rx-8???

[240LoVeR]

so what is up with the lack of rx-8s in the drifting world??

iv seen a few but only a few, is it the lack of turbos/blowers available is it that the renesis engine is still fairly new to people or what? and i know its not money because there are already hundreds of 350z and a rx-8 can be had for the same or less money.

if anyone has an reason for this or proof to show me wrong(pics/vids) then please post umm

[Tsa-Narq]

Ive always wondered that too. I think it might be because the RX-8s are pretty slow and are really hard to work on. Or so alot of people say.....

[Hyde]

well just casue u dont see any tuned rx8s yet by tuning shops dosnt mean that there not working on it. re amemiya has a kick *Censored**Censored**Censored* rx8 and greddy has a rx8 turbo kit comin out or is already out. same with amemiya. jic has a rx8 with 13brew engine swap. i think the reason why there arnt to many drifting is because the na engine dosnt work well with drifting, thats why jic swapped engines. but just give it some time. btw heres some pics of rx8s by diff tuning shops that i got. btw bn sports made a rx7/8 also, which is badass

[swifty949]

NA can work perfectly fine for drifting. Usually NA has a better power band than turbo...
The car is new, and is still costly to run and repair. Also the Japan market never took off with teh RX8 like they did with the Z. HKS showed thier Rx8 supercharger at TAS, & Greddy is releasing thier twin turbo, so maybe a market is slowly developing.

btw that last pic shown is an FD with a Rx8 front end.

[driftex]

does the electrical steering have anything to do with it? the JIC RX-8 is sweet, but alot of it is custom parts and parts from an rx-7. it has an rx-7 engine, steering rack, custom pedals and mounts and lots of other custom stuff.

[Velvet]

Yeah, give the community some time. I mean, would you really want to spend nearly $30K on a new car, void the warranty by adding mods just to crash it and be forced to pay higher insurance premiums and end up being knee deep in debt? The same thing happend to the FD when it came out in Japan in the early 90's. R&D doesnt happen over night, it takes months for the tuning shops to finalize their prototypes and market their products to the public. In 5 years from now, more people will drift RX-8 as their prices go down in the used car market and there are more parts avaliable for it.

[nasty nate 7]

in my opinion, mazda didnt expect this car to race, if you look at it on a business perspective, its generally a car for a family that fits 4 large adults comfortably yet retaining the sporty look and feel and the performance on a rotary. mazda did succeed in its sales in that area. Plus, mazda tends to come out with a new generation of rx7s in 2006/2007? bear in mind, the rx8 is not an rx7 nor a replacement for it. Now, if i look at it on a tuning company perspective, it is a good way to make money in developing parts for a current production car (example, look what HKS did, the D1 S15 silvia is out of production, so they decided to use an altezza to promote their name) just becuz they come out with parts and all doesnt mean its expected to race in events. (2 totally different catagories.) i like rx8 too myself. i take it that this model is more a rotary enthusiast car, nothing else.

[Octagon]

I'll also add that Mazda enthusiasts and tuning groups stateside have concentrated on road racing with the RX-8, which has resulted in the Goldin Bros. Grand Am GT class RX-8 and the Speedsource RX-8's in Grand Am Cup ST (sport touring).

And, for the record, Sylvain Tremblay and Dave Haskell won the GAC 2004 ST championship with the Speedsource RX-8's.



I'm sure someone with a love for rotaries and a fair sized budget will parlay the North American road racing successes of the RX-8 into a drifting program.

[swifty949]

in my opinion, mazda didnt expect this car to race, if you look at it on a business perspective, its generally a car for a family that fits 4 large adults comfortably yet retaining the sporty look and feel and the performance on a rotary. mazda did succeed in its sales in that area. Plus, mazda tends to come out with a new generation of rx7s in 2006/2007? bear in mind, the rx8 is not an rx7 nor a replacement for it. Now, if i look at it on a tuning company perspective, it is a good way to make money in developing parts for a current production car (example, look what HKS did, the D1 S15 silvia is out of production, so they decided to use an altezza to promote their name) just becuz they come out with parts and all doesnt mean its expected to race in events. (2 totally different catagories.) i like rx8 too myself. i take it that this model is more a rotary enthusiast car, nothing else.

I agree to a point...however was a Chaser ever meant to be more than a family car?

[Xantos]

I agree to a point...however was a Chaser ever meant to be more than a family car?

Ya but I think it got lucky. Like a once in a million.

The RX-8 is also a highly computerized car, with a lot of electronically controlled things that people dont like messing with. However the basic engine of it would be good for tuning, RENESIS was a highly engineered engine, with a lot of potential. Once some tuning shops get past the 8's electronics I think we will see some Hi-po RX-8s.

[SpeedWise]

personally i think it's just a matter of time ... take it this way ... It has plenty of potential power wise , and i have personally tested one with stock suspention and it handled pretty well so i imagine that with a tuned suspention someone could get something worthy out of that car ... and as for the price ... if some can afford to drift last gen supras , R34's , VIPERS !!! and GTO why not an RX8 ? it'll come ...

[nasty nate 7]

i wanna see what the next gen rx7 has to offer. quite frankly FD > SE if you compare the 2.

[theflatlander]

Aside from the fact that the rx-8 is just a sporty family car, the RENESIS (being a marvel for what it is), is somewhat a hindering factor for the car. It isn't a very boost happy motor due to its 1mm apex seals, yes tuning is everything for a rotary and its life line but boosting the motor is gonna put a lot of stress on the seals. Another thing is the ports, they're pretty much maxed out as they are now, the intake ports of the renesis are huge compared to that of any other generation of 13b and can only really be extended a couple of mmm and yet due to the sideport exhaust it has no overlap and awsome emissions,but then the exhaust port is a big problem when looking for more performance out of the renesis,due to how the exhaust runner is you can only really clean up the casting on the port, and if you want more you have to do some major modification to the intermediate plate. Now there have been a few tuners bridge porting the aux. ports and have had a lot of success, i've seen over 240whp on a bridged renesis with everthing stock 'cept the ports and some tuning.