Hi everyone! I'm seriously considering buying this RX-8 off a friend for $500. I need a track car. My G37 is way to expensive to track. It's a 6 m/t with a brand new stage 2 clutch. Friend has no idea why is isn't running and I suspect there may be something stupid wrong with it that I could easily fix. That, or the engine needs rebuilt. I can rebuild one of these things easy. It has not been very well taken care of, but it's going to be stripped down into a straight up track car. My budget for the build is going to be around 2k. I would LOVE to convert the engine into a 3Rotor..is this possible??

Thoughts?

 

2k will not buy you much with an 8, please do some reading starting with New and Potential Owners START HERE! Then read it 10 more times.
After that, a rebuild engine will be no less than 3k, reman from a reputable source is be the best way to go IMO, do some more reading. 20B you're looking at 20k in the low end, 13B REW swap between 12k and 15K. LS swap, read the non rotary swap forum. Any other swap, good luck.

 

For $500, why not?
I've bought 3 different mods for mine that were +$500 each.
It does appear you have a steak appetite on a hamburger budget, but live & learn.

There is a bit more to rebuilding these than tearing it apart and putting it back together, but I'd like to see if you can do it.
If you attempt it, please follow up with your results.
Good luck!

 

Exactly! And I don't even know for sure if the engine needs rebuilt. The guy didn't hotrod the car from what I know. He kept the maintenace up on it. Most of the vacuum lines are rotted and I suspect a sensor or 2 may be bad. If I can't get it running then I will have to go ahead and pull the motor to replace seals, etc. I can do all of this in my garage. I just rebuilt my dads BMW N63 motor and it runs great! BMW wanted $6600, so I did it for $1260 + my $35/hr labor rate 😁

Honestly if if I could just get this thing stripped down to the lightest possible weight it can be + throw on a few eBay bolt ons I would be happy. I'm learning how to weld and have access to an arc welder. The roll cage will be the hardest part. It will be a great track car!

I wish i could could track my G37, but it's just too darn expensive. It's sitting at 341 RWHP and has a high tech suspension. Good brake pads for the track to stop this 3700 lb beast are about 350 all the way around, tires near a thousand.

i could get a used VQ motor like the one in my G for about 800 bucks. I wonder how hard it would be to fit a 3.7 liter in the tiny RX8 😂

 

Some things need to be cleared up here:

Driving an RX-8 like how my friend drives his Corolla is how you kill it. This engine Loves to rev, so make sure you do it at least once in a while.

Rotary engine rebuilding is not like a piston engine. You will probably want an expert for it, or get a reman from a Mazda dealer.

Also, this car is NOT a Civic, in the sense that you can't just add on a couple of bolt-on and get like 50+HP. Mods get expensive, and they don't yield that great of a return.

Finally, not sure if anyone tried to put Nissan V6 in an RX-8. I used to have a 08 Accord Coupe with a V6. The J35Z2 was already pretty massive, and that was a SOHC engine. Nissan VQ V6s are DOHC, so they are even wider.

There are drop-key LS swaps for about 10 grand nowadays.

 

I'm not trying to ruin your dream of having a "cheap" track toy, but if you're complaining about $350 for pads and $1000 tires, average pads for the rx8 is around that price and I paid over $1200+ for my tires on my 8.

The Rx-8 is an extremely high maintenance car that's not cheap to run at any means, I roughly pay around $3500+ in maintenance a year as a daily.

 

Get a Honda for a cheap track toy

 

Some random thoughts from a guy who tracks his RX-8 and Miata regularly:

1. Rebuilding a Renesis costs around $2,000 in parts alone, and most people fail on their first attempt, which means another $2,000. That's why we recommend buying a $3,000 reman from Mazda and dropping it in with maybe $1,000 in other fresh parts. Same price, less labor, better result. You could also roll the dice on a JDM engine for less. Some are good, some are bad, but since you are capable of doing your own R&R, you could potentially leverage the warranty to eventually get a good one.

2. Parts for an RX-8 are not inexpensive. There is a price premium on most things, because of the rarity of the car and the lack of a shared platform sibling. A decent set of track-oriented coilovers, for example, will set you back at least $2,000.

3. Good track pads are always expensive. The last set of Carbotechs I bought for my Miata were $360, for example. Pads for the RX-8 cost more, around $420, IIRC. I also have it in my head that at least one of the backing plate shapes is shared between the RX-8 and G37.

4. Tire price depends on size and model more than car. I spend around $1,000 per set for 235s through 255s every time I buy them for the 8. The only way to get around this is use under-performing budget tires, but even those are north of $700. The last set of track tires (NT01) I bought for my Miata were right at $800.

5. eBay parts do not stand up to track abuse. Don't waste your money.

6. If you want a cheap track car, buy a Miata or Civic that is already set up for track duty. Building one always costs more than it should. Ask me how I know x2.

 

Man, you are entering a world of hurt... I'm not saying you shouldn't (look at my signature) but... Yah, an RX-8 isn't a cheap track toy. It's a rewarding track toy. It's a fun track toy. But it's not a cheap track toy.

You aren't going to get a 3-rotor running in an '8 for less than $10k (plus the car). Odds are, done properly, you're looking at closer to $30k. For the price/power ratio, you'd be better off with an LS swap. There's a decent sized community on facebook centered around the LS1RX8 kit with a large body of knowledge. If you're smart, careful and do all the work yourself, you can probably get close to 400 HP for around $10k in addition to the car.

Here's what I'd recommend for your budget:
Car $500
Rotary compression tester $350 (pays for itself in 2-3 dealer tests)
Mazda reman engine $3000 (don't expect a 136k mile motor to have many reusable parts for a rebuild and don't expect to get it running well without a rebuild)
Gasket kit, coils/plugs/wires, CSF or Koyo radiator, fluids, incidentals $1000
Brakes (centric 120 and track pads) $500
Tires $1000

$6350.

And that's before you get into things like reliability mods, suspension, seats, wheels, exhaust, fuel, aero, cage, and all the other go fast bits.

You might get it running easily but don't bet on it. Be prepared for the worse case and if it doesn't happen then you get to reallocate that part of your budget for go fast bits. A 136k mile Renesis is going to have low compression. It just is. It may still start and run normally but it will be down on power, possibly a lot. So, even if you get the car running, expect to get passed a lot.