Just wondering if the Power Down Issue is only effected on US? If not, does Japan RX8 suffer the same problem as US? If US is 238hp and Australia's RX8 already at 238hp Rating, therefore i hope there aren't any change on australia's RX8 power.

Cheers

 

Having no idea on your emission laws down under, I would guess you'll have better HP than us americans. Now this is just a guess mind you, but I'd say that US probably lost around 10-15HP at least because of Emissions. Now the interesting part that I'd like to know is whether this also has a effect on the MPG people have been getting. Sadly it seems the majority of people on the board have been getting 18 mpg and under for just about everything with the people scoring over 18mpg being in the minority. But like I said all this is guess work from reading over other posts and what Mazda has said.

 

Australian pre-orderers were informed of the downrating from 185kW to 177kW for the 6MT prior to delivery (185kW=250HP, 177kW = 238HP). The reason given was that due to the small size of the Oz market, we would be getting the same spec. as the Poms (the English) who also have left-hand drive, and whose vehicles must comply with EU emission regulations. Essentially then, Australian models comply with EU emission regulations, with the accompanying fuel re-mapping and power downgrade.

I' m not qualified to comment any further, and I don't know how this fits in with the dyno-versus-Mazda-claimed power rating controversy that has raged in this forum.

All I know is that we are absolutely thrilled with our car.

 

Labrat - I think you mean that you and us (Britain) have RIGHT hand drive cars :p (which of course means that we drive on the left)

This is an interesting point regarding the emmissions regulations.

In the UK we were told from the start that we would not get a 250ps/247bhp car because of emmissions. We were originally going to get a 238bhp setting.

Because of new emmissions regulations that will come into effect in europe in 2005 we were downgraded a month ago to 228bhp.

So it would appear that their are 3 ECU chips around.
The 247 bhp chip that is in Japan, and should have been in the US.
The 238 bhp chip that meets EURO3 emmissions standards that the US actually got, and that the europeans were supposed to get but aren't.
The 228 bhp chip that meets EURO4 emmissions standards that europe is actually going to get.

Now I assume that in Australia there was some reason that you couldn't have the 'unrestricted' 247 chip, and so rather than have a whole new chip mapping designed for you, you were allocated the EURO3 chip.

If that chip is good enough for australian regulations I see no reason why LHD/RHD makes any difference. If you are locked into matching the european spec cars then you'll get a 228 bhp chip.

 

So that mean the Australia won't suffer a further downgrade power from 238hp to lower? So that mean US spec RX8 now have the RX8 with the same power as our australian spec?

 

For some reason, Australia has chosen to adopt the Euro standards for emissions regulations, and the RX-8 must therefore meet Euro 3 in Australia (I think Australia is planning to switch to Euro 4 eventually, but this will be later than the 2005 when Euro 4 comes into force in Europe). Mazda have always targetted Euro 4 for the European car.

Several months ago, Mazda downgraded the power output specs of the Australian and European models, presumably because they had found they could not meet the Euro 3/4 regs and still produce 247/238 hp respectively, that they had targetted.

Presumably, they must also been aware at this point that they could not meet US emissions and still produce 247 hp. Unfortunately Mazda chose not to tell anyone this until now.

So now, everyone except the Japanese, has been downgraded to more honest numbers that reflect the compromises that Mazda have had to make to pass emissions testing, and there shouldn't need to be any more downgrades (unless Mazda also had difficulties passing Japanese emissions testing and have been lying about Japanese horsepower too).

However, the problem is the new revised numbers (in the US at least) still seem to be much higher than the the measured power outputs of the production cars and the suspicion is that Mazda had much more serious problems meeting emissions requirements and should really have downgraded everyone by a further 10-20 hp if they were to produce honest numbers.

 

There are worldwide efforts to go to the ECE standard for emissions. Both Australia and soon Japan will be on track for these. Australia is in "catch-up" mode at this stage.

As for the real power level us the US market. If someone can tell me the emissions cut-off %'s for California, I'll tell you which spec car (and hence what power) they really got.

I have always got the impression that Cali was roughly between euro 3 and euro 4 across the board which would mean that they would get the 228HP maps not the 238HP.

-pete