sferrett

Since Mazda R&D HQ is in Irvine, and Irvine is in Califooorina, and Arnie's our new governor... perhaps a "Total Recall" is, in fact, in order??

Sorry, couldn't resist - apologies for not actually contributing anything meaningful to the thread..

Hasta..
Simon.

Kev

ahh, I get it now - all Mazda can say is there's "no problemo".

:D

Speed Racer

Canzoomer,
Is it possible that 60 of the Renesis engines were used to create the initial build of the Formula Mazdas?

Excerpt from the most recent update at Star Mazda
"Testing of the new 2004 Pro Formula Mazda continues at a rapid pace as Star Race Cars prepares to ramp up a production. 59 of the initial production run of 60 cars have been purchased, with one car still available for $69,500. Star Race Cars has negotiated a deal with Elan Motorsports to continue the production of the new Pro Formula Mazda at the existing price of $69,500. Once the initial production run of 60 cars is complete, future runs would begin once a minimum of ten cars have been ordered. "

Formula Mazda Specs
"Engine - 240 HP Mazda “Renesis” rotary engine with encrypted ECU including rev limiter, pit speed limiter, traction control, ignition trim, fuel trim."

Kev

That's exactly the sort of thing I'm on about ... brings doubt to the table!

There are so many possibilities. I don't think it would even be particularly public if an entire container of engines went missing.

canzoomer

So, if 60 engines from parts went to build these cars, where did the original engines go?

And why would they need 60 stock engines to replace ones that are also stock engines??

The cars would not be sent over from Japan with no engines in them!

That makes absolutely no sense to me..

Speed Racer

Canzoomer,
The Pro Formula Mazda race cars are not made by Mazda. They are built by Star Racecars / Elan Motorsports Technologies (located in Braselton, Georgia) and are powered by a Renesis engine that they purchase from Mazda.

rotarynews.com

The guys within Mazda USA (not Mazda Corp, Japan) had a very very hard time getting the engines over to Star Racers, since most/all of the engines were already earmarked for production or stock replacements.

Additionally, right now, 60 engines used in the racers is less that 1% of the total SALES of RX-8 in North America.

Stop knee jerking.

Omicron

So how DO we find out how many engine replacements there have been? I have a feeling it's a LOT less than it may look at a casual glance at this board, and I'd like to be able to quantify it exactly.

Gord96BRG

From this RX-8 wins RJC Car of the Year article, it's reported that RX-8 production from April to end of October is over 13,000 units. Elsewhere on this forum, it's been reported that US sales to end of October were over 8,000 units.

Changes the possible percentage affected, but not the fact that there might be a problem, and I'm still most interested in finding out if the engines replaced so far have a common cause of failure.

Regards,
Gordon

T-von

How funny! You know way back in April, I started this thread:

https://www.rx8club.com/series-i-tech-garage-22/possible-future-problems-side-exhaust-3763/


Only one person responded to my question. Now it looks like what I assumed actually came true.

canzoomer

Thanks for the correction, Speed Racer.
I mistakenly assumed htese were RX-8 chassis.

I appreciate the info.

Where can I read more about these builds?

Thanks!

canzoomer

I am pleased to hear that the sales and prodution figures are considerably higher than what was originally predicted earlier this year. I was having some misgivings about my choice a little while ago when I heard that some cars were sitting on dealer lots, but knowing the deliveries are nearly double this makes more sense.

You are right on abou the real issue here, before we got hijacked into a debate about some percentages.

There ARE some engine failure problems, with an imprecisely known quantity.
The main thing is for us to find out what is the nature of the problem. Are we all sitting on tickng bombs, or did a few of us get an aberration?

Is this something that is limited to a small batch, or some more general problems?

Is it a specific failure, which can be easily corrected, or a wide range of problems, which would indicate some kind of more general quality control problem?

I really hope that it is actuall yjust one or two small issues, which happened to a small number of cars.

Otherwise we all risk facing some issues with the resale value later on.


I guess time will tell.

Speed Racer

More info

Press release

Spec sheet

Photos

Exhaust sounds

Kev

They don't tip the scales very hard do they?!?

That would be a lot of fun

canzoomer

Well, that kind of answers the question that the engines did not go to the Star Mazda program.

I see these were all built in the spring..