JohnTheBastard

I finally made it to a Rotors and Boba last week, and a couple folks expressed interest in my 8's build details, so I thought I'd post them here.

I bought the car (2009 R3, Aurora Blue Mica) from CarMax in 2013. I don't recall exact mileage... in the high 30k range. It was my daily driver until recently, and currently sits a bit shy of 90k miles. Modifications were minor until last year. I decided the 8 and I needed to celebrate our 10 year anniversary. She's stuck with me longer than any of my girlfriends.

For all the Renesis's bad rep, it's never given me any trouble. Does have an appetite for NGK plugs. My last compression test was at 75k miles:
- Rotor 1: 7.4 / 7.5 / 7.9
- Rotor 2: 8.0 / 8.4 / 8.3

The only part of the car that's needed more than routine maintenance is the transmission. Mr Mazda in Campbell did a partial rebuild under CarMax warranty, but I wasn't happy with the work. I continued to get occasional grinding shifting from 2nd to 3rd. More recently, Hartzel Automotive in Sand City installed a nearly-new transmission I bought on here from RXFever. They do a lot of work on Spec Miatas and have some tricks to help Mazda transmissions survive track abuse. Their attention to detail is fantastic, and I highly recommend them. (They don't do much work on rotary engines, sadly.) Anyway, on to the build details...

Chassis/Suspension:
- Öhlin/SakeBomb FPSpec long-stroke custom suspension
- Spherical bearing inserts
- Öhlin Polestar remote adjusters
- Swift Springs
- Sikky Aluminum subframe bushings
- SuperPro urethane suspension bushings
- Racing Beat sway bars and end links
- RX8Performance Aluminum/Urethane motor mounts
- MazdaSpeed front strut brace
- BeatRush Rear Arm Performance Brace

Brakes:
- Wilwood Track Day Brake Kit
- Wilwood stainless brake lines (front)
- RacingBeat stainless brake lines (rear)
- Ferodo DS2500 pads (front)
- Hawk HP+ pads (rear)

Intake:
- Racing Beat REVi Intake and air duct

Cooling:
- Koyo Dual Pass Radiator
- Racing Beat radiator and oil cooler screens
- RX8Performance AST tank with coolant temp fan over-ride
- Various silicone hoses

Drivetrain:
- Exedy (PN# 10813) Stage 1 clutch
- Exedy steel flywheel - RB page
- Stainless clutch line - RB page
- Rear counterweight (needed for non-OEM flywheel)

Electrical:
- SakeBomb IGN-1A high performanceignition coils and plug wires
- Antigravity ATX-30 Restart battery
- MeLe Rally Spec battery mount
- Battery relocation to trunk
- Power cut-off switch

Quality of Life improvements:
- AutoMeter SpekPro Gauges
- oil pressure (SKU P32531)
- oil temp (SKU P32231)
- H20 temp (SKU P34631)
- RacingBeat gauge cluster
- AxialFlow Short Shifter
- RaceRoots clutch pedal reinforcement bracket
- Redline Goods alcantara shift boot
- ProClip phone mount
- HalGuard Clean Agent Car fire extinguisher
- H3R NB300 Flat Surface Bracket for 2.5lb extinguishers
- H3R SM01BK extinguisher seat mount
- BennettBuilt Gas Cap Mount
- Design Engineering transmission tunnel heat shielding
- 3M Crystalline heat-rejection tinting

Wheels:
- OEM R3 wheels, repainted by West Coast Wheel in Fremont

Deleted mods:
- Synchro Saver (transmission issues suggests it wasn't helping)
- Mishimoto Fan Shroud (doesn't work well with S2 wiring harness)

SakeBomb did most of the installation work. I have a few remaining odds and ends still waiting to go on the car, but nothing big. The car is pretty well sorted for the moment, so I plan to enjoy her for a while before she goes back under the knife.

The last of the low-hanging fruit, as far as performance, is the exhaust and an ECU tune. I'll order a header, resonator, and super dolphin tail from RE Amemiya, but I've been putting it off because it's a lot of up-front cost to wait 6+ months for delivery from Japan. (I'm looking for someone that can flash an S2 ECU, if someone has a guy.)

The next round of mods will probably be cosmetic. I have a set of MS-01 wheels from speed7 (to go on whenever I wear out my PilotSport 4Ss) and a MazdaSpeed wing from shiryu7. I'll add a Seibon OEM-style dry carbon hood and CF trunk lid when I wrap the car in DynoChome PPF. I also like the Odula grill and some of the Amemiya aero bits. Need to find a JDM front impact bar...

All of this is laying groundwork for a dry-sumped, billet 20B. But that will come with a lot of other expensive things that need to happen at the same time. New transmission, custom CF drive shaft, quick-change differential, new axles, custom rear subframe, seam-welded chassis, custom fuel cell, fuel pump and (probably) E85 lines, autosport wiring harness, Haltech ECU + chassis integration...the list goes on. Everything I've done so far look like child's play compared to that build plan, so we're at a bit of a plateau for now.

I don't have a ton of photos from the build, but will add what I can find later this week.

Mazdaspeed RX8 ver2

Woot woot!

shiryu7

iTrader: (2)

Quality build and a beautiful car. It was nice meeting you, and now I get to see the car!

Coincidentally, I also purchased my car with mileage at around 30K and daily drove it until the odometer reached 90K heh

SparklingFresca

Nice build! Our cars are very similar in build philosophy and application, I decided to go with the OEM+ theme with the intention of building another chassis to actually go fast.

"They do a lot of work on Spec Miatas and have some tricks to help Mazda transmissions survive track abuse." Anything you can do to elaborate on this? I am sure everyone who tracks their 8 would appreciate this insight.

Cheers

JohnTheBastard

Sure. They use SWEPCO 201 80w90 gear oil in both the gearbox and the differential, and specifically recommend against RedLine MTL. Mazda uses some brass/bronze components in their transmissions, and the RedLine contains additives that will corrode them.

At least for the "top loading" 6-speed used in the S2 RX8 and later NC Miatas (not sure what applies to other gearboxes), there are some little square plastic spacers in the shift-interlock mechanism. Hard shifting will cause those to deform, which eventually translates into damage to the synchros--particularly for gears 3 and 4.

They machine some bronze replacements for the little plastic pucks, which helps. But their advice is still to slow down your shift: click to neutral, click to gear. Mazda gearboxes are just fragile creatures that won't take much abuse. Frustrating, since "spirited driving" is the Miata and RX8s whole raison d'être.

From an email Barry sent me:

RayCurry

Nice one, I love it.

Federighi

iTrader: (7)

Nice list of bolt ons. Just fyi, a build is typically represented by something that was built, not bought and installed; not to mention any vehicle still rocking 100% oem panels / bumpers certainly isn't considered a build by my accounts. Imo, a lot of enthusiasts misuse the term by throwing "it's a build" at anything without actually understanding or putting thought into what that means. I recommend watching some Drew Peacock (or similar automotive personality) and it'll become painfully clear what a build or built vehicle looks like.

But I'd definitely love to see this seam welded, billet dry dumped 20B rx8 materialize and if that ever happens, it will certainly be a build. I'll be one of the first in line to congratulate you.

DougR3

Can you post additional pics?

cbmmm3

wow. WOW. My R3 was in storage for the past 20 months. Today was the day. Finally. Oh what a feeling. God Bless Felix

JohnTheBastard

Someone let Bruce Canepa know he needs a body kit for his 959 SC builds before he gets cancelled by influencers.

Sorry, I meant to take some, but time-out away from me. I'm leaving town for a few weeks so the car is currently mothballed, but here are a few I already had...


Trying to get oil temp was maybe the most annoying part of the build.




Öhlins and some other bits going in.




Battery is behind the left rear wheel arch. Really happy with SakeBomb's work on the relocation.


West Coast Wheel Repair in Fremont did a great job. Not ultimately sure what I'll do with the wheels, since I bought a set of MS-01s. I'd like to put them on a bone stock white R3, but don't have a place to put another car.