Hello Everyone, new member to the RX8 Forum, was already a member on the RX7 forum and Protege forum. I currently drive a Protege 5, just sold my 79 RX-7 last September and am putting an order for an RX-8 this september. Because of this I have been doing some reading here to get aquainted, this is a great forum!

That being said, I came across a video from a British show called Top Gear where they test an RX-8 on a track which they seem to test many cars on. The RX-8 pulled a lap of 1 Min 31.8 Secs which was the same as the Nizzan 350Z and the BMW M3. You can see in the video that 2 spots above the RX-8's time was a Porsche 911 Turbo that turned a 1 Min 31.0 on the same track. Perhaps now those that complain about the horsepower of the car can feel a little better.

And before you say it, I don't care about straight line speed, anybody and their grandmother can drive in a straight line. The track is what counts!

The video is 15MB in .wmv format and runs about 7.5 minutes, if anyone has somewhere I can post it to provide a link let me know.

This may be old news to everyone and you may have already seen it but I just found it.

Thanks!

 

Yup, it has been posted in the past. Not sure if there is a current link though, it's worth while for anybody that hasn't seen it.


EDIT:

https://www.rx8club.com/showthread.p...threadid=15149

http://www.mazdarotaryclub.com/forum...0&referrerid=1

 

I watched that video the other day and loved it. I was very shocked to see the car I bought do so well and be praised so highly by the show. I was under the impression that the guy who runs that show(forget his name) was a pretty hard reviewer of the cars he tested so I really valued his opinion. Especially when he said "this is a very nice car." However, everyone that I show the video to says its a bunch of crap and that they don't believe the rx8 ties the bmw m3 or the nissan350z and that they fudged all that just to make the show interesting. I personally find it very unbelieveable that 3 cars would get the EXACT same time. Some guys at work say that show is probably getting paid by Mazda. What's everyones thoughts on this video?

 

LOL
the 911 turbo ran a 1.31 on a WET track.
note the (w).

 

The track that Top Gear uses is a momentum track, in that you can see the high speed sweeping turns that reward good medium and high speed handling. Cars that can keep their momentum up by braking less and carrying speed through those corners are rewarded with very good lap times. Cars that understeer a lot like the 350Z suffer quite a bit because they are limited by the grip of their front tires, and can't really get the running start down the straights like other cars (i.e. corner exit speed). In the case of the M3, the car is very heavy like the 350Z, and although it might have fantastic power, the weight is a burden that affects all aspects of performance, braking, cornering, acceleration. The RX-8's relatively weak engine only hobbles acceleration out of corners and down the straights.

On other tracks, the results will be different.

 

I'm not clear as to what it is you are trying to say here, are you saying that the track favours the RX-8 and that is the only reason it got the time it did? How will the results be on other tracks, better? worse?

 

Sorry I wasn't quite clear there. What I am saying is that the Top Gear track rewarded the RX-8 because it matched the RX-8's strengths (handling, high rpm power). Other tracks reward other cars.

It's useful to compare the RX-8's performance on the Top Gear track and then look at it's performance on the Tsukuba track used by Best Motoring. Everyone makes fun of the 8 in that video because the "lowly" Integra Type R beat it, and that was because the Integra's engine had a bit more pull at the top end so it could creep up on the inside on the back straight, and it could keep up with the rest in cornering (as ITR owners will attest). In this case, the track had a spot where the Integra had an advantage, and the driver used it.

Now let's look at Laguna Seca. Best Motoring driver Motoharu Kurosawa (the real Gansan) drove it to a lap time of 1:50.8 IIRC, which is pretty much the same as my old Integra Type R at 1:50.6. My Integra had race tires and modified suspension and was not slow, so if the RX-8 can go that fast with stock suspension and with street tires, I'm impressed.

 

Integra has a much harder suspension too.

JDM DC5 has Brembo and sport suspension and 162kW compare with the RSX. It is totally a different machine. Australia/US Type S is just too soft. Like the WRX and the STi version I reckon.

JDM DC5 is a very good car, cheap too. If it is available in Australia, I doubt very much I will change from Honda to Mazda, to be honest.

 

On the same token... it has been a lot of fun modding the RX-8 step by step, rewarding everytime going to the track.

 

Thanks Gansan, I'm clear now. Speed TV air's the Grand Am Cup Series which has a number of RX-8's (5 or 6) and car number 70 has won twice this year and is curently in 3rd place in the standings. This series has the cars as close to production as possible with the only enhancements made for safety. I have not seen a race yet but am trying to get a schedule of when they are showing the next one. This will give us a good indication on how well the RX-8 does on various track layouts.