Has anyone installed the kits from SR Motorsports? I was considering the GT-4 kit, but I was looking for some feedback from anybody that may have these already installed on their 8.

Thanks

PS: This is my first post!

 

Kinda pricey for what you get. I haven't seen their intakes before - they're pretty nice looking. The underdrive pullies is a hard call - some cars make more power with underdrive pullies, some don't, and it's hard to tell by looking at the dyno chart of the guy selling it .

SR is a good shop, but their stuff is usually a bit high in price. I'd probably look at doing an ECU upgrade off the bat - either an E-manage or the Canzoomer setup, definite power and bang for the buck there.

Dale

 

Thanks for the reply - I was considering the Canzoomer, but was afraid of changing something I did not understand that well. I too liked the look of the SR cold air intake system, and that was my first choice because they said it was quiet. It comes with a reusable high performance filter that can be cleaned. Is the E-Manage better than the Canzoomer?

 

Curious about the SR cold air intake too. Anyone have it? Anyone, Anyone?

 

The advantage of the E-manage is price and flexibility, but you DO have to tune it yourself. Canzoomer is more expensive, less flexible, but is plug-and-play.

Kinda depends on how much of a gearhead you are .

Dale

 

Thanks Dale, I think I'll just start simple, Intake, Mid Pipe, Exhaust - that should empty the wallet for awhile. I might wait for the AccesECU to come out for the 8 to mess with the maps.

 

Don't hold your breath on the AccessECU cobb stopped responding to local area 8 owners

 

Cause us 8 owners are so starved for more power we tend to be pains in the asses.Rotary perf in texas is co-develping they are sticking to mid july to mid august.

 

RB also has one in the works. Don't know delivery date.

 

That's what I was told but now Cobb wont respond at all to us that sucks eh? we are pains though lol

 

Just a clarification, an stage1 is just as flexible as an emanage, sicne it IS an emanage. It just has a RX-8 custom wire harness. If you like DIY stuff, wire in an emanage. If your lazy and dont mind spending a few extra bucks, buy a stage1. Added bonus is it comes with a pre-tuned map already you can start off from when yo do your own tuning, or if ya wire in your own emanage, I'm sure someof the other guys tuning would be agreeable to helping out with a basic map or such.

 

still be possible to make a valet mode?

 

If no one has the SR intake, maybe I'll buy it and demo it for the club. It is kind of pricey, but it is a true cold air intake unlike the others. They have told me it is allot quieter also.

 

yeah try it Maybe try to work a deal with them, because if someone else says they like it I'd rather get that and sell my RE.

 

Cold ram air? There is no ram air effect from the SR intake.

Stock intake is designed not to have any ram air effect. Take a look at the following photo:



The primary air duct is blocked and the secondary air duct is facing side where. Where is the ram air effect?

The SR intake is just a smaller version of the stock air box. If you want to get the SR intake, you might as well just keep the stock air box and replaces it with a K&N stock replacement and the flow area will be more than the SR intake since the filter is bigger.

We never advertise ours as a ram air intake because ram air intake simply does not work on the RX8. I have wrote up an article on the forum regarding all the confusions people have on the aspect of intake system. If you do a search, you can find it.

Chuck Huang

 

Thanks for the update Chuck. Why do they advertise it that way?

 

I don't know why they advertise it that way but from the technical aspect, their is no way a ram air intake. It's just a short arm intake like any others such as from us, K&N, and HKS.

If it's a true ram air intake, the filter has to be placed directly at the incoming air stream. As you can see, there is no direct forced air flow into the filter. The air coming through the filter is sucked in by the engine, not forced in. The guard in front the air duct blocks any kind of forced air. If you take off your bumper and investigate, you will see more. There is no way there is any kind of ram air effect if you still keep the stock air ducts.

It's good that it's not ram air because ram air does not work on the RX-8 that RX-8 uses a MAF sensor, not a MAP sensor.

MAF sensor measures the air flow of the air coming in. If you have a ram air intake, it's going to create too much turbulence and the result is inaccurate MAF reading. It will cause poor running engine and triggers check engine light.


Chuck Huang

 

Here is the article I wrote a while ago:

Here I would like to talk about different terminology.

Short Ram intake: Actually it should be called short arm (tube) intake. There is no ram air effect when you place the filter inside the engine compartment, unless you have a scoop feeding air to it. Because it takes in the hot engine air, unless your stock intake set up is really bad, you can expect loss of power from this kind of system.

Cold air (fresh air) intake:

Long arm cold air intake: First type is the one that places the filter outside of the enigne compartment but the air flow is not in the same axis as the air entry on the air filter.

Short arm cold air intake: Second type is cold air short arm intake that sits inside the engine compartment but with shields to block off the hot engine air. This term is mainly to distinquish from the one that takes the hot engine air. Of course, the air temp will never be colder than the ambient temp. So when the ambient temp is 100+F, the air isn't really "cold" but it will be at least 40F cooler than a hot air intake.

Ram air intake: The filter is placed on the outside of the engine compartment and the air flow is in the same axis as air entry on the air filter and also the air flow axis inside the tube. Some filters have a entry point on the the top of the filter. Those are used for ram air intake.

Now I want to talk about which one of those will work and which ones will not and why.

The only thing that will work on the RX-8 will be the short arm intake and the cold air short arm intake. The cold air intake that places the filter on the outside of the engine compartment will not work and the ram air intake will not work due to the use of MAF sensor instead of MAP sensor.

The stock MAF sensor is very sensitive. Any turbulence of the air flow will upset the reading. When the air filter is placed on the outside of the engine compartment, the air flow from speed will create too much turbulence. It's even worse with a ram air intake. MAF measures how much air is going through it and then it sends the signal to the ECU and the injectors will fire according to the map on the ECU. So the ecu map is a 3D graph.

MAF signal vs. RPM vs. Injector duty cycle.

With a MAF sensor, the amount of air that goes through it has to go into the motor. If it bounces out (ram air intake) or there is any leakage, the a/f will be off. Here will be a few cases:

Ram air intake: When car is at low speed, the throttle is not open all the way. If you force the air in, you can expect some air to bounce back after it goes through the MAF sensor. Since the MAF already sends a signal to the ECU to account for that much air, the injector will be firing according to that. Since some air does not really go into the motor, you can expect an overly rich a/f which causes hesitation. To make it easier to see, look at the following equation. ECU will fire the injector at X % for each Y amount of air. If you have 10Y of air going through the MAF, the ECU will fire the injector at 10X %. But if 1Y of air bounces back, you only have 9Y of air actually going into the motor but the injectors will still fire at 10X %. So the a/f ratio will be about 10% richer than what it should be. If the car is at idle where the throttle plate is nearly closed and there is gusty wind, you can expect the car to die at idle with a ram air intake due to overly rich a/f.

Leakage: The piping from the MAF all the way to the combustion chamber has to be air tight. In an N/A motor, if there is any leakage, you can expect a leaner a/f. Becuase some of the air that got sucked into the motor didn't go through the MAF. So let's say if there is 9Y of air going through the MAF, the injector will be firiing at 9X %. But there is leakage so there is 1Y of air going into the motor not going through the MAF, you can expect a 10% leaner a/f. This problem will be more pronounced during idle. When you install an intake, it's very important that you clamp down every piping tightly after the MAF or you will have idle problem. On a turbo car with MAF and when the car is on boost, air that passes through the MAF will be leaking out so you will see a richer a/f instead.

Stock Intake Design:

Many people think the stock intake is a ram air intake. It's totally wrong. There is no ram air effect from the stock air duct.



The photo shows you that the primary intake duct is pointing side way and Mazda makes a guard to block off any direct entry of the air for the 2ndary air duct. You can also see another shield at the bottom of both air ducts to block off any air entry. When it comes to RX-8, the air gets sucked in by the engine. Engine is doing all the suction work. Any kind of ram air effect will upset the reading of the MAF sensor and Mazda did everything they can to eliminate the ram air effect. The only way to make a ram air intake work will require a very complicated intake setup that has a electronic controlled bufferfly valve in the ram air duct that opens gradually according to rpm and throttle position so you only get the amount of ram air that is needed. Even Mazda's OEM design is not that complicated so don't think any aftermarket manufacturer can come up with a true ram air intake for cheap. We have tried to make one but the gain from the true ram air intake can't justify the cost.


Chuck Huang

 

JERCS - I contacted SR and ask them how theirs works, and I am placing an order with them this week.

 

Cool, could you PM me the results? After installing look for idle issues as most aftermarket intakes seem to have a problem with it.

 

Yep - no problem. It shipped today the 15th of June.

I checked on the idle issues, and they said theirs is "rock solid perfect"

The intake arrived today the 17th, so good service so far. I will install on Friday night hopefully. If I don't get it done then, it will be next weekend!

 

looks dead sexy! thanks Nemesis8!

 

looks good! please keep us updated on install and your personal review.

 

The quality is excellent, except for the gray support bracket. They had a mounting bolt hole to close to a weld, so it is being replaced. The bracket is the U shaped piecce in the lower left of the photo. I'm pretty excited to get it in the 8, but now I have to go to Columbus then Detroit next week, so it won't get installed until next weekend - bummer. I'll do install photos for the thread when I get back in town.

 

sweet if it goes crappy ima grab the RE one cause everyone said its nuts!