RX-8 air pump for single turbo builds? Tested?
 

As the title says, have anyone ever tried with or without success to use a RX-8 electric air pump in stead of the belt driven RX-7 one?
Obviously the case is that with some single turbo kits, there is no space for the stock pump. And the pump is needed for inspections.

Would it pass inspection with modified engine components for the visual inspection? Just curious..I am so glad we have no inspections here.. :cool:

There is no visual inspection under the hood. And the FD is so rare that they don't know what it is or how it should look. But in any case, a build would be done in such a way that it would appear OEM, if you have not seen a FD bay before.

True they would not know what the hell all that mess in the engine bay.

That's the truth. I went to get my AC re-charged and the guy told me my AC compressor was totally dead. Turns out he was looking at the air pump (which doesn't work).

The RX-8 air pump only runs on the RX-8 on a cold start for a little bit to get the cat hot then that's it. It's not designed for continual use, I believe people have tried to use them as a full-time air pump and had them fail due to running too much.

That said, I'm sure something could be rigged to pass inspection but I don't think it's a long term daily driver solution.

Dale

i think it would work, the Rx8 air pumps seems to be pretty reliable. in the Rx8 it only runs on cold starts, and having it run all the time in the FD is probably ok. not sure what ECU you're running, but i think if you had the air pump run less than the stock FD setting that might be better. you could do a two speed setup like the FD fuel pump, or use a Ford fuel pump controller. the Fords use a fuel pressure sensor, and then just vary the voltage to the pump, the controller is this box that lets the ecu do that. the Ford one is easy to get, because its aluminum, and they bolt it to the steel frame under the truck, so it rusts badly.

I wired one up a few years back. Worked. I didn't wire it into ECU control just to a switch for on/off running. I didn't even fasten it in, just nestled it and ran a hose (with reducer) to the cat.