Hi everyone - I come from the land of MINI Coopers and BMWs. I'm an active user over at NorthAmericanMotoring. But I wanted to reach out to this community because of your depth of knowledge.

I am worried that a friend of mine is being scammed. He is very friendly, agreeable and easily influenced. I'm not well-versed to the world of Mazdas and rotary engines, so I wanted to reach out to this community for advice since you all understand the platform better than I ever could.

My friend has a RX8 that he adores and loves. A couple years ago, he joined a local RX8 club and made a lot of new friends. He has always made modifications to his car, but he's starting to go down a path of some extreme builds. I think a part of that might be under the influence of his new circle of friends. Some of them are wrenchers.

Fast forward to now, his car has not been running since last March (2016). He claims that his mechanic just had a part shipped out to build his new motor. The details are a bit sketchy (English is not his first language) but here is what I can gather. He first sold his RX8 engine to start a engine swap.

Currently he is $7,000 out of pocket. He claims it's all in parts and his labor is free. Here is what the $7,000 breaks down to:

-The new engine which is a 26B Engine (4 rotors).

-Bolts (?? - not sure what this is)

-Count weight (?? - not sure what this is)

-E Shaft

The parts are all from New Zealand. From a shop called PPRE (Pulse Performance Race Engineering).

He claims that after all this, he just needs to drop a bit more money on a new clutch to hold all the new power and torque.

My questions...

-Is someone pulling his leg?

-Is PPRE legit?

-Is $7K normal for all these parts?

I have other concerns where he might be influenced to build out a racing spec motor/car since he doesn't race, but I'll give him the benefit of the doubt that he wants to get into racing.

 

i doubt you could even buy a four rotor e shaft for $7000. they are very rare, expensive and a custom part. also needed a a ton of custom fab work, rotors, housings, steering, ecu, driveshaft, trans just to name a few things

 

I don't think anybody has completed a street-driven 26B swap in an RX-8 but I'd guess the total cost would be close to $50K on top of the car itself. The 26B doesn't really fit so there's a silly amount of fabrication involved.

A 20B is more reasonable but even then you're probably still looking at north of $20k.

This definitely doesn't sound legit.

 

a used 20b (3 rotor) which will need a rebuild and a ton of fab work is about 7k just for the used engine

 

Yeah my buddy did all the work himself and had 50k into his rather conservative 20B (3 rotor) Turbo (450WHP) RX-8.

PPRE sells their 4 rotor for just under $50,000.00 USD.

 

Thanks for the information so far. I'm going to share some of this information with him so he can get some 3rd party knowledge from other well-versed owners.

 

Your friend should join the site and do some heavy reading here!

 

He should join and share his full parts list.

 

lots of knowledge to share here on builds

 

There's a reason this website exists, to stop people from being bilked out of money is one reason.

 

PPRE is a legit company . I know the owner personally and he is a straight up guy . It's hard to get a handle on what your mate is trying to do but as others have mentioned ... a 26b is going to cost way more than he has spent so far.

 

It's difficult to offer any opinions based on second hand information.

As suggested before, he should join and offer specifics.