I just got off the phone with a company i ordered a part from and had a nice discusion with him on the future of the RX-8 and more performance parts coming along for it. Well, needless to say our market sucks, its not just this company that thinks so there are a few out there. I always wanted to blame these big corp's for shunning the RX-8 from the import scene, but now i know its the consumer and not the supplier.

We as a group have shunned ourselves, the lack of money spent by the 8 community has doomed us for performance mods. I've always wondered, and was actually about to right a magazine, about the lack of performance mods for our car. It seems that the 8 communinty has been put into the category of lots of show and not a whole lot of go, its not just all the other tuners out there it's coming from the company's also. What i got from my nice conversation was "The RX-8 guys will talk your ear off about getting performance mods, but when it comes down to it they dont buy".

Are we to be classified as the body kit wielding sticker slapping blingy rim wearing kids of today? I hope this turns around, because it can, supply and demand in its simpliest form. The difference is u cant just demand it u have purchase it also.

I know there has been many who have had bad experiences with many different parts especially on the FI side with the greddy turbo, but without the larger company's stepping in to play we are lost. The lack of parts being made by different company's will just increase prices for parts and we will continue to go downhill. This truely worry's me because i bought my 8 to be a performing machine, and i do love how the car handles. But all these flamers on this thread alone almost prove the point.

I dont know how many times i have read oh if u wanted a car to go fast straight go by an SRT-4 or whatever other car out there. The fact is i didnt want that car i wanted to build my 8 to do everything, a car is built and tuners mold it into something else. A civic was not built to be a race car, and yet it is used by company's as a platform for just that.

Now i dont know what we can do as a whole, because one voice is not heard like the thunder of many speaking together, but i do believe there is something wrong. If the vast majority of people bought this car to NOT do performance modding to it, well then i guess i got into the wrong car.

Frankly i am waiting for all the flamers and trolls to hop on here and have a hayday, they will prob point out grammatical errors, or bitch that its too long or whatever. All that does is show the *** of the 8 community, i am a sincere person and what nothing but the best for my vehicle and i know many out there feel the same, so lets do something about it.

 

That's a pretty jaded view, from someone with only 29 posts....

What parts/systems are you waiting for that have not yet materialized?

S

 

i dont think he i saying he is waiting for parts that havnt shown up.. i think hes saying in the future, we are going to see less and less parts being made

also..
How about the Axial Flow and petite S/C???

 

but i like stickers, body kits and rims.....

 

Simply put, it's hard to develop aftermarket engine parts for the renesis for a multitude of reasons, most being independent of our willingness to throw money at our 8's.

1 - the customer base is so small compared to, oh say, the civic market (see also: economies of scale).
2 - the typical I/H/E route doesn't do jack (see also: any post on intakes, headers or exhaust).
3 - the stock 8 ECU is a facist (see also: if Mussolini were to develop an ECU). Totalitarian may be a better description here, but you get the point.
4 - Some early aftermarket products did not work well with the RX8 (see also: K&N ver. 1 and Greddy turbo), adding to the perception that the rotary is fragile.

So now the parts are more expensive (#1), the typical tuner upgrade path is shot to **** (#2), messing with anything else requires more knowledge than most other cars (because you have to deal with #3), and a lot of people don't want to spend a lot of cash for minute power gains and an increased likelyhood that a part will fail (#4).

And there's more to it than that.

 

Ricer!

 

i can understand your point and on some things i agree.our car is like the old school sunbeam tigar(4 cy.convertable 1966)no moods untill someone put a 289 mustang motor in it.ran like hell and there wasn't much to keep up with it...blah..blah.what i think is that in time when things slow down in the race for power someone will come up with a piggy back supercharger for out car that kicks ***!!till then i well enjoy the day to day drives and keep wishing on the power mark to come full circle.

 

by the way it was called a sunbeam alpine and was a great car for the 4 cyl.it had.the only thing close to it's look was a triump or tr6.

 

Well its not only the fact that nothing is there, but also that projects for parts on our car are being canned. For instance you were talking about a new ECU, TurboXS was creating one for the car, now they have stopped development on this. That truely upsets me considering the lack of good fully compatable ECU's on the market for us currently.

We have the Int-X which from what i have read is a great machine, but also a bit behind in the software dept. Not only that but why is it able to only make 10hp to the ground but this canzoomer can supposidly make 25 to the ground?

I understand that the aftermarket scene was a bit bumpy for the RX8 from the onset and that anyone would be skeptical about the parts being released now. But if there are multiple company's not putting forth the R&D to make stuff for our car theres gotta be more than them just not wanting to use the RX8 because there is less of em on the road.

I see that we have lots of new FI applications coming out in the near future and recently the relase of what looks to be some great ones from mazport. Maybe from the results from this new applications we will see a turn around in our market but i just dont know. It's hard to find parts for decent prices when only a couple company's make parts, they have the market cornered and well supply and demand kick in there.

As for the remark about my post count, just because i dont chime in at every post that can "pad" my post count doesnt mean i dont have anything to say. I only speak when i have something important to say, or a question that i truely cant find the answer to. I do research i use the search and when i have a question i post all that i know about said question with it. I use these forums as a library, just because i check the book out doesnt mean i need to let everyone know how i liked it.

A great example would be how many RX8's on the stateside do u see being used as platforms by company's? Hell i see a Honda Fit being used, plenty of s2000, and greddy just made a street legal turbo for that car. I know that there are not that many more s2000's out there than RX8's. An Element being made into a drift car, stuff like that really gets me going. Who chooses to upgrade and Element over and RX8 that has to mean something.

Japan has embraced the RX8 and over here stateside, well i dont know where it went wrong but something has to happen to fix this. I will wish for nothing more than our market to expand because i love my car, but maybe we need to do something talk with some people or let it be known some how, we want and will buy what every other tuner wants, we may be rotorheads not pistonheads but give us love too.

 

I think you are about 180% correct, for what that's worth. I'm not sure thou about saying whoa is us, et al, and 'needless to say our market sucks" and what a bad state we are all in because of this and how the 8 market has developed is showing poorly on owners, etc.

For some, likely many, I think certainly a majority, just OWNING a car as GOOD as the 8 is OUT OF THE BOX is something of an epiphany. Yet it's not for everyone, good as it is. It's edgy, demanding, responsive, perhaps like the fantasy woman or man friend many think they want, but could never ever actually survive living with. Many have other cars, myself, I couldn't survive with only the 8. It's a fun car, but fun with a purpose.

As far as the market, I agree the market is a combo of what we the owners are willing to pay for, and how much the vendors think they can make marketing items to us, indexed by how difficult it is to develop anything "significant" (whatever that means to different peps) for the 8.

You can see on the forum that, even for all of us arguably in love with our cars, we are a pretty tightfisted bunch. Who knows why, perhaps it's just normal. Group buys are often unfilled, esp. if the cost is any significant money. REALLY fancy 8s are often show cars or race cars or the like.

Heck, how many of the 8 population is REALLY willing and able to spend $10-20-30-40K on a 25K car? One the other hand, EXCEPT for show stuff, body kits and interior stuff and the like, where CAN you spend much money? Turbo maybe, but that's about it currently.

The easiest way to come to grips with the reality of a situation is often go stand in front of a mirror and stare.

 

Yes and the Sunbeam Tiger came with a 260cu in V8 rated at 164 hp. When will everyone understand the RX8 was obviously designed not to be modified, engine mods especially. The stock car as a package is very "balanced" between handling and performance. More people should learn how to use the performance that is available from this car instead of hoping for a dragstrip, tire spinning monster.

 

My opinion, you CAN do anything you want with this car. Maybe we don't have as many options as other product lines, but there is support - from brakes to suspension to power.

Further, of course RX-8 owners are all "talk". Most of us are still in our warranty period, and the demographic that is purchasing this car and what they value in a car I'm guessing is very different from that of say the Evo crowd. It's easy to justify spending 3K on an EVO when the benefit is 120+whp, for the RX-8 that won't even allow you purchase the proper parts for a custom turbo - including engine management. The cost benefit, for most, I don't think entails voiding a warranty.

I've put 4.5K into my RX-8 in suspension, wheels/tires and brakes. When the Cobb Accessport is released, hp will follow. I'm really not concerned with TurboXS not coming out with their engine management, as it'd probably still produce error codes and not run seamlessly like a reflash. Piggybacks, while having their place, should be left in the past and not desired, imo.

In short, with the exception of PCM reflash capabilities not being currently available, I'm more than content with the market.

 

I don't need the Rx-8 to be used in "tuner" advertising stunts. Just gimme my relatively pnp supercharger and tuning solution and I'm happy. The state of the tuner scene for the Rx-8 means nothing to me. It's a difficult platform to tune, not many are out there (relatively speaking), and only a small percentage will be tuned further than an exhaust/intake anyway.

Money drives the market, and there's not much money in developing complex projects for this car. Note that, in general, only specialized companies are actually pursuing serious projects for the 8 (Pettit, RB, AFE, PTP, Mazsport, etc). How is it worth it for larger companies to even try, considering the extended R&D time required and that they'd be far behind those listed above?

 

You have to REMEMBER THIS, MOST RX8 OWNERS ARE STILL IN WARRANTY, Im one of them and what kind of money would you expect me to do ?

I paid 30K for this car AND warranty, and I would like to *enjoy* the benefits(warranty) until it runs out, before that, I will do/get stuff that Will NOT affect my warranty much, for example, Body kits, wheels.

Do you seriously think RX8 owners dont have money or something? Im not saying Im rich, but if I want a Mazsport Turbo, I can do it. So does other people. But like I said, people want to enjoy the car and the warranty more for now.

our community is SMALL when you compare it to for example, The Civic Community.

So just give it some time, and whoever you've talked to, sound just like those narrow minded smart ***.

 

These comments are right on point. The RX8 rotary engine is pretty specialized, and regardless of that factor the returns on power mods with "any" NA engine is going to keep the aftermarket supply and demand fairly low. The RX8 is not the only car like this, and you will find that the BMW MCars also fall into that kind of category with only a few major tuners like Dinan and a few select others providing quality mods for the cars.

At the end of the day, I am less worried about quantity and more concerned about quality, and for me the RX8 seems to have a fairly large number of quality aftermarket parts available from shops that have been tuning rotaries for many years. As a previous owner of more than a few FI cars like subies and such, I am used to having an almost endless access to a flush aftermarket selection. Even coming from that environment I still do not see a concern with the RX8's aftermarket at this point, especially not with some of the FI solutions that are either on the market, or are soon to be released.

My .02

JR

 

Just give us a good no codes solution to the ECU....

 

I am not saying we are doomed, and i do enjoy quality products as much as the next guy. But wouldnt you want as many company's as possible designing these quality products for us, competition means better products for less will come. but when one company or 3 are the only ones doing it then u have the issue of there is nothing to push them to release more stuff that is better and less expensive.
Thats just me though i believe a good market competition to get us to try and make choices is better than me having the same thing as every other guy out there.

 

so....

You're saying we're not buying enough aftermarket performance upgrades that really give power gains, then admit to not buying any FI?

I guess this means I'm doing my part. Your turn.

 

Thanks, 101. I was going to say that anyone who complains in this fashion isn't spending enough time looking at a market opportunity.

 

afvibe where have you been hiding? parts are everywhere.

look at the list of flywheels, exhausts, clutches, body kits, forced induction, engine managments, chassis braces, shocks and springs etc. your spoilt for choice.

 

As i stated we do have a few but when company's are scratching projects on RX8's then i see that as a problem. Yes i realize the FI marathon has hit and it wont stop for a while i am as excited about it as anyone believe me. As soon as i leave this bane from civilization alaska and get back to someplace that doesnt cost 50 bucks to ship less than a lb of electronics i will be rolling with a turbo as soon as possible. My issue is on items such as the ECU.
I am not bad mouthing anyone on this forums or any company's this is just a for example sake. If lets say TurboXS or HKS or AEM or any other company goes out and makes a piggy back unit specifically for our car, one with no CEL's no stupid corners cut nothing like that, if that is made then wouldn't that make mazsport want to do some fine tuning on their product? Or atleast increase their desire to do so, maybe update software or fix any issues with CEL's or cruise control or anything of that nature.
We all praise most of the company's that do things for our car, but the lack of attention this community gets just ionno upsets me.
I cant think of how many times i have read about a piggy back unit that is NOT compatable with the RX8, ya we can use the ECU is uncracked excuse for a few more years i guess, but who is gonna want to actually crack and develop an ECU or a way to code ours if we arent will to put out the cash.
And for you who believe i am whining i am just stating what i was told by a company who no longer develops parts for the RX8, i asked them why they decided to take that route and they told me. Now if what they said was true then i am scared to see the other company's that will be walking away from the table also, because its not just the, who is fed up persay with the 8 community as a whole.

 

One thing that keeps coming-up in these posts are references to Turbo XS, and other references regarding a company that no longer develops parts for the RX8. I am guessing that they are one in the same, but could be wrong I guess. As an early WRX owner I have followed the product development trail that the TXS guys have been on, and have read many of Nathans posts on Nasioc and have talked to Nathan on the phone a couple of times over the years as well.

Most recently I got a chance to talk with him when they were blowing all of their exhausts out at firesale prices. I called him and talked with him a bit and he basically confirmed that they had originally thought the RX8 would be a good vehicle to take on as a new platform for tuning solutions, but that after dealing with some of the issues with the exhaust, they had decided to drop the focus as it just wasn't worth the headaches. He mentioned that the RX8 owners seemed more concerned about the aesthetics of the products than the performance aspect and that TXS was focused on performance first, and that the RX8 owner group seemed to be a very different type of owner group than the Suby crowd.

Of course I had already read through the TXS thread, and had seen the banter back and forth between Nathan and the RX8club, and already knew what was going on. On one hand RX8 owners liked the performance gains of the TXS exhaust, but many hated the size, construction, and extension length of the tips. I imagine that TXS was instead thinking about the *****-to-the-wall gear-headed mentality that surrounds the Suby and Evo crowd, and figured the look of the tips would be the last concern of true performance buffs. Instead what they got was a group of folks that were genuinely interested in the exhaust, but just wanted to see a different tip configuration. A few melted rear aprons have confirmed that from an engineering standpoint the exhaust may flow-well, but could have used a bit of a tip length adjustment at the very least.

Unfortunately that little banter about the exhaust and the tips seemed to me to be the nails in the coffin for the RX8 development at TXS, and they seemed to take the posture that the RX8 owners were just too picky and weren't really worried about performance anyway so the car was more trouble than it was worth. Personally, I believe that TXS had already realized that the RX8 simply was not going to fit its mainstream focus for product development in the same way that the RX8's conventional piston powered and turbocharged MS3 and MS6 siblings do. The exhaust thing, and the picky RX8 owners were a factor, but at the end of the day the turbo cars will always get more deveolpment time and attention, and the aftermarket parts for those cars will always be much more readily available. This is no different than the RX8 development over at Cobb. Mark my words, Cobb and TXS focus their attentions on the turbo cars first because the returns for the dollars of R&D invested are always going to be higher.

Thats not the RX8's fault, and its not the RX8 owners fault either, its just capitalism at its best, and regardless of what level of emotion and personality (good or bad) these tuners bring to the table, they have businesses to run and support and they will take the path that provides them the greatest return for the least amount of investment. For a tuner to say that they are fed up with the RX8 community in general is simply a cop-out and an easy way for them to step away from a complex vehicle such as the RX8.

Sorry for the long post. I don't harbor any ill will towards TXS, but I do think that they represent a shop that was probably never fully committed to the unique requirements of the rotary engine to begin with. Are RX8 owners more picky about aethetics than the Subaru crowd...yeah probably, but so what? Again, I think we should be happy that the die hard tuners that have been committed to the rotary engine for years are still producing excellent parts and tuning solutions.

My .10

JR

 

this nails it... when xts was told how to make the product (exhaust) in a way it would sell better. they took there ball and went home.

and they are now dumping the exhausts on ebay....

the bigger issue is the ability of merchants to build for the rotary... they are few and far between..

racing beat
mazsport
pettit
atkins..

not many more. my bet is the reason xts left the market is they really had no one to develop there flash tuner. as with sniper. it is not the same as flashing a piston motor..

when i was at sniper, and yes it was me... they could do it, but even the audi got pushed ahead.. just shear #s and going where the money is...

now cobb. i think they will do it...

beers

 

You did not look hard enough, EMU can do the stuff you've mention without a CEL. Mazsport is working to on their Int-X for the CEL issues.

Its not hard to make parts for RX8,the point is that its hard to make parts that has any gains,

because the Rx8, Mazda did a very good job in order to maximize its NA performance, unlike MOST other cars on the road.

and what TurboXS did so far? all they did was *exhaust*, which is the *easiest market* to do, but they *forgot* to check the market first, which has been loaded with TONS of companies in the *not so big* community of which the Rx8 has. What will a Late comer like TurboXS going to get in such a *small community ? nothing. So its not Rx8's fault, Its their business problem, they should've checked before they jump into a market.

 

I would like to add my opinion, even though most of you either don't care about it or already know my stance on such issues;

The original poster of this thread has a valid complaint to the extent of his wishes for performance products that actually provide gains. What is being overlooked is the fact that there are several different factors that influence all that goes on in the aftermarket, especially regarding the RX-8. As to the factory PCM being tough to re-flash and so forth, that is just another challenge for the aftermarket to overcome and it isn't for lack of desire to spend money on part of we owners. A major flaw in the premise that afvibe has set forth is allowing one company's perspective to be the primary factor in the rest of his conclusions. That is a mistake because there is a lot of development going on behind the scenes regarding the RX-8 right now. I can tell you that this summer will be a season in which we see things grow by leaps and bounds for us. I say this for these reasons; 1) I am working on some things, myself, that have been looming around for a while and I am finally seeing things come together. If I am coming around I am sure there are others with larger bankrolls working on things, too. 2) There is a certain point in the used-car market at which people will buy a vehicle for the sole purpose of modifying it for their own particular taste, and that includes performance as well as appearance. We have reached that point with the 2004-2005 models. Now, if Mazda would just help us solve the problems we have had perhaps the stigma surrounding the early 8's will subside. 3) The age/mileage of the '04-'05 models is beginning to expose weaknesses inherent in the RX-8 and those needs will be addressed by our free-market system, of which I am a part. A couple of my own products are a bit "ahead of the curve", so to speak, so I will wait before I release them. On the other hand, I have a couple of parts that people have been clamoring for since I mentioned them but, again, there are several influences surrounding the timing. 4) As has been alluded to, there are other markets such as the Honda, Subaru, and Mitsubishi, that are far more developed than that of the RX-8 so where do you suppose the vast majority of companies will focus their engineering attention? 5) The rotary crowd is a rather unique group whose needs and desires are largely misunderstood by those from other market segments and, as such, companies like TXS will rarely understand what we are trying to tell them when we give them input. At the same time, there are not that many people who are able to articulate their thoughts with clarity and TXS may have misunderstood what they were hearing. The bottom line is that those people who are relatively new to the RX-8 scene should either do a little more research/networking or be a little more patient. We'll get there. Remember, the RX-8 is, in many ways, a brand new platform. How long did it take for the WRX/STi, Evo, and Civic markets to fully develop into what they are today?