Hi all, greetings from Australia
I've owned an 04 6 port MT for a year now so I figured it's about time I officially joined the community. I've spent countless hours reading but all anonymously, so I thought I'd say hi!

I have a bit of experience in the tuning side of things, and I'm in the process of putting together a long term project including full engine rebuild with respect to turbocharging--I'm totally in love with the chassis and the rotary driving feel!

Also, I couldn't thank Brettus enough for his contributions and R&D he's provided to the FI RX8 community. I'm sure for every one person that's responded to his threads, there's 10 others taking notes anonymously.

Right now I'm looking into the transmission as it's the primary letdown of this car--it feels very nice to use in terms of shifter feel, notchiness, very smooth etc. The issue is my daily is an 04 civic type r, and the short spaced gearing on it is fantastic to use day-to-day, and in comparison the comically long second gear in the 8 bothers me both when doing a pull having to wait for the revs to drop, leaving me out of the power band, and also when cold, having to rev above 3000rpm before shifting, and makes the car feel much less agile than it otherwise could for such a high revving engine. If anyone knows of any alternative gears that can be swapped other than just the long 6th or changing the final drive (which doesn't help in my case), I'd love to hear about them. Even entire replacement transmissions with a shorter spacing that can bolt up would be good too (the 5 speed is unfortunately even worse in this aspect)

Short second concept:





Another totally fictional gearing (short 2nd, 3rd, 4th)

 

Welcome.
Good luck with your project.

 

I just stumbled across this Japanese company and their "Cross gear set": Revolution Online Catalog / ????????
The ratios look fantastic, assuming what they say is accurate! I'm not sure if it's for a Japanese-only transmission though, considering they mention some "Type-S"

When paired with the S2 rear diff, it matches the OE wheel speeds a bit closer for each gear, but highway cruising at 110kmh gets a little less comfy