Pstone - did you get your racing seat(s) in and a tune for your car?

I have my COBB custom tuned through MM so that's good to go. I will put the seats in this weekend. Since they stick out a little wider in the shoulder area, it creates a huge blind spot on the left side of the car since you can't see when you look over your left shoulder. I'm thinking about getting one of those small rounded mirrors that you can stick onto your side mirror to help that issue out. I only put them in when I autox or go to Brainerd, then I take them out right away for daily driving. I'll have my new Go Pro up there so I'll try to get some decent video together and edit it on tuesday.

If you search Pstonage on youtube, I have an old video from brainerd from my lady holding a point-and-shoot camera. I also did a little exhaust test with the go pro suction cup mount on the rear bumper last week. It's crazy how strong that thing is. There's some *interesting* night shots towards the end. I need to find some soft string or rope that I can tie to the mount and then secure in my trunk in case the suction cup lets loose without scratching the paint all to hell. I'll try to make another video with the racing beat race pipe that I have in now to show the difference in sound.

How was the before/after comparison with the tune?

It's a lot smoother through the whole rpm range and pulls better up top. At WOT I'm pulling 215g/s through the MAF. Compared to other dyno's, I should be around 210whp. I haven't dyno'd the car though so I could be wrong.

I usually don't drink during the week, but work has been killer. I just got home so I'm declaring that it's now beer:30. We'll see if I have enough motivation to work on the car or not.

may be in the cities sat night through mon... not sure yet. make-up twins game that is still undecided as to whether It's worth it or not.

You could watch part of a Chump Car race at Brainerd on Sat.

Preston - do you know what your MAF reading was before the tune?

I've heard a few people run their oil level about 1/4" below the full line. Even better if you have an early RX-8 is to rig a catch can so oil can't get into your intake.

Worked on the car pretty much all last night until 1am. I taped off one of the exhaust tips, and then stuck my small shop vac in the other and taped around it. Mine can vaccum or blow air, so I set it to blow and then started spraying all of the joints in the exhaust with soapy water. Found quite a few bubbles at the back of the midpipe where the donut gasket is. I don't know what it is about that gasket, but I've always had problems with it. Ripped out the midpipe and liberaly applied the hi-temp liquid copper gasket. I'll test it again tonight when I get home to make sure there's no more leaks before I start the car.

After that I still had energy so I decided to start swapping my brakes out. Right now I'm just putting in slotted rotors with Hawk HP+ pads. I'm also changing out to ATE brake fluid. I picked up a little hand pump brake bleed kit from napa that works wonders. This way you don't need someone pumping the brakes inside the car. I was able to get the rears complete, now I just have to finish the fronts tonight. I'm a bit worried about trying to bed these pads in. I live in a 30mph residential area with no random roads or back highways that i can think of.

Unfortunately, most of your bedding will wear off before you get to Brainerd. What I would do is bed them when you get close to the track. Are you going late Sun or early Mon? Will you be running premix?

I'm heading up Sunday afternoon. I'm running 6oz per tank of Idemitsu premix. Car runs even smoother with it.

Is there anything going on this weekend in the twin cities related to cars... I have this weekend off ( First time in 3 months ) and am hoping there is a meet of some sort.

Anybody in the area have a turbo'd 8 that they would be willing to let me ride in this weekend? I am on the verge of buying a Turbo but I would like to get some idea of what its like before i make the transaction.

Had an awesome time at Brainerd on Monday. All of the modifications that I did over the year made the car a completely different beast on the track. I was able to brake way deeper because of the brakes and tires, and able to pull a lot higher G's in the corners with the suspension and tires. I was very surprised with some of the cars I was able to catch up to and pull away from in the corners. It was ridiculously hot and humid so I skipped the last 2 sessions of the day because my body couldn't handle much more. When I got home Monday night I passed out immediately and slept for 16 hours. Now I know what heat exhaustion feels like.

I have a video up on youtube. My friend that came with put it together on the drive home. I have learned not to mount the camera outside of the car because it will only be wind noise. I'm going to sift through the 3 hours of video and put together another youtube video later this week.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GiVwr2ayGNg

Whoo Hoo! No question the RX-8 handles a lot better than many other cars.

What kind of top speed on the long course going into turn 1? I was at 120. How about turn 2? I had to slow down to 115 due to uneasy stability.

http://www.myautoevents.com/pls/mae/frmEventDetail.Show?psevent_id=12359

http://www.mnautox.com/forums/showth...July-22nd-24th

Highest top speed I saw at a quick glance was 129mph on the straight in 5th gear. I found that shifting around 8,200rpm's from 4th into 5th netted better acceleration at those speeds. I braked to the same speeds as you posted because the car didn't feel very planted. With a front splitter and rear wing, I think I could keep on the throttle through both turns and hold around 130mph. I may look for a trunk next year that I can mount a wing to since my car doesn't have the factory wing.

My instructor had a Mazda RX7 with a built motor, single turbo, coilovers, and hoosier A6's. He took me for a ride and it was ridiculous how much more grip those tires have compared to my hankook rs3's. He would come into a corner way too hot, brake late, and just throw it into the corner without the tires making any noise at all. After feeling the acceleration on the straights and handling in the corners, it makes me really want to modify the car more. Saving for a house has to come first though. Even though it was crazy hot, it was still a blast.

Wow! Your car must be making better power than mine. I don't think shifting before the HP would lead to better time. I agree on the idea of aero because i did not want to dial in any understeer. The aero would only efftect high speeds and not hurt the balance on the "slow" corners like 60 mph.

Did you have any glitches with stability control? Mine would come on in turn 7 no matter how I approached the corner. After I am warmed up i always turn it off, but it was very strange that it was triggered by that corner.

Any idea how fast you were exiting 10 on the long track? I was doing 70 which was a nice improvment over my M3. Didn't help me on top speed though - my car was running out of breath toward the end of the straight. Strange - I would gain speed on the way to turn two - about 125 - but then I had to trim 10mph to feel comfortable. i don't take chances on turn 2.

isnt the driving school like 860$ or something like that?

That is with a session nor two in a Formula Ford. I have seen a day in your own car for $255 and there have been Groupons too.

The sessions are normally around $350. They've had groupons the last few years for a lot cheaper.

I always turn my traction control off right away. I take the first lap at around 75% to warm up the tires, then after that I let it buck.

what do you need to go out there a helmet and any other safety equipment?

Hey guys, I know we are planning to have another RX8 meet soon, before summer ends. But I just wanted to let everyone know that there is a pretty good meet every wednesday night at the Sonic in Bloomington. It usually starts around 630 and goes til dark. Its almost all import cars and there are usually quite a few mazdas; mostly RX7s and miatas. Im the only RX8 I have seen there. This wednesday we counted 34 cars. Most of the guys are younger (i'm not saying anything negative by that) however there are quite a few nice cars that show up.

Anyone ever had problems with the plastic covers UNDER the car in the front breaking off or getting damaged? I need to get all of that replaced, body shop quoted me $800 for the job ($650 of it was just parts)

I read about it before going to the track last year. Air gets on top of the undertray and pushes it down and it may come off. I replaced missing screws and the deals they lock into (mine no longer held). Then when I went to the track I used Gorilla Tape to prevent air getting ahold of the front edge of the bellypan.

I guess the oem pan can be replaced for $130 http://www.mazmart.com/PartsList.aspx?id=26&n=NEW&m=6 hardware is another $20.

Yeah, mine is gone too, flimsy plastic stuff.

If you want to do an upgrade you can go here, it's aluminum, so it's light, but a little stronger than the OEM plastic, you may want to get the front lip too.

Here is a link to the Skidplate but not the lip.

http://raceroots.com/index.php/produ...nder-tray.html