Condor's Impulsive Panic Buy Rotary Shed and lesser seen FD

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MightyCondor
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Condor's Impulsive Panic Buy Rotary Shed and lesser seen FD

Post by MightyCondor »

Welcome to the latest chapter in my increasingly chaotic rotary chronicles. Here's a quick recap of how I got to this point:
  • April 2009: Bought my first RX-8, fell in love with it
  • June 2013: Get rear ended by numptie in a 5 series touring and car gets written off and then exported to find life overseas. Much sadness.
  • August 2013: Buy another Winning Blue 231 and promptly join mates on a Euro Road Trip. End up driving 2,000 miles with a blocked cat and no power.
  • April 2014: Join the RX8-OC and immediately start jumping on group buys, buying parts and getting my hands dirty for the first time in my life.
  • December 2014: After another Euro Road trip I yearned for more power and bought an FD. Engine promptly fails. Expensive rotary lifestyle snowballs.
  • November 2015: Change jobs and no longer commute. Sell RX-8 with a heavy heart.
  • FD life continues: Various track days and another Euro Road Trip happen. Car mostly awesome, but keep buying parts...
  • 2017: Worlds slowest single turbo conversion commences. I can only assume that Hayward's got sucked into a time dilation field.
  • November 2017: After many failed deadlines and the Car Limits day that I had booked in good faith rapidly approaching I gave up on waiting for the FD and decided to re-scratch the RX-8 itch!
So here it is, my Impulsive Panic Buy Rotary Shed. A Sunlight Silver 04 231 (1st Car in the line at Car Limits)

Image

I bought the car from a mate of Boosted and then gave it a great shakedown at Car Limits the next day (Videos below). The car seems to drive really well which is a relief, but it's by no means perfect and nor would I expect it to be for the price paid. Here's the specs and some of my early observations

The Good
  • Engine and gearbox from a Cat C 06 car which means the engine only has about 40k on it despite the chassis having 69k. I've never been in an RX-8 that starts so instantly and consistently so. It pulls very cleanly throughout the entire range
  • Currently unknown exhaust system. Mooted that it may be a Piper-X which I have never heard of in the RX-8 world. Looks similar to a Toyo to my eyes, but is more refined. Either way it's almost perfect. Not too loud but purposeful.
  • D585 coils
  • Grooved brake disks on rear only
  • Avon ZZ5 tyres, which seem pretty good
The not so good
  • Some early boot lid rust and some on sills (not sure how bad yet)
  • The usual condensation in the rear tail lights
  • Bodywork not perfect, but nothing bad for a 13 year old car.
I'm not sure what my plans are for the car yet. I will certainly enjoy it until I get my FD back and then will how to see how much both cars are getting used to see if I can justify keeping it. I'm quite tempted to use it as a cheap track car and daily (not that I need a daily), so that I can minimise trips driving my girlfriends Peugeot 3008 which acts as the family wagon.

I will try to have a closer inspection done on it, and go for a few cosmetic improvements. What I don't want to do is mod the hell out of it. I already have one rotary money pit! I might treat myself to an Axial Flow though if I can find a sensibly priced used one.

I will also post updates on the FD here when there's actually some good news to share. Right now it's agonisingly close, but has an undiagnosed flooding issue on cold starts. Otherwise it's basically ready, mapped and goes like stink ...apparently :roll:
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Condor's Impulsive Panic Buy Rotary Shed and lesser seen FD

Post by GreySilver Beast »

Great find you have there MC =D> and car performed amazingly well at the Carlimits Day :thumleft:
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Re: Condor's Impulsive Panic Buy Rotary Shed and lesser seen FD

Post by MightyCondor »

GreySilver Beast wrote:
Sun Nov 12, 2017 10:59 pm
Great find you have there MC =D> and car performed amazingly well at the Carlimits Day :thumleft:
Thanks Nigel. Great job in organising the day =D>

So I have already posted these over in the Car Limits thread but here are my videos and recap of the day. I had a great time. It was the first time I'd ever driven an RX-8 in anger with the traction control and DSC off (although I'm used to not having said features in the FD).

It rained first thing which made the first activity of the day, the high speed bend, rather spinny for rather a lot of us. After a few unsuccessful attempts, I finally worked out what I was doing wrong and started coming out on the other side at increasingly faster speeds.

After that there were 2 short courses and then a long course at the end which combined elements of all the prior activities. Given that I had owned the car less than 24 hours at this point, I was pleased to find that it drove really well and I grew in confidence. Given that all of our times were recorded, there was a friendly competitive atmosphere between many of us, so it was a pleasant surprise to consistently be near to top of the group. I'm particularly proud of setting the fastest time of the day in one of the short sprints.

Anyway, it was a great day with good company and banter and I'll probably sign up for every Car Limits day going forward!





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Re: Condor's Impulsive Panic Buy Rotary Shed and lesser seen FD

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Wahey, welcome back! Image
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Copper Red Evolve - viewtopic.php?f=104&t=71400
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Re: Condor's Impulsive Panic Buy Rotary Shed and lesser seen FD

Post by MightyCondor »

Time for an introduction to my FD. I did previously have a thread for it on here, but it seems to vanished during the last couple of years.

In 2014 I bought this:
Image
Image

It was a sensibly modified twin turbo car. However the engine promptly failed and after receiving a Haywards street ported rebuild, I then spent the following couple of years modifying/unmodifying the car to my tastes, doing a couple of track days and a massive European road trip. A few pics etc of happy days below.

I then decided to go further and turn it into my ideal RX-7. I was a bit frustrated with the high boost threshold on non-sequential twins and also wanted a little more power at the same time. So more upgrades were planned.

Below is the mod list before and after the single turbo conversion (which is still ongoing). Sadly the work on the car at Haywards has been riddled with issues, but that would be quite a long depressing story. Happy to talk about it though so if anyone's interested PM me...

Image
Image
Image

The one completed part of the video series I'm working on for the Euro road trip. Excuse my crap narration voice :)
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Condor's Impulsive Panic Buy Rotary Shed and lesser seen FD

Post by GreySilver Beast »

Nice FD Alan :thumleft:
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Re: Condor's Impulsive Panic Buy Rotary Shed and lesser seen FD

Post by MightyCondor »

It’s been a mixed couple of weeks on the rotary front. Such is the emotional rollercoaster of owning a Wankel fleet!

Starting with the good, which is all RX-8 based:

The new shed is driving magnificently. It got one hell of stress relieving thrashing after visiting my FD last week and then got treated to a few jobs…

I installed some new gaskets from Essex Rotary. Given the weather at the time I was forced to reinstall the clusters before they had fully dried out and condensation has reformed. Will have to give it another go, but at least the boot has dried out with the new gaskets in place. Both tail lights had drain holes drilled into them which I filled in with silicone sealant.

I have fixed a wiring issue that was stopping one of the tail lights from illuminating. Looks like the wire was previously cut and then crimped for some unknown reason (maybe a connector got broken). Anyway one of the crimps had failed and given how thin the wire is, I decided to solder and heatshrink it back into life.

I have now installed an Xcarlink and Bluetooth add-on to bring the stereo into the modern age. I actually bought it many months ago off eBay simply because I won it cheaply. At the time I wasn’t sure if and when I’d buy another 8, but it feels like an inspired purchase now. Thinking tablet install next.

Finally following a bit of investigative work (rubbing off the dirt hiding the logo), I discovered that my exhaust is a Toyo. This surprised me a little as I thought they were supposed to be louder. I used to run a Cobra (albeit with a RacingBeat resonated decat) and it was so much louder and more droney. So much so that I eventually got rid of it. I’m quite enjoying the Toyo in comparison, although I probably shouldn’t decat it, especially if the car is going to be used for some more track work, which seems likely given that I intend to book onto the Snetterton track day and only have the one working rotary…

Speaking of track work, the car made it’s track debut at Brands last Friday. I was fortunate enough to secure a late place at the expense of Cabriolet (thanks John). It was an excellent day with plenty of familiar faces as well as new ones. Given my limited track day experience Brands had always seemed a little daunting, but despite the initial dampness I had no real issues (probably wasn’t driving hard enough) and the car coped perfectly other than some brake issues. Thanks to Sam for offering me some Mintex 1144s, which coped significantly better than the street Mintex pads which I was able to get smoking after a 10 minute stint. Of course having stuck lower sliding pins on my front callipers may have contributed. Turns out the rubber sleeves had expanded which prevented them from being refitted. Anyway I had no issues after simply removing the offending rubber, but will probably want to have everything back to spec before Snetterton!

With the new pads and a drier track, I finished the day with a big 20 lap session running about 10 seconds a lap quicker than I had in the morning. Sure my PB of about 1.06 was slow compared to some of the others, but I'm pleased with my progress on the day and know where I could make some further improvements.

Given how good the day was, I now want to do more track days in the car. I felt far more confident tracking it than I would be in the FD (which I have tracked a few times and found far less forgiving in wet conditions).

Moving on to the bad – The RX-7

I’m really starting to regret the decision to take a car that was running well and deciding to go for a single turbo conversion.

I made the decision about a year ago and ordered a BorgWarner 8374 internally wastegated turbo from Ben at Rotary Revs, who got me a great price on it. The 8374 is (in theory) a perfect match for the 13B-REW as it is large enough to keep building power until redline, while spooling up incredible early for a turbo of its size. There is loads evidence of people hitting 1bar of boost at 3,000rpm and I’ve spoken to UK owners who have corroborated this and sing its praises. Given that I was running non-sequential on my old setup and I had to wait until 4,000rpm for turbo action, gaining better response and an extra ~150bhp felt like a glorious prospect that I was willing to throw a big chunk of money at.

Skipping to present day, we get to this latest saga in this painfully slow process. Carl has spent countless hours trying to get to the bottom of the suspected fuel system issue. A few weeks ago the car was flooding on cold starts, this was eventually attributed to dirty fuel and after a fill up it looked ok and that tuning could be finished. Instead there have been more issues. Carl informed me that he was experiencing midrange hestitation, and swapped out my secondary injectors. He thought this had worked, and then discovered an additional high rpm issue.

I was invited to see the car last weekend to gain an understanding of what the problems were. The car took the opportunity to be on its worst behaviour. It backfired on starting up and required a little encouragement to idle. After that it drove ok while slowly cruising around, however when I finally got the opportunity to put my foot down there was nothing. The car could barely build boost and then backfired and hesitated. Apparently on other days it has driven better and had hit target boost boost fine (albeit without the desired boost threshold). The whole experience was soul destroying…

Carl is soldiering on with it and hopefully he gets somewhere. Unfortunately he’s now away for 2 weeks, and then later this month I’m having keyhole surgery on my knee. Therefore it seems likely that I won’t be in the car until February at the earliest.

Brands video and pics








RX-7 current state


Last edited by MightyCondor on Sun Dec 03, 2017 10:52 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Condor's Impulsive Panic Buy Rotary Shed and lesser seen FD

Post by SeriousSam »

Best of luck with getting the FD sorted out there Alan, I'm sure once it's finished you'll have an absolute weapon on your hands. As for those brakes for the 8, it's good to know that Snetterton is the timescale I'm working to for the refurbished units, I've got all of the parts in hand so now it's just a case of getting the calipers stripped and painted before the rebuild. BTW, did you want just the fronts, or would you like some rear caliper acton as well?
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MightyCondor (Sun Dec 03, 2017 11:19 pm)
To Do List: HKS CAMP2 install; cruise control; new exhaust; detail paintwork, possible respray

Done: Hayward Rotary rebuild and stage 2 port; Racing Beat ARBs, adjustable front droplinks, ram air intake and lightened flywheel; Exedy stage 1 clutch; Eibach Pro-Kit lowering springs; Koyo radiator; heated front screen; EBC redstuff pads all round
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Re: Condor's Impulsive Panic Buy Rotary Shed and lesser seen FD

Post by MightyCondor »

SeriousSam wrote:Best of luck with getting the FD sorted out there Alan, I'm sure once it's finished you'll have an absolute weapon on your hands. As for those brakes for the 8, it's good to know that Snetterton is the timescale I'm working to for the refurbished units, I've got all of the parts in hand so now it's just a case of getting the calipers stripped and painted before the rebuild. BTW, did you want just the fronts, or would you like some rear caliper acton as well?
Thanks Sam. You may well be able to twist my arm on the rears as I'm all for preventative maintenance, but I'll make the call later if that's ok. If I get time then I'll try and inspect them first and check how freely everything is moving.

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Re: Condor's Impulsive Panic Buy Rotary Shed and lesser seen FD

Post by SeriousSam »

Yep, no worries there Alan. If your existing calipers are still working fine then I'll not be offended if you choose to not replace them, but then again you'll have a nice shiny black set on the front and it would be rude not to match them ;)

I'll let you know when I've figured out the costs involved, but I've still got a few bits to sort in the meantime, so I'll keep you posted :thumleft:
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MightyCondor (Mon Dec 04, 2017 12:11 am)
To Do List: HKS CAMP2 install; cruise control; new exhaust; detail paintwork, possible respray

Done: Hayward Rotary rebuild and stage 2 port; Racing Beat ARBs, adjustable front droplinks, ram air intake and lightened flywheel; Exedy stage 1 clutch; Eibach Pro-Kit lowering springs; Koyo radiator; heated front screen; EBC redstuff pads all round
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Re: Condor's Impulsive Panic Buy Rotary Shed and lesser seen FD

Post by MightyCondor »

Still no FD in my life but rather than wallow in the pain of the present, let’s look back to happier times.

Some of you old timers may remember the video series that I posted covering my 2014 European Road Trip while owning my previous RX-8. In 2016 we did a follow up trip. I took the FD. After finally collating everyone’s footage, I set about creating something more ambitious. This project got a little out of hand but it's finally done.

Here’s a bunch of short videos of 7 blokes driving sports cars across stunning European landscapes. Enjoy. :D

Full Playlist
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=P ... 8E9QrJ2Ptz

Main Videos:





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Re: Condor's Impulsive Panic Buy Rotary Shed and lesser seen FD

Post by boosted »

I'm shocked it's toyo...pleasantly surprised...I had 1 on an 8 previously and it was horrible..I was embarrassed to be put my foot down...
That silenced decat is still led up against the wall in Jers workshop...it's yours if you want it but be quick as hes picked up a 192 plaything that will be for sale shortly after hes been through it...that has a Miltek/Pettit cat back fitted and that sounds lush like yours...Toyo...still can't believe it best sounding 8 I've heard....glad all is going ok with it.

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Re: Condor's Impulsive Panic Buy Rotary Shed and lesser seen FD

Post by boosted »

On the FD do we know what contaminated with?...water? Diesel?...sounds like tank out and filter out pump out and injectors out for cleaning. Then purge all lines with fuel...massively frustrating....I'm not going single til mines dead then I'm going for 400hp nothing more.

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231 streetported Rx8 renny powered Westfield kit race car. SOLD
92 Rx7 fd3s stock twins..est.320bhp. RETIRED Track car.
93 eunos s-sp 1.6 turbo gt2545r 226bhp track slag. in continuous development.
Scooby doo bugeye wagon wrx daily.
Mondeodog towcar.
Mx5 mk2 1.8 10ae nice day daily rust bucket.
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Re: Condor's Impulsive Panic Buy Rotary Shed and lesser seen FD

Post by MightyCondor »

boosted wrote:
Fri Feb 02, 2018 4:43 pm
I'm shocked it's toyo...pleasantly surprised...I had 1 on an 8 previously and it was horrible..I was embarrassed to be put my foot down...
That silenced decat is still led up against the wall in Jers workshop...it's yours if you want it but be quick as hes picked up a 192 plaything that will be for sale shortly after hes been through it...that has a Miltek/Pettit cat back fitted and that sounds lush like yours...Toyo...still can't believe it best sounding 8 I've heard....glad all is going ok with it.
Thanks Jon. Yep I'm really enjoying owning an 8 again. I might have accidentally splashed out on some mods for it, but I'll post about those later when they're on the car.

I'm also shocked and pleasantly surprised it's a Toyo. Every other one I've heard has been much louder, although probably decatted I'm guessing. I really like it.

I do still want the decat from Jeremy. I know we discussed me coming over and taking you for a spin in the FD. I'm still willing to do that, but still (yes seriously) haven't got the FD back yet....
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Re: Condor's Impulsive Panic Buy Rotary Shed and lesser seen FD

Post by MightyCondor »

boosted wrote:
Fri Feb 02, 2018 4:48 pm
On the FD do we know what contaminated with?...water? Diesel?...sounds like tank out and filter out pump out and injectors out for cleaning. Then purge all lines with fuel...massively frustrating....I'm not going single til mines dead then I'm going for 400hp nothing more.

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I'm not sure if we'll ever know, although Carl has mused that it may have been premix related. After changing the fuel filter a couple of times apparently the car is working fine now. Hopefully he'll get it tuned soon (although I've been hoping that for months now). January road conditions haven't been helpful, and Carl has also had some time off, or been understaffed for much of the month. Fed up with the excuses (even if they are valid), but hope we're nearly there...

I've heard a lot of people say that 400bhp is an ideal level for an FD. Hopefully I won't find mine undriveable going higher than that (although the 12psi base setting would probably be not much above that)
Last edited by MightyCondor on Fri Feb 02, 2018 5:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Condor's Impulsive Panic Buy Rotary Shed and lesser seen FD

Post by MightyCondor »

One FD related thing that I've done recently (other than finishing the above video series) is to refurbish the set of Rays Mazdaspeed MS-01s that I picked up last year. They were intended to be used as a second track set of wheels, although now that the RX-8 is assuming track duties, I'm not sure if I'll actually need them. As anyone who has ever refurbed a set of wheels will already know, It was a painstaking process, but I'm happy with the result.

Image
Last edited by MightyCondor on Sat Feb 03, 2018 10:57 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Condor's Impulsive Panic Buy Rotary Shed and lesser seen FD

Post by nightfire10 »

MightyCondor wrote:
Sat Feb 03, 2018 7:56 pm
One FD related thing that I've done recently (other than finishing the above video series) is to refurbish the set of Rays Mazdaspeed MS-01s that I picked up last year. They were intended to be used as a second track set of wheels, although now that the RX-8 is assuming track duties, I'm not sure if I'll actually need them. As anyone who has ever refurbed a set of wheels will already know, It was a painstaking process, but I'm happy with the result.

Very nice ,looking good :thumright:
Hayward's Street/bridgeported rebuild,595's,Tein coilovers edfc Racingbeat rear anti roll bar oil pres oil temp gauge pod's,lockwood front rear grills,Tinted wind ws folding tow hook's,595s,connect2 ,at long last sohn and ap50 tank instaled ,revi ram air duct already fitted ! calipers painted,diff oil changed .
just oil lines to fit at some stage ( had them a while too) :P

180 of 400
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Re: Condor's Impulsive Panic Buy Rotary Shed and lesser seen FD

Post by MightyCondor »

The RX-8 has been receiving some love recently. Having said I wouldn’t spend money on mods with the possible exception of a short shifter, I have since changed my mind a little. After enjoying a track day in the car at Brands Hatch in December, I have decided to do further track days in the 8 (as I find it more confidence inspiring than the FD, plus the FD is becoming too valuable to risk binning it).

I have now secured:
  • A ready made Nexus sat-nav setup, which uses a 2nd gen Nexus 7. This has been installed and working well
  • An Axial-Flow shortshifter, which will be collected shortly.
  • Refurbished front calipers – which will be fitted with the help of SeriousSam ahead of Snetterton which I’m doing later this month.
  • Cusco sway bars, which have been fitted today.
  • A spare set of wheels that have been dropped off at a local tyre fitter to have Federal 595 RS-R’s installed
While doing a drive ahead of last month’s Oxford meet, DrFrankenRex pointed out that my rear o/s wheel looked wobbly. I took the car to Murdoch’s Rotary Specialist and as well as commenting on my desperate need for a wheel alignment, Luke diagnosed some play in a bushing on one of the upper suspension arms. He has now swapped a younger healthier arm in which has made the rear end a lot happier. :thumleft: The sway bars and a full new set of drop links have improved things further. Time to get a laser alignment booked in. :)

With all of this done, the car will be setup basically as I would want it to be, minus a bridge ported engine or PP/Supercharged etc. NO MORE MODS! Snetterton should be fun! :twisted:

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Re: Condor's Impulsive Panic Buy Rotary Shed and lesser seen FD

Post by MightyCondor »

Went to Hayward's again and had a drive in the FD again today. Now it's fair to say I was worried when going there, because why would I be invited to drive the car? Why isn't it just ready and finished etc? Like last time, something must be wrong....

So the car runs, drives normally and had been tuned to some extent (although the rev counter seems to have stopped working properly since I dropped it off nearly a year ago!). But on a straight (possibly private) section, when I put my foot down there was nothing for a long time. I was past 6k on my now unreliable tach and then the car very smoothly went to warp speed. Carl pushed me on and I changed up at about 10k on the now surely lying tach (although who knows if I even have a rev limit set at the moment). Defo well over 400bhp judging by the acceleration at that speed, but in reality the power just wasn't that usable.

So anyway the key thing here is this car was in no way driving like anyone would expect an 8374 to drive....

However that could be explained by the fact that the internal wastegate on the turbo was fully open for the whole time.... ::cry: :rofl: :censored: :salut: :scratch: ](*,)

So after going home worrying about having a fake turbo or other horrible scenarios, Carl has just called and admitted that he has discovered quite a massive error and now that it's resolved, the car was hitting half a bar of boost on part throttle below 4k rpm... That's more like it. :)

I chose to laugh rather than get angry. The RX-8 had already once again been thrashed on the way home, which was brilliant as always, and blew off some of the steam.

So as ever, the car is a couple of weeks away from being finished. It finally looks like I might actually get the result I was after though.

That doesn't explain why my cluster has stopped working though... although maybe it's good that I don't know how fast I was going earlier....
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Re: Condor's Impulsive Panic Buy Rotary Shed and lesser seen FD

Post by warpc0il »

This is what gets me going regarding the pissing contest that is maximum dyno power readings - it makes no reference to how usable and drivable the engine is.

An engine with 20% less peak power can pìss all over the top-trump, when that power is coming through at the right time and is a good fit for the gearing.

Rant over...
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Re: Condor's Impulsive Panic Buy Rotary Shed and lesser seen FD

Post by MightyCondor »

warpc0il wrote:
Wed Feb 07, 2018 4:16 pm
This is what gets me going regarding the pissing contest that is maximum dyno power readings - it makes no reference to how usable and drivable the engine is.

An engine with 20% less peak power can pìss all over the top-trump, when that power is coming through at the right time and is a good fit for the gearing.

Rant over...
Fully agree Dave. I chose an EFR 8374 based on its reputation for having a very low boost threshold but being large enough for power not to drop off a cliff at the top of the rev range. In practice it should provide the widest powerband of pretty much any turbo on a 13b. It wasn't cheap, but I wanted the drivability more than peak numbers.

Compared to my previous non-sequential twins which had a 4k power band (boost threshold around 4k) and approx 310bhp, this setup should have nearer a 5k power band (boost threshold as low as 3k)and approx 450bhp+. Will probably get it dyno'd at some point, but I'm not interested in willy waving :)

I've seen plenty of dyno graphs for 500-600bhp+ FD's. Having a turbo that comes online above 5k looks pointless to me.
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Re: Condor's Impulsive Panic Buy Rotary Shed and lesser seen FD

Post by MightyCondor »

Took the RX-8 for a 4-wheel alignment today. I had a feeling that there may be some issues, and indeed my adjustment bolts were seized, so went away without it being done.

Here's my current specs. Doesn't mean too much to me but even with some measurements being within specification, i assume the disparity between left and right will make the handling feel less than perfect. I would happily welcome anyone who can knows more about alignment settings chipping in with their 2 cents......

Still a few other jobs in my above list to be ticked off before Snetterton next week...

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Re: Condor's Impulsive Panic Buy Rotary Shed and lesser seen FD

Post by PeteH »

Nothing major wrong with those geometry values. It's got a touch more "crab" than it should, and it would benefit from a touch more negative front camber, and a touch less negative rear camber (to get them a bit closer to each other). But there is no horror story in those values.
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Re: Condor's Impulsive Panic Buy Rotary Shed and lesser seen FD

Post by warpc0il »

I'd be interested to know if they actually measured the ride height or if they just applied their usual "RX-8 Sport Suspension" target values.

Take a look at the Mazda charts, shown here..
viewtopic.php?f=58&t=35629
> WORKSHOP MANUAL
+ SUSPENSION
++ WHEEL ALIGNMENT

For example, the Front Chamber, where the ride height makes a significant difference to the targets.
front camber.png
Many places don't bother and you drive away with your car set perfectly wrong #-o
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Re: Condor's Impulsive Panic Buy Rotary Shed and lesser seen FD

Post by MightyCondor »

Thanks guys. Even though it's now too late to resolve this before Snetterton, I would like to get it done at some point. Hopefully they can be freed up without too much hassle and additional expense. The handling of my car feels ok, but I know it could be better. Could be other factors like bushes contributing too though...

Interesting point about the vehicle height Dave. Presumably on sports suspension with standard springs there shouldn't be much height variation unless different wheels and tyre sizes come in to play? That seems like quite a wide range of heights included in the technical manual.
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