RE: PH Fleet Intro: Mazda RX-8

[edwheels]

otolith said:

I found the RX-8's consumption no worse than piston engined cars of similar power and weight when driven really hard. It just didn't improve much when driven gently. I can well believe that it would be no worse than rivals under race conditions.

Yes, running mine it was frustrating that super gentle driving, do all the things which normally give you better fuel consumption made little or no difference. One exception was driving down from Cumbria to London - no traffic, perfect conditions, seemed to be gently downhill all the way, cruising at just under 70MPH - didn't need to touch the brakes once on any of the motorway stretches. That one journey got me to the magical 30MPG - needless to say I never matched it again. Most of the time it was more like 19-24 MPG unless on a long steady motorway journey when it usually reached the dizzy heights of 27MPG.

The weird thing is, this sort of thing always became a bit of a challenge.... THIS time I WILL get 300 miles out of the tank! Unfortunately the addictive nature of the 9000rpm redline usually lost me the contest before it even got started.

They do sound beautiful though - even with standard exhaust systems - very quiet when cruising but a video game type roar as soon as you accelerate - never boomy, never harsh - perfect really, My replacement car - MX5 MK3 - is so gruff in comparison - sounds like something from the 1960s (which I guess was the point and I rather like it) whereas the RX-8 sounded like something from Blade Runner.

[y2blade]

CarbonBlackM5 said:

y2blade said:

I experienced one of these for the first time last night....It was infront of me on the run home last night...A blue one that had been lowered and had a after-market Exhaust fitted.


braaaaaaaaaaaaa pop pop braaaaaaaaaaaa pop bang braaaaaaaaaaaaaaa...the sound was truly spine-tingling although it wasn't as quick as I thought it wild be (I matched it in the S60)...perhaps it was the lower BHP one, or perhaps it was shagged....I'll never know but it did sound fantastic

I have a new found fondness for these now

Good work. I had a Borla fitted to mine and it used to pop on the over run. Not the quickest in a straight line but a great A-B car which makes up for the lack of grunt.

he was popping on the revlimiter (by the sounds of it) between gear-changes I had goosebumps listening to it.

[Harji]

Gary C said:

Harji said:

Efficiency can relate to work, hence why I used the word. The work involved by a rotary to convert fuel/air into energy is more efficient than a four stroke cycle.

No its not.

It converts a given quantity of fuel into less work done than other engines as more of the energy is lost as heat.

Edited by Gary C on Tuesday 7th February 13:59

Remember what I said earlier "read carefully" one rotation of the rotary does the work more efficiently than a four stroke. I was not talking about losses just the work it does to complete a cycle of intake, compression,combustion and exhaust compared to a four stroke.

[wolves_wanderer]

y2blade said:

CarbonBlackM5 said:

y2blade said:

I experienced one of these for the first time last night....It was infront of me on the run home last night...A blue one that had been lowered and had a after-market Exhaust fitted.


braaaaaaaaaaaaa pop pop braaaaaaaaaaaa pop bang braaaaaaaaaaaaaaa...the sound was truly spine-tingling although it wasn't as quick as I thought it wild be (I matched it in the S60)...perhaps it was the lower BHP one, or perhaps it was shagged....I'll never know but it did sound fantastic

I have a new found fondness for these now

Good work. I had a Borla fitted to mine and it used to pop on the over run. Not the quickest in a straight line but a great A-B car which makes up for the lack of grunt.

he was popping on the revlimiter (by the sounds of it) between gear-changes I had goosebumps listening to it.

Flames is where its at boys

[Gary C]

Harji said:

Remember what I said earlier "read carefully" one rotation of the rotary does the work more efficiently than a four stroke. I was not talking about losses just the work it does to complete a cycle of intake, compression,combustion and exhaust compared to a four stroke.

The work it does ? I think I am getting what you mean but I would disagree with your terminology. Work = Energy transfered from one system to another (not an exact definition but near enough).

When you say 'work it does' do you mean it packs more compression/ignition/exhaust/induction cycles per crankshaft rev than a pistion engine ?

The rotary gets an ignition from one rotor each rev of the output shaft where a pistion engine gets one ignition from every two revs from one pistion. However is this really compariable ? as each rotor has three effective chambers anologus to three pistons on one common crank throw (al la radial engine), it takes three revs for each chamber to complete a cycle. The rotaries real win is that this is all packaged into a much smaller space than could be achieved in a piston engine without the loss of momentum in each stroke.

Edited by Gary C on Thursday 9th February 05:26

Edited by Gary C on Thursday 9th February 05:29

[Gary C]

wolves_wanderer said:

Flames is where its at boys

And afterwards a trip to Maccy D's

[wolves_wanderer]

Gary C said:

wolves_wanderer said:

Flames is where its at boys

And afterwards a trip to Maccy D's

Whilst at Maccy D's

[marcosgt]

y2blade said:

CarbonBlackM5 said:

y2blade said:

I experienced one of these for the first time last night....It was infront of me on the run home last night...A blue one that had been lowered and had a after-market Exhaust fitted.


braaaaaaaaaaaaa pop pop braaaaaaaaaaaa pop bang braaaaaaaaaaaaaaa...the sound was truly spine-tingling although it wasn't as quick as I thought it wild be (I matched it in the S60)...perhaps it was the lower BHP one, or perhaps it was shagged....I'll never know but it did sound fantastic

I have a new found fondness for these now

Good work. I had a Borla fitted to mine and it used to pop on the over run. Not the quickest in a straight line but a great A-B car which makes up for the lack of grunt.

he was popping on the revlimiter (by the sounds of it) between gear-changes I had goosebumps listening to it.

They have a rev limiter? When does that cut in?

M

[wolves_wanderer]

marcosgt said:

They have a rev limiter? When does that cut in?

M

Not sure if serious etc

About 9400 rpm.

[marcosgt]

wolves_wanderer said:

marcosgt said:

They have a rev limiter? When does that cut in?

M

Not sure if serious etc

About 9400 rpm.

Yes I WAS serious - I've not revved mine much past the beep, but I've seen reports of getting to 10K

M

[Dale Lomas]

It's not a pop-pop-pop limiter, it's a hard fuel and spark cut somewhere before 10k and after 9.5krpm. It's not very glamorous at all! Think of the hard cut on an overboosting 200SX and that's the brick wall you hit in the RX8.

But you do get flames between gears, especially with a de-cat.

Internet heroes talk about how crap the RX8 sounds... but you have to be there to understand the 'different' noise it makes. No up-down loss of momentum, just a buzz-saw titanium wail that gets more urgent by the millisecond under full gas. Nearest comparison I have would be a two-stroke GP bike.

[y2blade]

Dale Lomas said:

It's not a pop-pop-pop limiter, it's a hard fuel and spark cut somewhere before 10k and after 9.5krpm. It's not very glamorous at all! Think of the hard cut on an overboosting 200SX and that's the brick wall you hit in the RX8.

But you do get flames between gears, especially with a de-cat.

Internet heroes talk about how crap the RX8 sounds... but you have to be there to understand the 'different' noise it makes. No up-down loss of momentum, just a buzz-saw titanium wail that gets more urgent by the millisecond under full gas. Nearest comparison I have would be a two-stroke GP bike.

Dale see my post at the top of this page...I have a new found fondness of the RX8, with an open Exhaust they make the hairs on the back of your neck stand-up

I'd love to have a drive of one sometime

[Jimmy No Hands]

I was always sorely tempted to do something to the exhaust on mine. Stock one is fairly disappointing. Oh well.

• hits YouTube for Rex exhaust vids*

[wolves_wanderer]

marcosgt said:

wolves_wanderer said:

marcosgt said:

They have a rev limiter? When does that cut in?

M

Not sure if serious etc

About 9400 rpm.

Yes I WAS serious - I've not revved mine much past the beep, but I've seen reports of getting to 10K

M

Haha, sorry mate thought you were making a joke that it's so high you've never seen it!

There are some remaps that move the limiter to 10k. They are done in conjunction with breathing mods as the only real reason for the limiter being where it is is because power is dropping as they can't breathe properly much over 9k.

[Fastdruid]

Worth mentioning at this point that the rev counter seems to over read a fair amount.

I've only hit the actual limiter once or twice, as the beep does remind you. Although the way the power builds means its very very easy to hear the beep a lot as unlike most cars where the power dies before the redline it keeps going until the beep suddenly draws attention that the rev limiter will soon spoil the party.

[edwheels]

Dale Lomas said:

It's not a pop-pop-pop limiter, it's a hard fuel and spark cut somewhere before 10k and after 9.5krpm. It's not very glamorous at all! Think of the hard cut on an overboosting 200SX and that's the brick wall you hit in the RX8.

But you do get flames between gears, especially with a de-cat.

Internet heroes talk about how crap the RX8 sounds... but you have to be there to understand the 'different' noise it makes. No up-down loss of momentum, just a buzz-saw titanium wail that gets more urgent by the millisecond under full gas. Nearest comparison I have would be a two-stroke GP bike.

Quite agree - Internet Heroes have helped destroy the RX8's reputation with the usual predictable myths and rumours! RX8s are one of the best sounding cars money can buy! I am biased of course... but to experience one approaching the 'Beep' ...

When I had mine a guy approached me in a carpark and just said "They drink oil those things" - it was so nice to have these stirling bits of advice from the concerned man-in-the-street.

[C350]

I always carried a litre bottle of oil in the boot of mine but never had to use it once (i.e no warning light ever came on while on a trip).

I also used to carry a litre bottle in my M5 and during my 1yr of ownership I had to stop 2 or 3 times to top it up due to the warning message coming on.

OK, so it was a big V8 but the RX8 used very little in comparison. My current car also has a decent thrist for oil but its part of owning a decent car.

[PhillipM]

edwheels said:

Quite agree - Internet Heroes have helped destroy the RX8's reputation with the usual predictable myths and rumours! RX8s are one of the best sounding cars money can buy! I am biased of course... but to experience one approaching the 'Beep' ...

When I had mine a guy approached me in a carpark and just said "They drink oil those things" - it was so nice to have these stirling bits of advice from the concerned man-in-the-street.

I think part of the problem is, for those that haven't owned one, they go to youtube for the videos and then they sound all tinny and crap - but I haven't found a video camera yet that will actually capture the full range of noise - they tend to just capture the high frequency portion and loose the rest of the sound altogether.

[wolves_wanderer]

PhillipM said:

edwheels said:

Quite agree - Internet Heroes have helped destroy the RX8's reputation with the usual predictable myths and rumours! RX8s are one of the best sounding cars money can buy! I am biased of course... but to experience one approaching the 'Beep' ...

When I had mine a guy approached me in a carpark and just said "They drink oil those things" - it was so nice to have these stirling bits of advice from the concerned man-in-the-street.

I think part of the problem is, for those that haven't owned one, they go to youtube for the videos and then they sound all tinny and crap - but I haven't found a video camera yet that will actually capture the full range of noise - they tend to just capture the high frequency portion and loose the rest of the sound altogether.

Agreed, they don't sound the best on YT but neither do VTECs. I recently went over to Cork (only used 2 engines and 50 gallons of oil getting there) and was giggling like a schoolgirl after razzing it through a long tunnel with the windows down. It is a really different sound and quite hard to explain.

[marcosgt]

PhillipM said:

edwheels said:

Quite agree - Internet Heroes have helped destroy the RX8's reputation with the usual predictable myths and rumours! RX8s are one of the best sounding cars money can buy! I am biased of course... but to experience one approaching the 'Beep' ...

When I had mine a guy approached me in a carpark and just said "They drink oil those things" - it was so nice to have these stirling bits of advice from the concerned man-in-the-street.

I think part of the problem is, for those that haven't owned one, they go to youtube for the videos and then they sound all tinny and crap - but I haven't found a video camera yet that will actually capture the full range of noise - they tend to just capture the high frequency portion and loose the rest of the sound altogether.

The standard exhaust is pretty quiet too. Took mine down to Hindhead when they first opened the tunnel and dropped it down to 2nd, but it was still pretty quiet. I sometimes think maybe I would like a little more growl, but not enough to spend hundreds on an aftermarket exhaust.

On the other hand, if you drive one every day it's quite nice and refined

M.