Had the RX-8 up on the lift this afternoon just to take a look around under the car.

I noticed the rear diff is very cool looking. Has a lot of cooling fins.

 

Seeing pics like that is seriously making me consider dealer undercoating b/c I thought that the cars had some form of it from Mazda when built.

btw - very nice pic!

 

What's the diameter of the stock exhaust? It looks huge! (3 inches? )

 

Isn't that "bare metal" the gas tank?

 

Ummm. I dunno.

 

It really matters what kind of metal it is, not just if it's coated. Would you worry if the undercarriage was all stainless? Or aluminum? How many Delorians are rusting through their body panels?

 

If you can make out the detail in my crappy photo, the metal 'X' is the gas tank's shiney heat shield...

Supported by painted metal bracket 'Y'....

And the gas tank would be the Black plastic piece 'Z' on the right...

And Exhaust 'A' is 60mm, about 2.3"
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doc

 

OmegaBob, I did notice some form of undercoating. I think you may be seeing the heat shield around the diff.

neit_jnf, The exhaust is fairly large (did not measure it) and it looks like it all bolts on. Should make any aftermarket swap very simple, ramps and hand tools only. I can e-mail you several higher res photos of the entire exhaust system if you want them.

Doctorr, thanks for clearing up the gas tank issue and for the exhaust info.


I will try to edit a few (the original pics are approx. 1.2 to 1.5 meg each) of the pics and post them in the photo section.

One thing I found interesting is the brace that connects to the trans and runs to the diff. I guess this is part of the backbone of the car, looked cool.

Moderator - Sorry for posting this in the General forum, should have gone in the photo section...

 

One thing I'm VERY impressed by is that Mazda used mandrel-bent exhaust piping - all RX-7's came stock with some atrocious crush-bent piping.

Steve T, welcome to the world of Japanese cars . I don't know why American car companies don't have bolt-on exhaust - all Japanese cars use simple bolt-on exhaust sections. You never have to do any cutting or welding. The RX-7 was the same way - manifold that had a pre-cat bolted to it, that had a main cat bolted to it, that had a cat-back bolted to it.

Dale