So I test drove a red "demo" car that was traveling the states back in early August.

It was 110 degrees at the time, and had the AC on, and it still flew. Yeah I know the AC gets kicked off on full throttle, but I wasn't always at full throttle. I got back in my MX-6 and there was no comparison. The RX-8 was incredibly faster.

However, last night I drove a yellow RX-8 that had been customized a little by the dealer. Dark wheels, SpinTech exhaust, and yellow Katskin. The car kicked a little at the bottom, but it was nothing like the red one I drove, and it was 45 degrees out.

I am pretty sure the car was beat to hell, with 322 miles of very hard test driving on it, but the difference was ridiculous.

The car just wouldn't go like the red one. I would drop gears on the highway and feel almost no increase in acceleration.

I got back in my MX-6, and it didn't feel any slower than the RX-8.

So I am now 100% positive the red demo car I drove did not have the ECU remap, or whatever Mazda did that decreased the output.

For all of you that are happy with the performance now, just wait until they fix it. It definitely made up my mind to wait.

 

That is the reason I bought a RED one

 

They, being Mazda will not be fixing it. Aftermarket will most likely.

This is the most scientific comparison/verification that I have ever seen.

:P

 

How many miles did the red one have on it? I test drove a black MT with the GT package & Nav which had 1,300 miles on it and liked it quite a bit. I ordered mine in Ti grey GT package & Nav. I noticed an extremely big difference in power while the engine was breaking in. Now at 1,800 miles my car feels stronger than the car I test drove and I hear that at around 2,500 miles I will notice an even bigger change. I can't wait :D .

 

What is "spin tech exhaust"? Could that have something to do with it?

 

Maybe, I need to drive another stock one to tell. I didn't really like the exhaust. I have never actually heard of the company and haven't gotten around to looking it up.

The demo car that I drove in August did have more miles on it though. ~800 vs. 322. I can't imagine a break in period being this substantial of a difference.

Yeah, this is not scientific in any way. It could really all be in my head since I didn't take both cars to the dyno or drag strip during my test drive. My car, which I used as a baseline, is also very sensitive to temperature, maybe more so than the eight. But it just seemed so dramatic, I can't imagine both cars producing anywhere near the same amount power.

 

The hp difference is subastantial on the RX-8 in the beginning my car only had 7.5 miles on it when I picked it up and now it is really getting into its' own. I can feel the difference as soon as I get above 4,500 rpms. That is when my car starts to "rocket" away.

 

This car did not "rocket" away at any RPM. I need to go find one with more miles on it I guess to be sure.

I don't understand why the car would gain so much from a break in period.

The theory I have heard with piston engines is that carbon builds up on top of the piston effectively raising the compression ratio. That theory doesn't make much sense with a rotary.

I don't buy the story that the ECU will return the HP and MPG at 8000 or 2000 or any other number of miles, but anything is possible.

IMHO, after driving the yellow car, the RX-8 "as is" is a broken product. What is amazing is that even broken, it is one of the best cars on the market, and if I had to get a car today, I would still buy one.

 

Hey there good buddy! (This guy's my buddy from MX6.com ) How did you like that EVO test drive a month or so back? Obviously, you didn't buy one...

Now, your MX-6 is a keeper, you know. Mine (MX-6 LS V-6) is my "git ta work" mule, 76 miles round-trip. It's no slouch (should have seen that eclipse trying to keep-up on that exit ramp today :D screeereeereeetch!) and I love it, but my RX-8 (red, got it in August) outperforms it in all categories by a very large margin indeed. Asthetically, no comp.

You need to test drive another one. Could be that exhaust system messed that yellow one up. Anyway, something is wrong with it. Don't continue to go on thinking this way about the RX-8.

I don't understand the ECU remap thing. All USA RX-8's have the same ECU mapping, from the first to the last, unless I missed something....

You were saying something to me about waiting for the new RX-7. I think for you, you're looking for power & speed. Your MX-6 is in great shape. (Mine has 188k miles & counting, yours had 45k miles just a while back, right?) You're in a good position to wait it out for the new RX-7, and that is what I would do if I were you.

But, take another test drive in an RX-8. I hate that you feel this way about them.

 

Regarding the Spintech exhaust, I wonder just what it was and who made it. I live about 20 miles from Spintech and I am having them build a cat-back system for the RX-8. I have the prototype on my 8 now. Spintech had never built an exhaust system for an RX-8 before mine. In fact my 8 was the first one they had ever seen. I presume that some local muffler shop installed a Spintech muffler on the car you drove, but I could never guess which one they chose, because none of them fit the RX-8 "as is."
I'm going to Spintech tomorrow (or Monday) to get the finished system installed in place of the prototype. Pix and sounds to follow.

 

Yeah, something just didn't feel right about that car. My theory was that the red demo car skipped emissions somehow, but that is pretty far fetched. It is more likely that the yellow car was messed up.

The weirdest thing was that the yellow RX-8 had a noticable pull to the right upon acceleration, but I don't see how torque steer is possible in a RWD rotary. I will definitely try another one soon.

 

Some UK owners (me included) are noticing 2 completly different power delivery curves from our cars.

At the moment it seems random who and when it happens to.

Either we get a power surge over 7k like we should - or the power markedly drops off ( you still go faster as RPM builds but acceleration realy drops).

Were not sure if its sticking ports, the air intake system, fuiel types or what yet.

 

I don't really need another car right now. I still love the eight for anyone that was concerned about which side I am on, but I am going to wait until this is all figured out.

However, by the time that happens, the C6 will be unveiled, and we may be hearing more about an RX-7 as well. Fun times to be in the car market.

 

That yellow car sounds like it was in **** poor shape. Why would a dealer allow someone to test drive a car in that condition. It sounds to me like it had been in an accident maybe and not properly fixed. I wonder if it wasn't the dealers own car (they shipped some out to the dealers to drive around)? Anyway my car doesn't pull the right in any condition. She handles and drives great.

 

The car had aftermarket wheels and the tire pressure light was on so they probably didn't install the sensors correctly. The sales guy claimed that was the reason for the pull to the right. However, it was clear that the pull was only during acceleration.

The car could have very well been in an accident. The test drive consisted of about 2 miles of the twistiest roads I have seen in this state. Conveniently, there are huge speed bump like undulations in the middle of a straight away that I am sure few people slowed down for.

The sales guy said that one kid actually had him scared by taking these 15 mph turns at about 80, in attempt to get the car sideways.

What was funny, was that he still asked me if I wanted the car after telling me this.

 

So I drove another RX-8 tonight for comparison. Yeah, that yellow car was f'ed up. The one I drove tonight was much faster and more stable than the yellow car. It did have 1900 miles on it so maybe that had something to do with it. There was no question as to weather it would beat my car or not this time. Dropping gears actually increased acceleration, and I put about 30-40 miles on it tonight just to make sure.

However, I still don't think it was as fast as the red Mazda demo car that I drove in 110 degree weather. That could just be me though. I never took the red car on the highway.

My faith is somewhat restored, but what if I get a car that runs a 15.2 or that gets 11mpg like some people on this forum? That would suck.

Anyone know when the 2004.5's are coming out?

BTW, I raced an M3 on the highway and got my *** handed to me. It wasn't even close. Although it was hard to pick the right gear when you are just cruising in 6th. Do I want 4th or 5th, or will I still be under redline in 3rd? It would also be nice to have a little light that told you what gear you are in. I tried going from 6th to 4th, and hit 2nd by accident. Luckily I realized it before letting the clutch out all the way. The amazing thing is that the car didn't seem to care that much, it was almost like it was saying "go ahead, I want to rev 13000 rpms."

 

What evidence have you seen that 2004.5's will even exist?

Quote:

BTW, I raced an M3 on the highway and got my *** handed to me. It wasn't even close. Although it was hard to pick the right gear when you are just cruising in 6th. Do I want 4th or 5th, or will I still be under redline in 3rd?

It would help to know how fast you were going.

Quote:

I tried going from 6th to 4th, and hit 2nd by accident. Luckily I realized it before letting the clutch out all the way. The amazing thing is that the car didn't seem to care that much, it was almost like it was saying "go ahead, I want to rev 13000 rpms."

Yes, the shift lever has a little too much sideways preload from the 5-6 slot to the 3-4 slot which makes it easy to pull too far over and catch the 1-2 slot because you only feel one change (the 5-6 to 3-4 change happens so much by spring-load that you can easily not notice it). I hope this made any sense at all -- it's hard to describe.
The dangerous thing about hitting too low a gear at speed is that the clutch disc spins at that very high RPM as soon as the trans engages the gear even if you don't let the clutch engage the flywheel, and clutch discs have been known to explode violently (yeah, I know, that's redundant) when over-rev'ed.

 

damn, jd... how many times you gonna post this identical story? this is the third thread I've seen it on. Once is enough, dude.

 

Sorry. I was afraid someone would catch that.

I actually copied and pasted a few lines from another post because I wanted to start a separate thread about the misshift. I am glad someone else has noticed that it is easy to skip over fourth and hit second.

The other thread just mentioned that I lost to an M3, and said nothing about the shifting or anything else of the sort.