Hey guys. I've had my 04 rx8 for about 4 months and I recently installed a new bhr ignition kit as well as an rp super cat. Before I installed both the car was running smoothly with decent power and torque because all I had was a k&n typhoon intake. Once I installed both car was prefect first day. Broke my super cat in properly. Now when driving (typically hwy for work and fun hard diving on days off) I get a rattling sound at 6k rpm n up when accelerating from 4th gear up and it seems to just have less power over all then before the install of both bhr ignition and rp super cat. If anyone could please give me any insight on what I could look for as far as what the issue could be. I WOULD GREATLY APPRECIATE IT. Please no basing.

 

Possibilities:

A: The BHR ignition wasn't installed correctly. The usual culprit is the grounding cable

B: The BHR ignition made it more obvious how bad the intake is (seriously, it's less power than the stock air box, and can cause all sorts of problems)

C: The RP supercat does what aftermarket cats do on the RX-8, and it failed, breaking into rattling chunks and clogging the exhaust stream (buying one is a waste of money, and yes, it can indeed fail that fast)


So far, the BHR ignition is the only thing done right on that car.

 

Thank you for the fast response! Other than going with aem intake over k&n . What could I do to get some more power and torque. And to check my rp super cat just pull out and look at inside. How could I start diagnosing the issues?

 

Yes, you should be able to just inspect the internals of the pipe visually.

You can't get much power / torque out of the engine without going to turbocharging, supercharging, or nitrous. Think of it as "this is actually a 150whp engine, and Mazda already modded it up to 200whp". It's very very hard to get more power out of it.

Most power mods are a power loss, like that K&N, Weapon-R, ECU "chips", O2 anti-foulers, etc...