might have to park my RX-8 out in those kind of conditions, let alone drive it.

 

lol.... id rather turbo charge, but if its gonna be a big problem, i dont have a problem with supercharge or even 220whp N/A

denward

 

A SC is no better than a Turbo for engine longevity. Alot of people seem to think it is. I would love to know why.

Three things cause engine wear, cylinder pressure, heat, rpms. Rpms is a constant, cylinder pressure (torque), which causes engine wear, will be the same for either for a given power level. The only possible reason for a turbo to cause more wear is due to increased underhood temps. But that can be avoided with proper shielding or ceramic coatings.

 

Sort of. The heat has to go somewhere and it is difficult to keep it in the pipes.

Having turbo'ed and SC'ed the same car (my KL-equipped MX-3), I can tell you that the plus and minus arguments cancel each other.

In the real world it just comes down to to points:

1) Packaging constraints
2) Perceived "cool factor"

 

im talking specifically for my trips to vegas. in terms of long term wear, i have no doubt that added load on the motor is added load on the motor no matter how its accomplished. but sitting in traffic in death valley, id rather take my chances with an SC the a TC.

denward

 

anyone remember the threads about bonestock, NA 8's fryin' up in Vegas this past summer???

 

Yep. We never really found the root cause, though. I would add a 3rd oil cooler just to be safe(r).

-MD

 

^^^ very good advice.

 

Stuff that i have experienced lol.... Like i said, the more u learn the better condition u will be in to solve all these problems...

Anyways, your major concern would be the heat. You would need to address the items that create heat... Wrapping your turbo and manifold, hood scoop, oil cooler, better radiator, extra fan? Water injection?

Cars modifications sometime can be very unpredictable... Take the step and jump!

 

Has anyone put 50k on a Greddy RX8, with just the e-manage?

 

I've put about 20k miles.

 

i would like to know who has put the most amount of miles on their greddy turbo 8 with the stock emanage and what flash they are running

 

125 F weather in traffic... let's talk improved cooling. You gotta have a good foundation to build a soild building. If you really want to go FI (you may want to even without... that's rough on any car)... get an upgraded radiator. Getting Racing Beat's oil pump upgrade might be a good idea too. Changing to synthetic engine and transmission oil is something else to consider.

 

I had my manifold, turbo and downpipe ceramic coated. I've been peeking under the hood from time to time and it seems to be running noticeably cooler. I'll be able to tell better once I get it tuned and I can beat on it a bit.

 

tip for ya if ya plan on boosting yer 8! i boosted mine with greddy kit.. Was fun but the tune it comes with is junk.. wasnt happy with it at all for the money so then i decieded to go all out and bought interceptor x- flywheel ect everything ... got it tuned locally but the guy was a retard and f'ed it up lol now im shipping it too florida for mazsport to do it but i ahve confidence in them .. so no greddy kit alone sucks!

 

Whether or not the Greddy kit w/ emanage sucks I think depends on what flash your running. I rode in one with the M flash, and it drove fine and pulled very hard. That's actually what got me to finally buy myne. When I installed myne I was running the N flash, and it didn't drive nearly as well, and definitely wasn't nearly as fast. Needless to say, I was disappointed. The R flash is supposidly even worse.

I think some tuning could correct for the N flash, but I think the R flash needs some hardware upgrades to get things right.