hi, i just got my new 8 about 3 weeks ago...and i realize that the engine's "little" 1.3 litre cant be compared with similar ranking cars?

is there any engine improvements or modifications that can be made to increase the horsepower of my 8?

my frd drives an STI and i was in his car and i felt the turbo boasting from about 80 to like 180 in a couple seconds....

And also, are there any cautions should i pay attention to driving a new car...btw, my car is MT.

 

Hmm... go to the aftermarket section. There's a lot more you can do than you think

 

The STi is not in the similar ranking cars.
The RX8 gives cars like S2000s run for their money in autocross.
but yea if you're after more power, wait for some solid FI kits to come out.

 

RX-8 power upgrades..... are for the most part non existant, like Rotary Titus said, wait for FI. Other then that dont expect more then a few HP.

 

You can trade the 8 in for a down payment on a Corvette or similar big bhp / relatively light, low weight vehicle. Past that, not much until some one comes out with a good, forced induction system for the Rx8.

 

Greddy turbo is due to land in Feb 05, so start saving.

 

There are actually quite a few options. Some can be pretty costly, but have some decent proven gains. Right off the bat you have a few piggyback units to go for. Some people have gotten 20+ horsepower out of them, but they take a bit of time. You might want to run a search on "greddy e-manage" or "canzoomer". These ecu have worked wonders for people who put enough time into tuning them. Another thing that has helped out is a lightened flywheel. These help to get the rpm higher quicker, increase your acceleration. Run a search for the mazdaspeed flywheel, ACT prolite flywheel, Shane Racing flywheel, or the Racing Beat flywheel, I believe all of their weights are pretty similar. The air intakes and cat back exhausts have not done much performance wise, more of a cosmetic mod right now, some sound really nice. Then you have your suspension upgrades, I've heard that the Racing Beat sways and struts are pretty nice and the Tein coilovers are also pretty nice. Racing Beat is a company you're going to want to read into, they make very nice high quality parts. Now you're still not going to be in STI territory with these mods, but you'll notic a big difference in the power of your car. In the works right now, we've got a guy names Guitarjunkie(not sure of the spelling, but he has a thread called "who has ported a renesis so far") in the tech garage section. He and Rotarygod, a big rotorhead are going to work on porting an engine for another forum member. Porting looks to be very promising and could open up some pretty major power. One member did port his renesis and had great results. After porting, the catback exhaust will do a little bit more, and if you can bear the noise, you might want to look into a race midpipe, very loud, but might open up some more power. I don't know how the end results of all of this because no one has all of this done yet, but keep on the board and you'll see people's results. Now, we have a few members here who have used Nitrous and had good experiences(Charles R. Hill) he's running 13's in the quarter without the nitrous too, search some of his threads for some great info. There are a few other minor things like lighter wheels, better gripping tires, lightened/underdrive pulleys that will also help. The thing that a lot of us are looking forward to most is forced induction. A fair amount of turbos/superchargers are in the works. 2 superchargers I'd recomend reading about are the axial flow supercharger being made by Richard Paul( his thread is called Axial flow supercharger) and Hymee is working on a twin screw supercharger(Hymee gets supercharged part 2). As for turbos, the greddy system early next year, and there are a few others escaping my mind right now. Alright, I'm tired and don't know if what I've compiled is really a help but hey, I tried right? Good luck with your car man.

P.S. Look in the aftermarket performance/mazdaspeed and tech garage subforums. There is a ton of info as far as aftermarket upgrades go, and most of the people on this board are very helpful and courteous, ask away my friend.