The engines in these cars have nothing to do with the RX8 motor. Different oil, ignition, fuel systems, different porting and housings. I have seen a few of them in person out of the car. As someone else said they start with a 20b and go from there. They are all p-ported, the exact opposite of the RX8 setup. There are a few different sources for the housings. Some are from Mazdacomp, some are modified stock RX7 or 20b housings. One team has the ports cast into RX7 housings by a company in China. The end result looks like it came straight off an OEM assembly line!

It's great to see so many RX8s in competition. Congrats and big thanks to all of those guys for a job well done.

 

Man, I would LOVE to hear those PP 20Bs at full song

 

Rolex GT will be at Lime Rock Memorial Day weekend. The RX-8s sound amazing, I can't wait to see more than 2 in the field this year. I must say though the best sounding rotary I've heard in person was Mazda LMP2 ALMS 3-rotor car, that was awesome.

 

So, marketing hype strikes again.

 

Check the regulations. In '92, the ACO changed it so that the *only* things eligible were 3.5L NA engines, banning not only rotaries but Mercedes', Jag's, and Porsche's favored engines. Then everyone decided that sucked, and shortly after the rules were changed to an early version of the current ones. Not only are rotaries not outlawed, Jim Downing ran Kudzus there in '95, '96 and '97, ending up first in class in '96.

 

Cheers for the info , so where do the get their 20B E shafts from? I heard Mazda stopped making them years ago

 

I've got a video of them. Here you go:




This was from the 2007 race.

 

Big congrats to SpeedSource for a solid win in the GT class!!!

 

I'm glad someone else knows the truth. The rotary was never banned!

 

Vid gave me goosebumps.

 

I heard at VIR last year during the ROLEX 400. Sounded freaking awesome.

 

great pictures. the RX-8's should be at Lime Rock this year, right? with ALMS?

 

Except '92, when everything else was. But I mean hell, the variable length trumpets are even legal, specifically for rotaries and nothing else!

Actually, given the new ACO rules giving restrictor breaks to homologated engines... I wonder if the 20B counts as a homologated engine. How many Cosmos got made?

Oh, on the OT, I haven't said it before but thanks for the photos. I was kinda curious what was going on with the #40 car's oil coolers since it looked like they had the ducts blanked off.

 

Hello all, I was there again for my third Rolex.Great race and great time.
zumspdrx7 the Madzda rx8's will be at Lime Rock Memorial day weekend with Grand Am not ALMS. Check out Grand Am's website for all details.
There is also a six hour race at Watkins Glen. I will post some pics and vids later.

Jim

 

It's been a long 15 years since a RE powered racer won at the Daytona 24, so it's great to see RE power back on top of the GT class. The IMSA glory days seemed so far away!

The SpeedSource boys brought home the SpeedSource/Castrol RX-8 home ahead of a Porsche armada that was unrelenting, it was great to see... Congrats to the whole team! I communicated with John D, of Mazda, and Sylvain, SpeedSource, shortly after the race, and I can not tell you how excited and happy they were.

Guys, please feel free to leave a small message of congratulations to the boys at following the RN.COM story, as we are in direct contact with the SpeedSource squad, and they truly appreciate hearing from all the RE faithful!

http://rotarynews.com/node/view/984

We will forward all comments to the boys in the next few days!


A little history:
The win marked the first for a production-based GT-spec Mazda in the race since 1993 when Dick Greer, Al Bacon Peter Uria and Mike Mees took their RX-7 GTU to victory lane. All in all, 22 Mazda-powered entries have now triumphed at Daytona International Speedway.

The historic win also marked an end of an era for one of the manufacturer's archrivals. The 2008 race was the first time that Porsche has not at least won class in the Rolex 24 race since 1993, the year of the last Mazda victory.


Sylvain said told me right after the race.... "today is a win 4 all rotary fans"


Enjoy and Thanks,

-Bern

 

+12345 It definitely made me proud watching them dominate the class in qualifying and the race.

Do you know what revs the n/a 20B spins to in the SpeedSource race car? That motor sounded heavenly at full song!

 

They keep it around 8500-9000rpm, especially for endurance racing.

-Bern

 

Thanks Bern!

 

Well I have just one thing to say
I'm so f.... happy to see the Speedsource team win the race That I remember when I was a child and watch the 24 Hrs of lemans and for the first time I seen the 787B won the Lemans back in 91 and now 17 years later I felt the same way when I was 9,that Feeling is imposible to describe and that's Priceless.Thank you Speedsource to bring back those memories and Congrats for a perfect race.

Hope the best for all rotary power teams this 2008 and lets kick some porsche's butt.

 

Great Pictures of the RX-8

 

some really nice pictures. I just saw them at Limerock. I have tons of pictures on my website at http://nyrotary.com/Pages/multimedia.htm

Direct Links

Friday http://nyrotary.com/Multimedia/Limer...ing/index.html
Saturday http://nyrotary.com/Multimedia/Limer...SWC/index.html
Sunday http://nyrotary.com/Multimedia/Limer...SWC/index.html
Monday http://nyrotary.com/Multimedia/Limer...ies/index.html

Here are some pics






















Jason, NYRA PRez

 

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CTRA MIGHT!!!!!!!!!!!!