The 1990s honda civic slave works great almost a direct bolt on, used rx8 slave pin. The factory line might work but isn't flared so I used the rx8 hydraulic line.

Are you sure its a TII driveshaft? Mine wouldn't fit. About a 1/2" too long.
Although my 13B-RE started life in my FC with the Banzai racing motor mount adapters which I know for a fact didn't fit for shit..... And then broke on me so I built my own. Pretty sure I got the engine exactly where it was from the factory, but it could be slightly off.... Just doubt its a full 1/2".
Any who..... Version 3 installed and ready to go.... Going to go do multiple launches with the launch control and 400+ rwhp.... Might do some street tuning to 25psi.... Hope my glass trans holds up :rolleyes:

It's is not a stock drive shaft but it is built to OEM spec. My measurements off the trans showed I would be 7/8" too long but when I went to measure the shaft while in the car it fit.

Tell me more about your 6 speed swap, I will be turbo by the end of summer. Goal of 350whp. I think the trans will hold considering how light the car is.

I found something called a "cable-x-3012" CSS to mechanic speedo driver. Looks like it will drive the rx7 speedo but will take time for me to save up. I will also have to add a reluctor wheel on the drive shaft or buy a s5 abs hub.

Odd. Then again, I've had problems with driveshaft shops not building them to the right length more times than not. The AL one I had built was built too short. It works but I would like to see it a little longer. Fought a driveshaft vibe because of it.

I would measure them yourself and see what the lengths are. I'm fairly confident you have an auto driveshaft.

1988 Mazda RX-7 SE - Super Street Magazine

There's a bunch of mistakes in that article.

or

http:// that other car club rotary forum that IB won't allow me to link to cause they're scared of us /rotary_forum/showthread.php?t=10116

The trans will hold 350rwhp just fine. I've been pushing 400+ through it for the last 5 years. This included 405rwhp from stock REW twins, 390+ through a set of BNR's, ~400rwhp through an A-Spec 500R and for the last 2 years 415rwhp through Elliots GTX35 Stg V with Garretts 71mm 10 blade turbine wheel.... built my own equal length fully divided twin TiAL MVS wg mani with a 4" exhaust back to the subframe where it splits into 2x3" back to the bumper maintaining the full flow of the 4" in the transition. In a few weeks when I have the time a new fuel pump, new meth pump head, and a one more meth nozzle is going in for a total of 1400cc's of flow and then we'll hit the dyno. I street tuned the car up to ~25psi but only ~5500-6k.... was running out of fuel pump. The Aeromotive Stealth isn't all it's cracked up to be. No Idea what the power was but it should land me north of 500rwhp.

The trans isn't a weak trans, and anyone who tells you that is just an internet parrot who really needs to stfu and go play with scions or hondahs and camber their shit out and think it's cool. The size of the gears between the TII box and the SE3P box aren't that different. Plus there are a few other brands of cars out there running the same Aisin family of 6-spds making way more power. Hell, at one point there was a 20B RX8 in PR that was using the stock trans without problems. They did have to modify a few things to make it work properly though.

The problem with the trans isn't the strength of it, it's the assembly. It's a sloppy tranny inside and thus, there are a lot of problems with it that need to be addressed.

As anyone who had "blown" one of these trannies what they were doing when it let go. Most people will tell you that they were shifting into 2nd when all hell broke loose. Ok, so how do you shift into 2nd gear. First you depress the clutch and simultaneously lift off the throttle. So explain to me how it broke from being weak when there was zero torque applied to the tranny. See where I'm going?

My tranny failed when I was gingerly pulling out of a gas station and it popped out of 1st gear. I chipped a few teeth on the countershaft and dented a few on the main shaft when the detent balls popped out from over extension of the hub. Not a weak thing, it's a poorly assembled transmission.

Something shitty happened to me @ Lightning a few years back though. I tacked out 5th gear and was going for 6th down the front straight. I missed 6th and hit 4th @ 143mph running some 275/35/18 Hoosier R6's.... I can't remember what the max RPM was but I over spun the F*** out of that engine. Ended up bouncing the rotors off the plates and breaking a corner seal.... that sucked.

A year later @ LRP again I was hauling balls down the front straight, redlined 5th put my hand on the shifter for 6th as I crossed the S/F line and BAM! To this day I still don't know what happened but the shifter violently jumped up on me. I lifted and thought WHAT THE F***! Looked in the rearview to see a long think cloud of smoke and thought WHAT THE F***!! Looked in front of me to see I was DEEP into the braking zone and thought OH F***!!!!!!!!!! Slammed the brakes, got off the racing line and backpeddled around the entire 1.51m track to the pits, through the paddocks and up onto the trailer. The whole bottom of the car was covered in oil and the drain plug was missing from the tranny. WHAT THE F***! The closed the track for 15 mins to clean up my mess. I found the track worker to ask him what the puddle looked like and he said it was a puddle... a legit 10-15' long puddle of tranny fluid. Now.... think about how long it takes to drain the fluid out of the tranny when you pop the plug out and think about how fast I was traveling.... I can burn through LRP in 63-65s, so how does a puddle occur at that speed? Everything drops out at once. I still don't know how that happened but when I got back to the shop I put the car on the lift, put a new drain plug in, filled the tranny up and let it sit overnight on the lift. I saw no leaks so I drove that same tranny for another 2 years.

Weak tranny my ass.....

That is one way to go about it. I have a client who wants a complete RX8 drivetrain swap into his '83 RX7. I'm also doing an FC front subframe swap as well and thus, using the same setup I have in my FC to get wheel speeds. Using the stock ABS hubs you bore that sensor hole to .72" (or just get a really nice 3/4" drill bit) and then get a GT101 hall effect sensor. Wire that shit up to the CableX and bam, wheel speed sensors.
Oh, I should probably mention that I had some custom trigger wheels waterjetted for the front hubs to use the GT101 sensor. There should be some pics in that build thread. For the rears I built a bracket to mount the same sensors and used the bolts off the 2-piece rotors in the rear to get the wheel speeds that way. Everything is wired into the MoTeC and then CAN bus over to the AIM dash. I have 4 speed inputs because I have legit traction and launch control through the MoTeC. I launch the car @ 4-4500RPM by holding the throttle down to the floor, holding the clutch to the floor, putting the trans in 1st gear and then side stepping an Exedy twin disc clutch. The ECU then takes car of the rest but it is a VIOLENT launch. 0-60 times datalogged in the 3.8-3.9s range.... Curious to see what they will be when the boost is turned up to 25psi.

For the FB I'll be using the CableX and my trigger setup to get wheel speeds.

I was talking with Rob at Pineapple a few days ago and he's running a GPS speedo from Speedohut or speedhut dot com, one of those. I don't know which will be cheaper but of you're thinking about changing out the stock cluster for whatever reason, the GPS speedo might be a cheaper option, I dunno, I never priced them out.

If you do go the ABS hub assembly and are in need of a trigger wheel, let me know and I can get you one, I think I have a few extra kicking around somewhere, if not, I'm sure I have the .dwg file kicking around on my old shop/tuning laptop.

Not so much the filter but the filter pedestal.

I was looking at the GPS heads up displays but I also want the factory speedo to work.
From what I'm told it might be the shifter fork that's bending not the gears breaking so this may upgradable for more power. My trans is out of a. 2007 and maybe it a bit stronger than the older model but still a s1box.

It was rob from pinapple racing who told me what I needed to complete the swap he's awesome guy.
Great car angryperson. I'm going to do a Tll torsen again people say they're week but yeah if your suspension is hoping launching or you clipping corners at the track it will break otherwise they are very strong. My friends FD took a beating and never broke 405whp 12.2@118 if I was driving it would of been 11's.

With only a few things to do to the car I ended up in the hospital, emergency appendectomy. I can't wait to drive this thing, but first I need to be able to do a sit up.

lol, if anything the SE3P trans has bigger gears... and the shafts are enormous.

its actually pretty hard to find an Rx8 with a transmission problem, old ones get a little slow in 3rd, but thats the drivers fault

you mean slow going into third because of miss shifts>? or something else entirely?

Yeah, I do on the 'vert as well which I why I'm going to use the ABS knuckle and my trigger wheels and a cable x or some variant. Same with the clients FB

I've only seen one broken shift fork and I'm pretty sure it broke when we were trying to separate everything or in transit. It was a big chunk of AL that didn't move at all.... meaning that the tranny didn't rotate to move it or chew it up.

The forks and the shifter control mech does wear, and piss poor shifting habits will wear it faster. It doesn't need to be upgraded, it needs to be "maintained"
I have 2 RX8's.... my Black GT has 207k on it.... from what I know it's the original trans. The sync's looked ok. The only reason I cracked it open was because of a pissed off input bearing.
The other has 138k on it and that trans IS factory original and shifted fine when I took it out.... it's actually the donor trans for the FB.... the Silver '04 GT RX8 is getting a 383 LS

Rob's a great guy for sure.

Thanks.
I find that to be another misconception as well. I think it's more the hoping on launchs. I've got even more miles on my 4.3 Torsen with no problems. Plan on putting one in the 'vert as well and running that up to 450rwhp, over 500rwhp in the coupe.... Oh... I'll be keeping the factory Torsen in the LS V8 RX8 with 400+ ft/lbs

Damn man, get better soon!

Well yeah, and that's what makes them weaker right? [insert retarded internet hypothesis here.... actually hypothesis is too smart of a word.... insert retarded internet ramblings intended to make people think they're smarter than actually taking shit apart and figuring shit out :rofl:]

1st gets slow too.... most used gear and people don't wait before trying to jam it in...

People not knowing how to shift properly.

After picking up my t2 trans and picking up the rx8 trans, the rx8 trans is lighter. Or I suddenly got stronger.

So what you're saying is that in the 15-20 years between production manufacturers haven't figured out how to make things lighter or stronger? Pretty simple to say that based on weight the tranny is lighter therefore weaker. Go tear one down next to a TII tranny and find me the weak spot.

The weakness of the RX8 is almost exclusively the shifting assembly. I interned for an RX8 SCCA World Challenge team. They'd go through one S1 trans for practice, one for qualifying, and one for race day. All 3 would be broken down and rebuilt after every race weekend, always needing shift forks and synchros (they were already MazdaSpeed or aftermarket where available) . That eventually got annoying and wrecked S2s started popping up (~circa 2010). After switching to the S2 trans, one would last a whole weekend without issue. They were much more durable on a road course compared to the S1. It's easy to blame the issues with the S1 trans on driver error, but this was with a consistent podium finishing driver for the class and a car making <220whp.

Woah now, I wasn't implying or saying anything about weakness at all. I just wanted to comment that it takes less effort for me to lift an rx8 trans around the shop compared to my t2 one thats all.

For what it's worth, there are some great posts on RX-8 club from Jason Saini on the relative strengths between the transmissions. (In a thread comparing them to the new for 09 transmission. It's an older thread:

2009 RX-8 Transmission Gear Chart and Discussion - RX8Club.com

I'll go back to lurking now. Interested in this as a down the road proejct for my NA road race car.

Pretty much what I've been saying all along.

When racing, you don't have time to wait to shift, you're shifting as fast as possible four hours on end. When I say driver, I mean people who can't shift, and people who shift way to damn fast. So yes, I am blaming your driver, but then again, I don't blame him because it's a damn race, so yeah.

I track my car, I auto-x it, I beat up on just about everything on the highway.... but that accounts for about 5% of my driving. Most times I'm just cruising the damn thing and enjoying it.

The damage has already been done to my trans from the other shifter assembly that I was using. Over the winter I'll rebuild it with new syncs and forks. I would be interested in the MazdaSpeed Part numbers you have though so I can check them out on MazdaMotorsports website/store.

I would love to see a pic of an S2 trans, to figure out of it's possible to relocate the shifter ~3.5" back

Kinda what you were implying, if not, sorry, but I've heard that statement soooo many times... well it's lighter therefore weaker :facepalm:

Interesting read... well.... maybe 2 or 3 posts out of 5 pages... but that's the norm for 8club :lol:

One of my dirty little secrets. Like I said this works but wish I did it a little better, I could of threaded it, had it welded, but I dove into this head first not really knowing what I was doing.

I drilled a Ugly hole with out much planing. I ended up using a piece of graphite pipe with the rubber boot from a slave cylinder. it was either the 1997 civic slave boot or the 2005 eclipse slave boot I attached to the pipe with string and epoxy. I epoxy glassed the pipe/seal to the casing and sealed it with honda bond permatex. It would of been better to thread in a fitting or weld in a pipe. The bolt on extension doesn't leave much room and this would of been much easier if the extension was welded on. Here is a video of what it looks like.

subscribed

It's super easy to swap in an integra electric speedo. Everything lines up and it's the same scale so you can even use the stock faceplate.

see: http://www.norotors.com/index.php?topic=199.0

Hey Ghost, have you managed to get the trans installed and driving yet?

At a rotary meet in Baltimore with the rx8. Almost had the rx7 done today. A few small welds to the trans mount and hang the exhaust. I hope to have it done tonight.

I'll post video when done

The gearing is great but the solid trans mount makes the car sound like shit, im getting a strange harmonic in the car at 55mph. The car is definitely faster and much more fun to drive. I'm riding on 225/45/17 and anything smaller than that might be too small. When I go turbo I will probably install the 3.9 rear. The exeddy clutch and act flywheel feel great and the 1997 civic slave works perfect.

The trans I bought feels worn compared to the one in my rx8 but that's what I get for shopping the lowest price on craigs list.

My only complaint is the noise from my trans mount. I don't feel any vibration in the shifter but the noise is greatly reduced when I push the clutch in. It's a ugly sound and my first thought was unbalanced drive shaft which I still haven't fully ruled out.

It could be the input bearings, I've killed a few of those now, including the one in my 8.

What did you do for trans mounts? I don't think I saw a pic of them?

Don't bother with the 3.9 unless you're looking for some sort of fuel economy while cruising. I went with a 4.3 in my FC and would do it again if given the choice.

I cut the center out of the factory trans mount. Used 2" square tube to space it from the chassis. I drilled two holes in a steel plate bolted it to the car and welded it all together. I'm going to replace the 2" square tube with polyurethane block but it will take a week for the block to ship.

Money spent $$$$
$100 for Tll drive shaft
$20 for trans mount
$20 slave cyl
$400 trans & starter
$260 act flywheel
$150 exedy clutch
$120 for shifter parts

$1070 total.

the Rx8 transmissions are pretty loud

John I think part of the issue is your solid mount. I put poly mounts on my car and now I get a vibration around the same RPM. I need to put the rubber mounts back in and see if the vibes go away or not.

I cut some thick heater hose into small sheets and used it where I could on the trans mount. The vibration was greatly reduced. I think replacing the square tubing with polyurethane will make it feel perfect.

I had to change the flywheel and the drive shaft so I worry when there is a new vibration, I have to make sure I'm not damaging the motor.

The vibration doesn't change much from 3k-8k and is more noticeable in the passenger seat which makes sense to me because the engine turques that direction and the trans is bolted near the seat.
I still suspect this strange driveshaft is out of balance but the shifter doesn't vibrate at all.

Once the poly is in place I think everything will be nice and quiet like before. It's not that bad now but I don't want Any noise or vibration.

Driving this car aside form a little extra noise is 1000 times better than before. The na trans gearing is terrible and with 17" rims it was way too tall, this is much better.

Installed poly mounts, harmonic is still there but hardly noticeable. 6th gear = 60mph@3000rpm bald tires. My rx8 18" rims 65mph@3000rpm with 4.1 rear perfect :)
My math says rx7 should be 64mph@3000rpm so I might install 3.9 rear.
With the 5speed na box 65mph@2500 and 77mph@3000rpm this was way too tall.

Only 65mph at 3000 rpm? I'd rather leave it stock. That's way too fast to be of any real world daily use. What will you get with that, 8 mpg? Top gear is supposed to be overdrive for cruising. I wanted to do this mod. Now I'm content with the stock box.

Anything under 2800rpm at 65mph and you're probably overloading the engine and wasting fuel.
This more about improving 1-4th but fuel economy is still a concern.
I was at 2500rpm@65mph its the equivalent of constantly driving up hill which also wastes fuel.

2800@65 =3500rpm@81 in my car less than that and ur wasting fuel and power.

3000rpm@65mph feels great and my rx8 gets 21mpgs average tracked over 3 months with cell app so econo drivin I probably get 25. It's much better on fuel with the 4.1 rear.

My goal is 65mph@3000rpm that is where it will preform best and the gearing will work best for acceleration and mpg. Best of both worlds.

With this gearing top of third will be 100mph perfect or the 1/4 mile and with turbo 4th will be 130@8500

My S5 na which runs horribly pig rich stock gets 23 mpg on the freeway now. My old S4 which was tuned averaged 23 in my normal city driving. On the freeway it could get around 27 and once on a long flat drive got in the 28's. I'd do better to just lean out the S5. You aren't overloading anything at that speed and rpm. If you were, you couldn't still accelerate in 5th gear cruising and we all know that is easily possible. The RX-8 can't hold a candle to an FC in the fuel economy game due to it's horrible rear end gearing. Of course it's extra weight isn't helping either. I understand your logic that the engine is (potentially) in a higher efficiency range but there's no direct proof of that. Unless of course you can hit 30 mpg. Then I'll believe it.

I do agree that you should be able to increase acceleration in the non overdriven gears but 6th gear should correspond to 5th in the RX-7 tranny or nearly so. The only point of high gear is cruising. If your sole focus is purely acceleration then I see the desire to use this.

the Rx8 is geared for acceleration. the Rx8 gears are basically the same thing as the competition transmission from the early 80's, except the Rx8 has a granny gear first.

the Rx7 is geared for economy.

That is true when looking at a factory rx8 with factory rear gearing but with taller rear gears you'll find the tranny has a tall first gear and close range 2nd thru 6th. My rx8 with 4.1 rear feels amazing while my rx7 is now geared exactly like a factory rx8. I'm going to replace the tires and then maybe install my old 3.9 rear. Gearing is a preference like driving style but you guys running 2500 rpm@65mph I'm sure you are wasting fuel and performance. Its just too much load on the motor to be efficient and that fact is probably hidden from you turbo guys because you won't feel it as much in the peddle but look at your vacuum when in 5th.

gearing is a catch 22, engines burn less fuel at lower rpm but to run lower gearing you need more power which means you need more fuel. I've been playing with gearing and my motors like 2800 to 3100@ 65mph anything lower than that and you stressing the motor wasting fuel and power.

the rx8 is 3k at 60, 4k at 80 5k at 100, and so on. while i would love 3k at 80mph, it would be about at good as you can get and only new 2-3mpg over 3k at 65.

i go no speedo, but i usually stay under 4k rpm.

For what it's worth, that's just like my Honda Prelude in fifth gear. 3k at 60 mph, 4k at 80mph, and so on. Average about 27 mpg. My '06 RSX-S in sixth is down about 200 RPM at 70 (~3300). Average MPG is 31.

I bet the RX7 is more fun than both the Hondas.

The usdm cars had the better 5th gear, jdm cars had a real short 5th gear sadly. My vert with a 4.1 would do 64mph at 3k(gps backed up speedo reading).

Than you really have no idea how physics works.

Best would be a totally different 6th gear.

Apples and oranges when comparing fuel economy from the 7 to the 8.... here's something to ponder.
Loaded FC with driver and full tank of fuel = 3,000lbs.
410rwhp @ 14psi
RX8 trans
4.3 rear end
255/40/17 rear tires
20mpg on the freeway while CONSTANTLY beating the shit out of the car.
Oh.... I cruise my car at a horribly pig rich .88L

Thankfully someone understands this.

There lies the key right there.....

I'm pulling about 40kpa cruising around..... @80mph and 4k on the highway.... and getting about 19-20mpg.... with lots of abuse.

Now if I were to get a different 6th gear and drop those "cruising" rpm down I could probably pick up a few mpg....

It's that physics thing I mentioned before.... that whole concept that can't be avoided in this world.

I know you're not comparing the fuel economy of a hondah 4-cylinder to a rotary, right? I guess I could put in my experience of last week driving a 2002 S2000 2500 miles cross country and cruising @ 4400rpm and 80mph and AVERAGING 87mph across texas and getting 24mpg.... because it's totally relevant.

you live up to your name very well sir. :lol:

That was me being calm :rofl:

An engine does not become more inefficient at lower engine speeds for a steady cruise. It may be unacceptably unresponsive, but not more inefficient.

Part of understanding physics is to understand what an internal combustion engine is at its most basic - which is an air pump. One must also understand that the power required to maintain a given speed in a given car is constant - for most cars to maintain highway speeds requires only 10-20hp. The throttle plate (or variable valve lift in some newer piston engines) is used to control power output to maintain a given speed in a given gear, by adding a restriction that makes the engine pump air less efficiently.

Lower engine speeds but less throttle restriction make the same power using less fuel than higher engine speeds with higher throttle restriction to manage the power output, because especially when the power demands are low, the proportion of the engine’s output that goes to overcoming pumping losses becomes higher. To maintain a given speed, an engine will be more efficient with larger throttle opening, but lower engine speed used to generate the required amount of power. The limit of this is the point at which the engine, even at WOT, can't make enough power even at that engine speed to overcome the car's drag and mass.

In more practical terms, a trade-off gets made between having more reserve power available easily (higher revs) vs. increased pumping efficiency, and therefore fuel economy (lower revs/larger throttle opening). Higher revs with more throttle restriction mean the engine is already being held back – and removing the restriction of the throttle plate means it can quickly make more power – say to pass or to maintain speed up a steep grade without a downshift. It also means secondary losses to friction consume a larger portion of the engine’s output. Running the engine at larger throttle but lower engine speed means the engine is closer to its theoretical maximum for that engine speed, and so can only increase power through a proportionately smaller removal of throttle restriction to maximize the power output for that engine speed, or a downshift to increase engine speed to a range where it can make more power. But regardless, to the degree slower throttle response can be tolerated, the lower the engine speed, with correspondingly larger throttle opening, the more efficiently an internal combustion engine works to maintain a given speed.

Wrong - VE - learn about it

Means a higher MAP value which will require more fuel per RPM to maintain a proper AFR.

Higher engine speeds with throttle restriction means lower MAP values which means less fuel per RPM to maintain a proper AFR.... add in the VE variable and you see where I'm going with that....

See above...

Because of VE yes, but not because of the reasons you're eluding to.

There's no free lunch..... higher revs, less MAP vs lower revs and higher MAP, pumping losses, frictional losses etc etc etc.... you're still dealing with constants. Constant VE because the same engine, constant drag, constant mass, constant car... it's going to take a certain amount of energy - fuel - to move that constant the same distance.

the biggest difference that everyone is missing the fc has small intake ports/runners which have higher velocity at low speed, the rx8 has much larger ports and runners and lugs as low as 2200 rpm. something i've never felt in the fc.

I have a ported 13B-RE.... only bigger ports would be a bridge or a P-Port yet I still pull 15" @ idle and over that @ cruising speeds which are 4k @ 80mph and I still get close to 20mpg.....

but all those valves don't do anything at 2k with an engine that revs AND holds torque to nearly 9k

With a small timing adjustment I've recovered the one mpg I've lost while doing this swap. I believe once I get the rear gearing right I will pick up at least 2mpg while still being considerably faster than before. This was the case with my rx8 and the inspiration for me to do this swap.

For now I'm broke do to my surgery and won't be doing anything with the 7 for a few weeks. I'm saving up for some coil overs a good diff for the 3.9 gearing and a wastegate and intercooler so I can install my turbo. I hope to have a nice Tig welder by February and next year I'm shopping for fuel injection and so far I like the MS3PRO. Then off to my next build.