It was a nice and cold day for the Mazda Rev it Up in St. Louis yesterday. It was a blast and I met a few members from the forum, even recruited a few more, too. The crowd wasnt as big as the day before, so I heard, but it was a fun time, none the less.

We had three members there at the Mazda Enthusiast Club tent, including myself, and later on in the morning, we got a surprise visit by Benjamin from the RX-7 club who was there the day before with is 400 HP yellow RX-7. It was one sweet looking ride.

Afterwards he even treated us to a little parking lot follies and showed us the awsome power of his RX-7 beast. He did a few donuts and a bit of drifting about as he left the lot. I have to thank him because he took charge of installing a new K&N Typhoon intake that one of our members brought me after I bought it off of him. It is one sweet sounding modification.

Anyway, on with a few pics...

The first is a shot of the Mazda Enthusiast Tent with the RX-7 being flanked by the twin Titaniums of 91vert and renaldo. The only differences between their cars were 91vert's has the black and brown leather and renaldo has the Borla exhaust. Tinting of the windows was another difference.

 

This second pic is under the hood of Benjamin's RX-7.

 

Here is a list of his modifications.

 

Here is the view most of us would see for a few brief moments if we were in a race with this sweet RX-7. Well, maybe not standing still. That guy to the right is Kevin, 91vert.

 

This is Kevin and Sarah. Sarah is traveling with the Mazda Rev It Up locations all over the country. She is the daughter of Plays with cars who is the organizer of the Enthusiast club tent. She is a very nice and sweet young lady. Please, no disrespectful posts you dogs! :D

 

Here is my RX-8, safe and sound under the tent at this Rev It Up location...

 

Here I am staging for my 1st run. This turned out to be my best because second time around, I hit a cone...sigh...

 

We just happened to all go one right after another on the first run. Here is our first timed runs. The second timed run I got penalized 2 seconds for that cone that jumped right out in front of me. The other forum members there posted better times their second try.

 

On with pics of renaldo and 91vert twin Titaniums...

Here is renaldo's Borlas, I was amazed that they sounded just like on some of the files we have heard on the forum. Those sound clips are true to life! Such a nice cadence...:D

 

Here is the front of 91vert's Titanium

 

And another of renaldo's

 

Here is renaldo's side shot of his magnificent Titanium. He had it tinted with some reflective tint and I was amazed as to how good this looked on his Titanium RX-8. This picture does not do it justice one bit. You really have to see it to really appreciate it.

 

And the other side of the tent we have 91vert's Titanium beauty.

I have to admit, after seeing two Titaniums together, I really appreciate this color, it is very classy and beautiful.

 

This was one great time. We got to meet a couple of other members from our forum. chrighton stopped by as well as mdawgx24 (Jeff). Jeff and I were talking and I had said that I hadn't started any performance mods yet. He said that he had the Borla Exhaust, MS Flywheel, Grounding Wires, MS Sway Bars and a few other visual mods, such as the JDM Clear Corners, Black Tint, MS Oil Cap. He also said he had the K&N CAI with the heat shield in the box still but was considering selling it because he was worried about the amount of sound it would add to his 8. He made me a decent offer and I said sure. He left to go get it and everyone said we ought to install it so he brought back tools to do it.

We put it on in about an hour with some improvising of some of the tools. Benjamin, the RX-7 owner, took charge and was project leader. I assisted with parts and other segments of the disassembly/assembly and installation.

It was 30 minutes after the event got over that we finished. I fired it up and revved it a couple of times and it growled. :D

Benjamin, 91vert and renaldo took off out the gate as the Rev It Up crew was encouraging us to leave. They all waited outside the gate, except for Benjamin, as he was doing a bit of deserved showing off in the far end of the lot. I decided to do a bit myself with a nice launch.

I disabled the DSC and revved it up to about 5 or 6 K, dropped the clutch and smoked them for the first time I ever have since owning the 8. It just growled under a load and I hit red line then popped it into second and slowed down to return to the waiting members...grin on my face and all.

As I was driving back, I noticed that one of our guys, 91vert, was sort of waving me off. I didn't understand why until I pulled up along side of the Mazda MPV that was coming out the gate behind me at the start. It was the guy who is running the Rev It Ups. He wasn't happy. He gave me a bit of a scolding and said that he has to rent the lot and if the owners saw that we were tearing around it and ripping it up he may not be able to get it next year so I need to stop it immediately. Of course, I understood exactly what he said and appologized. I drove like a Grandma all the way out of the parking lot.

It was a great time, regardless. I would like to thank Sarah and her Mother for organizing this an allowing us to participate in this fun event. :D

 

Thanks for the nice post about my car!
Can ya do me a favor and blur my license plate for me.

Ya had to post my bad run on the track too! thanks alot. Just kiddin

 

Sorry about that, all taken care of. It was kind of late last night when I was getting them ready...after I did the RX-7s plates, I made a mental note to myself to do that to your too but I guess my ink ran out.:D

I didn't have a pic of your good run or I would have. I thought it was interesting we all had our runs up there in a row. I did mention you guys did better on the second run.:D

 

I have been thinking about the growling possibilities with the K&N as well and the extra sound concerns me.

Even without the K&N I did some similar showing off at my father-in-law's 75 birthday party last weekend when it was time to leave. I asked him if he wanted to see me light it up after he got through looking it over and he responded that he would be disappointed if I didn't at least show him if that rotary thing would light em up. I said, if it does he would have to buy my next set of rubber and he agreed.

So DSC off reved it up to 5 or 6 k, dumped the clutch and laid lines in front of his house, only when I shifted to 2nd and got a scratch, I kept on going to about 8K and shifted to 3rd and got another scratch. About the time I looked down and started slowing down I was doing over 100. The old man was impressed.

I just didn't get in trouble. Truth is, he lives in the country at the end of a 3 mile long asphalt road. As for the new rubber, I won't hold him to it. Heck I was having too much fun and with the M level ECM upgrade I still got 18 mpg on that tank. Up 5 mpg from before the upgrade without a nice launch.

So my question really is, did the K&N do the butt dyno any good or increase the mpg any at all under normal driving? I really need to know. Sometimes a little noise is ok, but it has to be productive.

 

As far as the butt dyno. It's hard to say, I know there have been dynos to say it didn't do anything, didn't increase it at all. I feel that it does do just a pinch but would one feel 2-3 extra HP?

The gas mileage issue won't be solved for a few days from me. I had a couple of partial tanks that weren't measured but I am on a measured tank now and I filled up just last night before the prices shot up 15 cents as they do most every Wednesday around here. I will post on change, if any, on my next fill up. I just got the L flash a couple weeks ago.

 

hey, Renaldo, ur car looks great!
espeically this one
https://www.rx8club.com/attachment.php?postid=337696

 

Thanks, that was my favorite too

EDIT: I just noticed the tint really looks good in that picture. Its a "metalic" tint. It looks completely different depending on the weather, overcast or sunny.

 

Yeah, that is why I picked that one because it showed the metalic tint very well. I liked that tint on the Titanium.