I was in Japan as well about the same time...
I was at RE amemiya, and asked them about their progress with the '8...
Amemiyasan was not there when I went, but his chief builder was there and answered some questions and made some statements of what Amemiyasan thought about the '8..
They say there is not enough room beside engine to fit a decent turbo there, as some the thread starter demonstrates though, there is more than one way to skin a cat.
They also said, that the compression ratio is to high on this motor for suitable turbo charging, which we all kind of figured, they say its more to do with the thermal efficiency the motor has though, with the decreased overlap, the turbine has to be smaller, but already there is more heat in the motor because of the higher compression ratio, and any backpressure from a turbo will just compound the problem of internal heat retention.
They seem to think the best way of retuning the '8 was to start porting, and do the exhaust trick...The header they made is quite a work of art, Don't know how well it works with funky centre port...
But at a few other shops, I saw Rx-8 motors being reassembled with conventional peripheral exhaust ports and back to the old 2 pipe header...
Lots of dynoing being done on the renesis... I was shown a 272 rwhp dyno sheet , that was with a full aftermarket exhaust, intake work and retuning of the ecu... But to put that into perspective, I also saw a n/a bridgeport 13b-rew lay down 342 rwhp, I think peripheral port exhaust is still the best power wise...Max

 

I saw different info from JT-Imports on the other forum after he talked to RE-Amemiya and his info is a lot different then what your saying, well at least on what they thought about the turbo.

 

Yeah I saw that as well... I was really interested in talking to Re amemiya about their progress, since in one of the rx-7 tuner mags, in an interview, Amemiyasan was quoted saying he was frustrated with the performance of the '8 and he saw turbocharging as the most likely way of increasing power, but like his engine guy told me, it was just not feasible on that engine platform....
Panspeed was chasing the handling aspect of the car , but they had also been testing the car with nitrous...
Knightsports seem to think that the perofrmance would still be centred on the FD and the FC platforms as the rx-8 had less overall motorsport potential than the earlier cars, which I found interesting since the Rx-8 chassis is supposedly so much better than the older rx cars..Max

 

I have reard in a post on the RX-8 forum by the owner that says for now the planned boost is only 5.5 psi since it's not a FI intended motor and has 10.1 compression. I think with those boost levels it should hold up alright... for a decent amount of time at least.

Also, the RX-8 apex seals are stronger than the ones used in the RX-7, which are fine with lots of boost as long as the tuning is done right.

 

I guess the other thing to take into account, is the guys in Japan also get to fill up with 100 octane premium at the service station..So 5.5 psi on 10:1 may be feasible there...Dunno about here though with 92 oct that seems to be dwindling down to 91 as time goes by...
Interesting concept mentioned by another guy over there was perhaps a 3 rotor version of the renesis for the proposed rx-7, sounds like another plumbing nightmare to me though, exactly the same problem with the last rx-7..Max

 

I heard from a creditable source mazda was looking into supercharging the reni for an upcoming mazdaspeed rx-8.

I am sure the motor will blow, as doing somthing for teh first time almost never goes perfect.

 

Here is my .02.. take it for what you will.. You say the mazda engineers say the motor is maxed as it is.. I just dont see that being true as mazda would not put out a rx vehical with it pushing its own limits.. look at the history of the rx line.. Mazda has more or less relied on tuners to take mazdas rx cars and push there limits and mazda has used that to market their performance oriented vehicals.. ie.. mazdaspeed is around. Mazda im sure planned for the huge performance tuner rush to hit and have everyshop and their mothers grandma trying to pry some power out of the car. I think the shop doing the turbo kit will probably pop a motor or 2, but thats just called "Research and Development" you learn from the mistakes of the last build and make it better.. Its how everyone does it. I beleive the renisis is the long run will have a great catalog to show for whats availible to be done to the motor.. but like any car it will take a little bit of time.. Mazda will probably change alot in the motor for the 2005 lineup. Dont try to perdict the future because you will just get yourself setup for disapointment in the long run.. I personally am just going to sit back and watch what happens and pray for the new 7 to show up in the next few years..

 

if you any of you read the Rx8 board, they have been talking about computer upgrades making large gains.

Like 40+ hp and 30+ tourque because mazda had to make the motor run funny to pass emissions.

300+ is supposidly possible with the basic headers, exhaust intake and a chip.

 

Nobody on the RX-8 forum has ever claimed that 300 hp is possible with just intake, exhaust and a chip. I'm on there more than I am here. A guy named Canzoomer is working on a new piggyback system and so far he has made some wonderful gains in power by just retuning alone. The stock ecu runs really rich. He has only been developing it on a totally stock setup and has actually gotten enough power that he has scratched a 3rd during hard shifting. FWIW: Paul Yaw of Yawpower has stated that the Renesis is "unresponsive" to headers. He didn't say less responsive than the 13B. The word is "unresponsive" as in little to no gains what so ever. It is due to the center siamesed exhaust port messing up the tuning of any headers. A new approach has to be taken. Gains are being had from a catback in the way of 10-15 hp and claims of a few hp from intakes are known as well. Paul Yaw has stated that the engine is easily capable of 250 hp properly tuned but will not elaborate on how much can be had. 300 fwhp may or may not be possible with the proper intake, exhaust, and ecu control but no one knows the answer to this yet.

 

What the hell is a CANZOOMER?LOL

There are piggy-backs already, he is late. There are companies roming alread too, so he is really late. I heard Apexi will have a PFC for it in March, so I guess he is really SOL HAHA

 

it is nice to see a turbo in RX8.....

 

CANZOOMER is the guy's forum name and who the hell do you think is doing the design work for the Apexi unit? He is! It isn't out yet anyways. Still laughing?

 

I'm not going to touch the reliablilty factor

But I would like to address the turbo fitment
Theres nothing wrong where the turbo is

GN's have there turbo's placed just like that(also some mustangs)
with proper shielding and heat wrap there should be no problem with burning wires...etc

At least someone is actually turbo'ing there RX8 and not just talking about it

Much props! to whomever is tackling that task

 

I also forgot to add above that no there are not any aftermarket piggyback ecus for the RX-8 yet. At least not in the U.S. Canzoomer is not late. If there are then the RX-8 forum doesn't know about it and that it highly unlikely. Shipment is also starting this month. He isn't SOL. Quite the contrary. He has the first 50 orders about to be shipped.

 

i remember reading countless quotes from Mazda engineers in car magazines saying the RENESIS was built for boost.... were they lying?

-Zach

 

BLAH BLAH BLAH, what does a piggy back do? not much

Also if every one wants a turbo why would they buy this Piggy-back

50 orders huh? Yeah ok I saw him sell keys to old ladies thats about it.

 

I'm curious about the whole 3-rotor Renesis. How would they exhaust the center when the 2-rotor version has the shared port. It would have to split both ways plus share with each side respectively. I would think it would be really difficult to find the balance point of making each one flow properly.

 

All the people saying it is going to blow up, please state how you KNOW, have they treid it before??? ohh but it has 10:1 comp, for memory the FD runs 9.4:1 and they are fine! I admit if you jammed 30psi in there then there could be probs, but i reckon 10 - 15psi shouldn't be a prob, provided the tune is relatively conservative, meaning tame ignition timming and relatively rich a/f's As for heat build up, it is all speculation!!! no one knows yet what will happen. Instead of jumping on here saying ohhh it will blow up, give the guys some credit for giving it ago, and some positive thoughts!!!!! And as for the turbo not working properly there what a load of crap, here in australia dyson rotarys old drag car ran the turbo in the same spot and it made near on 900hp from a 13b and ran 8.10 @ 171 mph in a 1000kg car. If anything it might increase lag by 200rpm or something. If you guys love the rotary so much why be the first to bag it?

Lance

 

The FD runs 8.5:1.

 

Damn doubles...

Can someone get this delete button to...oh...I dunno...WORK?!?!?

 

I'll be immature too!!! BLAH, BLAH, F'n BLAH!!! How many people have bought the piggyback PFC purple box for the 3rd gen? How many people have that worthless POS S-AFC??? What about additional fuel controllers? They sell and some of them actually work quite well. His regular piggyback unit is not intended to be used with a turbo. It retunes the factory fuel curve for better power. He will have 3 different units. Think of them more as an upgrade chip that can be unplugged for inspection purposes. They start at $250 so that is cheap power. Many morons spend that much on an intake that does didly squat. Since he is helping with the development of the new Apexi unit, he will have the ability later on in the Power FC to tune for any condition.

Those of you who predict that the engine will blow up with forced induction may be right. God knows we've never seen a 3rd gen engine blow up have we?! People still blow them up every day. The key is in tuning. If he gets it right it will be fine. If he gets it wrong then he gets to do it over again. That's how it works with every engine that no one knows alot about. If everyone blows them up then someone out there will figure out the weakness and fix it and try again. Unfortunately when the people brave enough to try actually finally succeed, it is usually the sceptics that try to reap the benefits first. If he blows it up, who cares? He'll try again until he succeeds.

 

It might blow, infact it probably will. Who cares? Someone has to do the R&D, and that always involves trial and error. Even if they only get a run or two on the dyno, I would still love to see the numbers it produces. Props to whoever is actually funding the project.

 

Here's 2 other kits in development. Blitz has the supercharger kit. right now it is only laying down 210 ps at the wheels. Greddy also has their turbo kit which is doing 260 ps at the wheels. Both are in development which is why the power levels are still low. The ecu not the engine seems to be the problem.

 

You're both wrong....

87-88 TII - 8.5
89-91 TII - 9.0
93-95 FD - 9.0

86-88 N/A - 9.4

Greg