Notchy gear shifts – new engine mounts?

[R1DSO]

Just stand on it which will be tight enough, unless your Ant Man!

I’ve sheared a wheel nut doing that before .

[R1DSO]

You'll scratch your alloys if you use the emergency brace; I'd only use a socket designed for alloy wheels accompanied by a torque bar.

Glad I read this, thanks Carl . I had a generic 19mm socket in my Amazon shopping basket and was about to checkout. I’m going to order this instead. Hopefully it fits the R3 wheel nuts, otherwise I’ll have a very shiny gold, but useless socket :

Sealey SX03019 Alloy Wheel Impact Socket 19mm 1/2"Sq Drive - white/gold

I placed my order for a couple of RRP mk2 engine mounts earlier this evening too. It looks like they’re in stock, so perhaps their delivery might beat the coils by a day or two so that I can fit them next week ?

[Ainmhidh]

I use a 21mm socket on the R3...

[R1DSO]

I use a 21mm socket on the R3...

Double save! I’m going to measure my nuts (that’s not supposed to be a joke) in the morning before ordering so I get the right £8 alloy socket .

[R1DSO]

it is 21mm if its standard. also halfords sell them (the red one for rx8s.)

[R1DSO]

it is 21mm if its standard. also halfords sell them (the red one for rx8s.)

Nice one, thanks for confirming. My local Halfords seems to still be on Corona lockdown, so will go for the red one on Amazon .

[Ryan Rotary Performance]

I placed my order for a couple of RRP mk2 engine mounts earlier this evening too. It looks like they’re in stock, so perhaps their delivery might beat the coils by a day or two so that I can fit them next week ?

Thank you for the order; they'll be with you next week prior to the weekend.

[R1DSO]

Thank you for the order; they'll be with you next week prior to the weekend.

Great stuff, thanks Carl .

[warpc0il]

It looks like you'll be able to take good advantage of this going forward...
http://www.ryanrotaryperformance.com/in ... rds-scheme

[R1DSO]

It looks like you'll be able to take good advantage of this going forward...
http://www.ryanrotaryperformance.com/in ... rds-scheme

Indeed! I already got money off the mounts from my coils order .

[R1DSO]

The RRP mounts arrived last week and I’ve now installed them and had the opportunity to do some test driving.

Initially, they didn’t quite slot into the subframe bracket:

B918E590-0FA7-4AE7-8C5F-22D0CA6E449A.jpeg

The subframe brackets required some work with mole grips, a hammer and chisel and a bit of light dremel grinding to splay them out slightly and make room for the RRP mounts. Carl was very responsive on this and mentioned he would be tweaking future mounts to negate the need for any adaptation:

4795462F-B6EB-43A5-9C6F-38D326477451.jpeg

59072FA7-1941-4882-8D86-73E5A770970C.jpeg

My thoughts from my test drives...

- The gear shift shake at idle has now gone completely.

- Throttle response is noticeably improved. With the caveat that I’m comparing this with how the car drove with a failed mount, this makes the RX-8 feel more urgent and, even with the Renesis engine’s low torque, gives it some nice punch when you accelerate.

- I found the low rev cabin vibration (roughly between 1.5k and 2k) barely noticeable. I could live with this long term, even though it will reportedly go away once the mounts have settled.

- Gear changes have significantly improved. Changes (especially 2nd to 3rd) are still a bit notchy when The gearbox oil is cold, but I’ve read that this is normal with the Red Line MT-90 I put in there a few weeks ago. When the gearbox oil is up to temperature after about 10mins of driving, gear changes are now much smoother.

- 2nd to 3rd still occasionally has a tiny (i.e. barely noticeable) bit of a notch, but nothing like before where it felt like something was providing resistance and almost getting in the way of the gear change (presumably the engine being out of line from the failed mount).

- The car still hangs on to 1st a bit under high load when changing to 2nd. But, this has improved and, from previous comments, a slowish shift is normal with the RX-8 gearbox. As a side point, it makes me wonder what the point of a short shifter would be on an RX-8 given the gearbox doesn’t respond well to rushing those 1st to 2nd changes.

All-in-all, I’m very happy with the RRP mounts and would recommend them. They took a little more work than I was expecting – in addition to the subframe brackets, I found that the solid brake lines on the driver’s side got in the way of all my ratchets and torque wrench, both accessing from the wheel arch and using a long extension and wrenching from above (under the bonnet). But, the mounts have significantly improved the issues I was experiencing and the extent of the throttle response improvement is welcome bonus .

I now have a couple of OEM mounts cluttering my garage if anyone wants to buy them . Given the driver’s side has failed, they could be good for someone who wants to fill with polyurethane (or just wants a functional passenger side OEM mount). I may put them on the ‘buying and selling’ section of the forum.