Recent Racing Updates

She really has come a long way, even with just this year already!

This year has certainly tested me as a driver so far. Running into various problems at the start of the year in which the car hasn't been able to preform at 100%, which in turn forced me to have to drive as fast as I could. Now with all of my issues taken care of, the RX-8 is back in action and I can focus on driving fast, and fine tuning the car as much as possible for Nationals this year. Because I've spent most of my free time working towards fixing the car, working, or racing, I haven't really had time to post about each individual event. Below is a short and sweet condensed version of the changes I made, followed by links to all the new (also VERY condensed) posts related to each all the races I attended in June, complete with results and video.

Fuel Problems - Part 1

Almost ready for the season to start!

After a lot of headaches and tail chasing, I finally got to the bottom of this phantom menace. For those that are wondering, this is what had my season come to a sudden stop right after Nationals last year. This problem came out of the blue unfortunately and caused some stressful times trying to figure out what the cause of this was. To recap in short, it started with a sputter at around 8,000 rpm. After changing a few things (like the fuel pump), it started to behave in a way like it was hitting a wall above 6,000 rpm, with the Air/Fuel Ratios spiking to 20 (lean) at Wide Open Throttle (WOT).

Practice For The Match Tour

Photo by Ed Savage - NoWin Photography

Nothing like a good ol' practice race the weekend before a big one! Not only was this practice however, I had to test out the new helper spring guides, and it was a good excuse to kill the left-over Hoosiers I had on the race wheels currently.

First Race Of The Season

Photo by Ed Savage - NoWin Photography

First race back, and damn it feels good to be doing what I love again! This was the first event for SCCA NER, and the only practice event before the upcoming ProSolo in New Jersey!

Black Halo Racing's Motor Mounts

Picture direct from Black Halo Racing's website

There is something to be said about a car part that you can look at, and seriously consider it a work of art. The team over at Black Halo Racing never fail to produce top notch results, as they focus heavily on the quality and usability aspects of their products. They have recently released these beautiful replacement motor mounts for the RX-8. These mounts will last a LOT longer than the OEM mounts that are prone to failing quickly (even the revised mounts are not lasting as long as most would like). Let’s have a closer look.

Blueberry's Bruise

Rotors and Eccentric Shaft freshly removed 

Found the problem with Blueberry; Eccentric shaft. As pictured above, the eccentric shaft connects the two rotors together inside our rotary engines. When that very shaft is off standard specifications by a fraction of a millimeter, things can go wrong. Fortunately enough I have a spare motor that will be used for a donor eccentric shaft (e-shaft). There is a fancy dial indicator on its way to measure my spare e-shaft before it goes back into the block with a fresh set of seals.

Ti Gri's Engine Bay Overview - Part 1

Ti Gri in her full glory!

After a month and a half, I finally got Ti Gri back in my hands. I originally was going to hold off on this post for a bit so I could clean up various things on the car, but I decided to post the condition of the car the way I got it back from Speed 1. In their defense, I did go to pick it up early (which was after almost two months of waiting). The work that was done was great, however, there were a couple of important things that were overlooked in my opinion. Let's have a look...

Ready, Steady, Brap!

Yes "brap", and plenty of it! This past weekend the RE-Zelse team was working on the Blueberry's motor at Wankel Works. Luis and Raul from Wankel Works allowed the team to work with them throughout the build. When the motor was broken down Luis was able to spot weaknesses in my previous porting. Needless to say, Luis custom ported the irons.

Blueberry's Build Update

Good news everyone! The Blueberry's motor has been ported and rebuilt thanks to Lui and Raul from WankelWorks. I will be creating a complete post about my absolutely wonderful experience working with them and everything about the motor rebuild.

Engine Issues Resolved

I was chasing down a "gurgling/fluttering" noise at 8,000RPM for a little over a month recently. The noise was very noticeable and had gotten me very concerned, so I could simply not ignore it. After a lot of digging around and countless times of ripping things apart, I figured out what I was faced with. The interesting part of this however is that not only did I figure out the problem, I learned that I was chasing 3 separate problems. I thought I would share my findings with everyone, just incase someone should run into a similar issue.

Whats New?

A lot has been going on the past few weeks, so I'm glad I finally have some time to myself to kick back and relax. The main topics of whats new is in bold below. You will begin seeing more review posts, DIYs, and casual posts now that things are back under control.

Blog Updates

The blog has received many changes over the past few nights. Most of these updates I have been planning to implement for awhile. For starters, I decided to spruce up the fonts and colors used around the blog a little bit, while maintaining the same overall feel as before. Then, I cleaned up the side bar by getting rid of a few extra things and making everything easier to navigate. I also added some new pages to my blog that I think everyone will enjoy.

Engine Mounts Filled With Polyurethane

Not many solutions seem to be out there for the RX-8 in terms of alternative engine mounts. The original 2004 to 2005 version was flawed in design as they didn't last long, forcing owners to replace them somewhere between every 30,000 to 50,000 miles. In 2006, the engine mounts were revised to be much more efficient and longer lasting.
This DIY goes over how to take your engine mounts and turn them into some very nice and stiff engine mounts that you won't have to ever replace. We used Dave's engine mounts on his RX-8, which is the 2004 version, not the upgraded version. Be sure to check out this thread on RX-8 club with a nice writeup from Team RX8.

Tools & Materials

• Wooden Ruler
• Paint Thinner
• Drill and a 1/4" - 3/8" diameter drill bit
• Sharp Knife (that you don't care about getting fluid on)
• Oil Catcher
• Clothing to wear that you don't care about staining permanently
• Blow Dryer
• Canned Air
• Polyurethane base and activator (I purchased mine from McMaster-Carr and it's item #8644k11)

Process

A couple of quick notes. This write-up assumes you already have the engine mounts removed from the car. Be sure to double check them for any cracks or leaks, because doing this to a damaged mount is not advisable. Also, the polyurethane takes 48 hours to cure, so be sure to do this when you won't need to use your car for a few days.

1. Start by turning the mount upside down and removing the top rubber cover of the mount with the knife
2. After you have removed the cover, be sure to empty out as much of the fluid as possible. The fluid smells and will stain your clothes pretty good, so be careful!
3. At the center hole, you will notice a rubbery layer. Carefully cut that out with the knife, trying not to puncture all the way down and through the entire mount
4. Skip this step if you have 2004-2005 engine mounts - The upgraded engine mounts have no circular opening, so you will need to drill in the center carefully and make your own circular opening in the center
5. Once you have cut out and removed the rubber layer, you should see a honeycomb-like design inside the mount. Those pouches are what will be filled with polyurethane
6. Now drill 6-8 holes around the middle hole in the engine mount with your drill. You will feel as you are drilling down, the drill going through 3 layers. The moment you feel the 3rd layer, pull back so you do not accidentally drill through the mount.
7. Once you have made your holes, check them to be sure you drilled all the way through the hard brown layers and down to the black rubber surface. Use the canned air to clean out any excess shavings left by the drill
8. Now fill the mount with your paint thinner and clean it out as much as possible. You can use water as a first pass, or go straight to the paint thinner, whatever you feel comfortable with
9. Once it looks like all of the fluid has been cleaned out, use your blow dryer, on high setting, to dry out the inside of the mount. I held my mount upside down for about 5 minutes with the blow dryer pressed against it
10. Once the mount is completely dry inside, prop both mounts on a flat surface, with support to ensure they don't accidentally get tipped over. Remember, these mounts will be sitting wherever you place them, for 48 hours
11. Take your polyurethane base can and mix in ALL of the activator for 5 minutes. BE SURE TO DO THIS OUTSIDE as the warning says. I also thought their wooden stick was too small to stir, so I liked using a long wooden ruler instead
12. Once you have mixed everything, begin by very slowly pouring it into the center of the engine mount. Pace the pouring slowly so that everything can settle nicely and the air can escape. Switch from mount to mount if need be as well
13. After some time, you'll start to notice the polyurethane rise up from the center and the side holes. Keep filling slowly until you have a nice, flat, even surface at the top of the mount
14. Once you're done pouring, you can take the ruler and run it slowly across the top of the mount so that you can ensure it's flat. Be sure to clean up any mess around the mount because it is bound to happen!
15. After clean up, let it sit for 48 hours before placing back into your car!

Outcome

I noticed a huge difference right away when I drove my car, but then again, my passenger engine mount was collapsed previously. The throttle response was greatly increased to the point that it feels like the car is drive-by-cable. Less slop in the shifter as well I noticed, but definitely an interesting feeling being able to feel the power go to the rear tires more. Overall, it feels as though I had gotten a brand new engine put into my car, so I'm overly pleased with the results. I highly recommend this to everyone. It's very very affordable, a fun project, and easy to do with some patience! With the end result being that you will then have engine mounts that will never collapse, how could you say no? Happy Motoring!

SpeedSource Pulleys Review

The "Competetion Pulley Set" from Mazdaspeed is really THE best pulleys you can get for the RX-8. They are actually produced by SpeedSource and are widely used by pretty much any roadrace prepped RX-8. The kit is made to not use your air conditioner, allowing you to remove the system and save some weight there.

The eccentric shaft pulley is substantially smaller than stock, as well as much lighter. The alternator pulley however, though lighter, is much bigger than stock. For race cars, this is not an issue considering they're frequently up in high RPMs. For street cars, this can be a serious issue as that means the battery is not getting as charged as it needs to be. I've run into an issue once or twice where I started losing power steering and then ABS while sitting idle in grid, while using the lights, defrost, radio, and windshield wipers. The problem never came back when I kept my revs around 1,500 RPM while sitting idle however.

The power increase is definitely VERY noticeable and I've heard wind that it is supposed to be a 10HP gain..If that is true or not, I wouldn't doubt it given the fact that we're talking about SpeedSource here, but I for one don't have any comparisons. I guess for those that are looking for pulleys, this is definitely worth the price tag if you're building a race car and not a street car that you like to have fun with, given that it doesn't charge the battery unless you're frequently in higher RPMs.

Day 2 - Fuel Pump Install

Most of the morning was spent lounging around the house, nothing too fancy there. I think I hit vacation mode pretty hard given how calm and collected Ray always is. Come that afternoon, Ray, his girlfriend Jennifer, and I headed on down Tucson, which was about a 2-hour drive. We were heading there to install a fuel pump on a customer's RX-8 at that customer's house (talk about service!). It was fun to wrench on a customer car and help Ray out with the install, as it gave me a nice view into what it would be like if I were in his shoes. Even though I don't work for BHR, I still made sure I behaved as professional as possible (not uptight though!)
Once we were done, we headed back home the long way to enjoy some nice scenery of the city from the mountain side. It was rather breathtaking to see the city lights in Tucson from high above the city while also looking up and seeing the brilliance of the stars at the same time. Something pictures would never capture.

BHR 255lh Walbro Fuel Pump

Was reading various posts on the RX-8 Club about fuel starvation and how some RX-8 owners have been seeing such symptoms when racing and cornering hard. Great post by MazdaManiac explaining it all pretty much is here. Big ups to Ray from BHR for making this awesome plug-n-play fuel pump upgrade kit, which has the Walbro fuel pump in an OEM assembly. He also has available for installs a special tool that made my life a lot easier when trying to take off the o-ring on top of the fuel pump.I was originally going to make this a DIY, but decided not to as I would rather just review about it. Feel free to shoot me an email should you need some assistance with installation though. The pump has a interesting tone to it, almost as if a whining motor sound to it. It's slightly louder, but not alarmingly louder. The fuel pump will certainly be pushed during the next event, for now it has to deal with some "spirited driving" on some on and off ramps.

Some pictures of the new pump before installation, the old pump in the car as we are removing it, and Shane deciding that the old pump makes for a great football.

Return From SFR

After a few weeks in the hands of master mechanic Bill Gendron of Small Fortune Racing, the car returns home. For starters, the fancy aluminum intake was wrapped in insulation to prevent the intake turning the cold air it draws in, into hot air. Looks like a dryer duct, but whatever gets the job done, right? For the feet of the bolt in rollbar, Bill had welded on what could only be best described as "support braces" onto the bar. This is supposed to help increase the rigidity up by 300%, as well as increase the safety of the rollbar as well.

Lastly, I got a full alignment along with a nice refreshed corner balance due to all the weight the car has lost recently. I'll be getting the specifications from Bill soon, as well as the weight of the car. I will also be dropping it back off at Bill's for my full exhaust setup in the near future, but more details on that when the time comes!Speaking of cold air earlier, I decided to see how my cooling setup is doing lately with my adjusted fan settings. At 86 degrees out, cruising on the highway in 6th gear, I was seeing coolant levels between 170-175. I'd say the car is ready for the weekend events, but I still feel that awkward "heavy" feeling when turning the wheel from time to time… reminds me of when I was losing the power steering before.

Liberty Mazda Visit

The weather outside has been getting much warmer now thankfully, so I decided to take advantage of that and take the car to Liberty Mazda and get some needed things taken care of. As usual, they were more than helpful and couldn't have done a better job at what I needed.

For starters, they saved a unfinished bodywork job on my trunk and bumper. The results were better than expected, and I wish I just went to them from the start. The trunk is now wingless, and the holes for the badges that I plugged before and the holes for the wing are welded up, all with fresh new paint. Bumper had gotten a little scraped up and badly chipped from all my highway miles, so it needed a repainting for sure.

For maintenance goodies, I got my transmission fluid changed, my differential fluid changed, state inspection, engine compression test, and my new REmedy Oil Pressure Regulator upgrade. Everything went smoothly, big ups to Mike and Tom for their hard work in making sure I'm taken care of. For those who are wondering of the results of my compression test, I think Ray of BHR had said it best,"Dude! Your engine is backwards!"

Front rotor at 250 RPM came out to an average of 8.2. The three runs were 8.6, 7.9, and then 8.1. The rear rotor at 227 RPM came out to an average of 8.6. The three runs were 8.4, 8.6, and 8.9. Most rebuilt engines see high 9 numbers. It's interesting as usually most rotary engines have the rear rotors start failing first, seeing lower compression there instead of the front as the rear rotor runs hotter than the front. But surprisingly with all I have been doing, my 2004 engine with 52,000 miles is running quite strong. No complaints here!

Here are some more pictures of the debadged and dewinged trunk.

Odyssey P680 Battery Mounted

We mounted the Odyssey PC-680 battery when in down time from the other projects going on. This became a bit of a pain at times as there was no real DIY written up for this surprisingly. I have seen many similar "builds" to this, but no real writeup. Looks like I'll be changing that here! Below is a picture of the measurements needed for the firewall mount, which is what your battery mount will mount to.It's pretty straight forward. We used a half inch thick cutting board we picked up from Shaws, got the biggest size we could get. Cut the plastic cutting board with the dremel with the following measurements. The opening I cut at the top is because of the strut bar I have. Measure where you want your battery mount to be and bolt up to the plastic board and drill your holes accordingly. Oleg decided to try out T Nuts for the backing of the plastic and that idea worked out great for us. I also spray painted the mount black after I was done just to clean it up a bit.Didn't want to go into too much details on the DIY with this one as we had to feel out a lot of the steps we did and I have a feeling someone out there can maybe do better with just the pictures and comments I have listed here. Pretty straight forward for the most part though, just time consuming.

Maintenance At DSG

The seal between the oil pan and the engine was a little on the leaky side. Grabbed some Redline 10w-40, and a Knight Sports oil filter and took the car over to DSG to get the pan resealed. Not much else to say, other then they sealed it with something stronger then OEM that they use for most of their Subaru's and other cars.

Thanks to Nick from DSG for the pictures!

The Long Overhaul

After a month of sitting in Astral’s garage, getting various projects completed on it all at once (Don’t make that mistake like I did), the RX8 is finally back on the road. I just want to give a big up to James (Greenblurr), Josh (Altspace), and Shane (Epik) for their awesome help and hard work through the truck ton of projects we did all at once. Lastly, a BIG UP to Oleg (Astral) for all of the hard work, storage time, and troubles.
Now on to the juicy stuff that I’m sure you all are dying to read. I call this a overhaul due to the many new parts and fixes that we did to the car, including power, suspension and even some enhancements on prior modifications. The days are listed with the products installed (This is the span over the month of February)

Day 1
-Started removal of header
-Removed of Catalytic Converter
-Baked headlights open to replace projector lens with a 2.8’ TSX replica lens
-Adjusted titanium exhaust tip for a better appearance
-Completed a Racing Beat Revi Ram Duct Seal Fix using the stock VFAD

Day 2
-Worked on finishing Header install
-Pieced together front of car along with headlights

Day 3
-Started Removal of Stock shocks with Tein S-Techs
-Finished Installation of Header from Fluid Motorsports (GT-Spec Design)
-Finished Installation of Agency Power Mid-Pipe
-Adjusted Cobb Stage 1 Map with a CEL Kill
-Installed Black Halo Racing Ignition Solution with Yukon Coils

Day 4
-Installed Stance GR+ Coilover Suspension (10k spring front 7k spring rear)
-Removed Trunk Carpeting Completely

Day 5
-Rear suspension was too high and clunking, front suspension was too low; Adjusted both

Day 6
-New Alignment (Front: -2.2 Camber, 0 Toe, Max + Caster Rear: -2.4 Camber, 0.1 Toe, Max + Caster)

Day 7
-Removed midpipe and swapped for Catalytic Converter
-Installed Evo-R.net Fully Adjustable Endlinks (Front and Rear)
-Installed Progress Technology Anti-Roll bars
-Received Velocity Red Painted OEM Tow Hooks

The car really is a different sort of beast now. Since I’ve done so much at once, I’m going to break it into sections, much like how I reviewed the Roadster. From there I’ll go into more specifics.

Power:
After placing all of the power modifications onto the car, I am very surprised by the outcome overall. For the upside, a major increase in power, smooth power band, interesting torque band (at about 4k it suddenly kicks up more and stays smooth), and over all a much more solid engine. The downside is that due to my poor research in the choice of midpipe and header, the car is beyond loud. It’s almost scary to drive the car because the exhaust is so loud. Upon further research, I later found out that Agency Power is one of the louder dual resonated mid pipes, so I had swapped over to stock cat. Why modify a car if it doesn’t allow you to drive it happily?
Agency Power Dual Resonated Midpipe: Looking at the welds of the midpipe, the pipe itself was not that bad. James would have liked to see some more full penetration on some of the welds, but it was good enough to not be concerned with.

GT-Spec Development Header: With the header on the other hand, the welds along the runners were poorly done and have an unknown life span. I say that because the welds were not even penetrated. It looks great on the outside, not so good on the inside. The fitment was also one of the biggest hassles around, as that it took up most of the project time. After swapping back to the stock cat, you could hear a slight difference in tone of the exhaust from before header installation. It was slightly deeper at both idle and low end, and at high end it gave it a slight “tin” sound. It wasn’t bad, and better then I expected. I would like to see a better, “race focused” header on my car though, so look forward to me replacing this in the near future.

BHR Ignition: Like when I added the Cobb, another increase of “smoothness” in terms of revving. BHR has been known to make quality products, and this is one of them. The coils are quality GM Yukon coils, with a heat sink on each one. People have apparently reported increases in both smoothness and power, but in my case I would say I feel more of the smoothness.

Racing Beat VFAD Seal: Completely sealed. Directly from the front of the car into the airbox with no unwanted openings. Can’t record much of a difference but I’m sure it’s there.

Over all, I’m happy with a lot of my choices, but I wish I went with a different header and mid pipe design. I’m happy to review it on my blog for the viewers, and share my experiences, but those two exhaust parts are not for me. The Agency Power mid pipe now lives on Greenblurr’s car and he’s quite happy with it, especially since the sound is much nicer when paired with the Racing Beat dual exhaust, and the header will find a happy home soon to someone who will enjoy it for what it’s worth.

Handling:
If I had known that the results were going to be this great, I would have done nothing but suspension first. I have nothing but praise with how amazing the car responds, how great it feels, and overall quality of the products here. Taking sweeping turns, or quick jolts to dodge a pothole, the car is much more agile and settles great when taking a turn.

Stance GR+ 15 Way Adjustable Coilovers: The main ingredient of the suspension upgrade. Not only do these behave well on the streets, these handle turns extremely well. Changing the dampening to test for the difference responses will be fun when the roads are warmer, but for now, running at the +6 all around as recommended by Stance is very pleasing. Few people have recommended running softer in the rear, but I have yet to see why. I tried running +8 front and +7, and then +6 rear and I didn’t like it. It felt almost sloppy and unresponsive compared to the front. I then tried +6 in the front and +4 in the rear and I still did not enjoy it. At some point I’ll try +8 all around and see what I think of that, but the weather isn’t that great again.

Progress Technology Anti-Roll Bars paired with Evo-R.Net Adjustable Endlinks: The Whiteline Flatout Swaybars that I had installed not long ago felt pretty good and offered a nice, stiff feeling when taking a sweeper. Once we slapped these on at the end of the night and I drove home, the difference was night and day. Paired with the coilovers, you could completely feel a firm plant on the turn with almost no roll, while quick adjustments going left and right made it seem almost effortless. Much more responsive at the steering wheel with almost a "itchy" feeling to it that it wants to turn more and more. On the highway though, you do feel the slight consistent pull left and right from time to time. Not unbearable if you have both hands on the wheel.

Other:
Although the baking of the headlights was a tricky project, the outcome of the new lens was worth the effort. The new TSX Clear Lens fit like a charm and really give a much better output of the stock lights. Stock RX8 Project Lens are rippled, dimming down the output , cutoff line, and even width of the light. This lens pushes that all to the limits, allowing you to really maximize your headlights output.


Summary:
All of this has been a very fun and educational experience. I’m pleased with most of the products I had purchased, and I also learned to not cram so many projects into one day. Next time, I’ll have a better head on my shoulder about this sort of thing. I also recommend a lot of researching before buying parts (especially in a rush) for your car. Here are some of the pictures hosted by Altspace and Astral. Thanks guys.
Altspace Gallery
Astral's Gallery