so , i have an 04 4at :/ poop* .. ive been discussing the turbo path and everything but ive been told 4-8 thou for the set up and install. im not down with that for just beating an 8 with a 6 speed. ive been doin a little research , however id like everyones input please , im not as smart as some of the brilliant people on the forum !! my idea was 13B TT. motor/tranny/ecu/harness can be found sub 2.5 thousand range. i have very gifted and connected friends where i live and motor mounts and drive shafts would be a problem , wiring wont be either , but what else ? i love my RX8 and i want to keep it , just not the way it sits lol

 

Turbo or engine swap on a very limited budget is a recipe for disaster.

Edit:
Have you ever considered just selling your car and getting a manual 8? From my understanding putting a 13B-REW (or RE) into the 8 is no easy task do to the differences in the intake manifold, position of the stock twins, and many other reasons. Even if you managed to get it up and running you will probably always have little gremlins with the way the car works or have to sacrifice certain components. If you just get a manual 8 in good condition you can turbocharge the 13B-MSP relatively easily and not have to worry about the headaches of not only a swap to a 13B-REW but auto to manual as well. Another thing to consider is in many places like where I live it is illegal to put an engine that is older than the one that comes stock with the car rendering all 20b and other 13b swaps to non-street legal status.

 

no one said i was limited .. they told me itd be 4 to8 thousand to turbo my automatic and that seems foolish for what youre getting out of it. id rather spend more on the swap .. thats why i asked what im going to have to go through .. this is supposed to help me think this through before i go and atrt buy a bunch of parts and get in over my head

 

There are a few people on the forums who have done the swap like Dethwalkin who have (somewhat) outlined the steps needed to be taken

 

sounds like you don't have the money

 

money or not , what does that have to do with my questions ? i simply compared a price of near everything for the swap , and a turbo set up. back to subject please.

 

Money has a lot to do with your question unless you are doing EVERYTHING yourself or have an unlimited budget.

I am hardly an expert on this matter but things you will probably need to consider:
- Rebuilding the engine
- Creating a custom intake manifold that will clear the firewall
- Creating a custom exhaust manifold to place the turbo in a good location for the RX-8 (which would also require a custom downpipe and relocating the battery to the trunk)
- Creating a custom driveshaft
- Retrofitting the FD steering rack
- Are you going to try to retain stock gauges?
- Can you retain AC and power steering?
- Are you going to try to run the RX-8 drive by wire or use the FD's throttle body
- Are you going to run the FD ECU alone, a stand alone or both the RX-8 and the FD ECU
- Are you going to ditch the DSC system?
- I recall the FD transmission is slightly longer than the rx-8's which puts the shifter further back than the RX-8's so you will need to account for that with interior pieces if you want your car to retain a stock-like interior

 

+10 take it from me i know u like unlimited budget but on the real. i probably spent towards of 7grand for an engine build but that mainly of mods and new parts not including a turbo system just yet. thats just a built engine, taking yours wont be built slapping a turbo on life span is like this ???. im not bagging on you i just been were u at time and money goes fast. just u wana play and look like the **** costs to be G.Q.

skys the limit when u have doe so there are no questions. and u always get what i want,
poeple tend to ask questions when being on budgets and were it starts to affect there life style.

 

A turbo automatic is A LOT faster than any highly modded 6 speed.

 

i ask questions cause i dont want to screw up. what if this isnt even a good swap ? someone could have told me to just throw i a 2jz and love life .. i ask because , people have done this before and i havent

 

well a few factors to consider,

what is your power goal?

I have hit 200hp with a supercharger kit that is running very hot intake temps, very modest timing/tune, Only 7psi which just touched the max efficiency flow of my supercharger unit, there is alot more to be had we are aiming at 270 by end of year.

That is a fair bit of hp on a daily car, the manual turbo ones (other then the esmerial kits) are around this figure 280ish hp, with more work 300-330ish mark.

Now if you are looking at 500hp+ then a 13B from a series 6 or similar is definitely the way to go.

With lack of information it is hard to give you a good opinion, is the car going to be a daily driver? if so have you weighed the benefits vs loosing electrical components? Do you want it to feel like a factory car inside?

If you are just going for just the factory engine + turbos, the hp will be quite similar to what you can achieve in your auto after turbo.

If luxury does not matter to you, and power for track or equivalent is what you are aiming for then by all means go for it!

Another thing is, if you refer to your auto as autotragic or "poop" then it is time to sell it now, get a FD or a manual rx8, there is no point of modding it further if you believe you already started on the wrong platform and it is just a catch up game.

If you want the 13B from rx7, why not just consider then rx7? you will retain the functionality of the interior and controls and electrical, mods are as easy as bolt ons + turbo change (to a single) and ending result will be substantially higher hp then that of the rx8.

Are you after light to light heroism? then is a rotary the right choice?

you can do a 2jz, but that is un treaded waters and you will be the pioneer, so get ready to cover the expenses with that.

At the end of the day, the most IMPORTANT part is that, do not get hung up on your current car, find out what you are going for first, find that direction then work towards that direction.

 

i ask question to but at the end of the day u can only decide from rebuild engine cost from ecu then turbo if u plan on going fi and how do u want to your car to perform are u looking for crzy street, drag , cruiser? those are options that can help. I know u sound like u want to be different, but how much different.

just me i hate any mazda RX with a 350 or LS1, jeep truck engine it is to me it like buying a chevelle and puting 300c v6 engine in it just not worth it to me. but that how i feel

 

You don't have the money. Find a project you can afford.

 

Searching is free.

 

thanks for the insight tofu .. im weighing my options carefully so i dont get in to where im hating life , my friend is currently at that stage and before that i thought he was going to marry his car lol. yes , i do want to be diff than rims , wing , and tint. i have soo much more than that as of now , i love the timeless look this car has and i have the visual part done already , i just want to finish with the motor now and im looking and reading everyday what people do and think of the final result they have put their time and money into. i still may go turbo 4AT , im not counting that out cause it deff sounds fun. i was just considering the other options i have has far as engine. yes this will be a daily. thanks for the input , all of you are making me think about stuff i havent considered before i jump into it ... except arghx7 , youre useless .. thank you.

 

i understand its a daily but most rotarys have 2nd cars even if u get a hoopdie u can be cover it like INS because you will never be out of a car. Just being smat plus u will have more time work on your car while it down.

 

well i want it to be daily lol , i have a BBM built twin screw VW corrado i can drive daily too. its just loud as **** lol

 

alright I'm gonna bring this thread back for fear of some douche yelling over the inter-webs about not searching rather than answering my ?s

i have a manual 05 rx8.

i also am seriously looking into this swap for when i get back from Iraq in about a month. that being said

the car is a DD but an army DD as in downtime doesn't matter to me as long as its within reason like no 6 month periods or anything.

primary use for the car is autocross and track days with some periods of sideways shenanigans when the need calls for it, basically a straight fun car. i don't have a family to deal with and i love my 8

id want to retain stock gauges but its not the important

id like to keep the 8's 6 spd but again i wouldn't hate having the 5 spd

i want to keep the rew as stock as possible i.e. stock twins BUT again am not apposed to doing more just know that im not looking for any power over 450 right now or anytime soon for that matter.

im just curious as to where this "money" keeps coming from, 13b rew with harness ecu and trans i found for 1500 bucks but for sake of argument say 2k, then FMIC call it 700 bucks and then 2k of ****** with engine management (now this i really have no idea how it would work and is the real reason i haven't already attempted this" so that's 4700 and then say 3k of unexpected expenses that's 7700 bones which is the price of a damn turbo kit on a motor that doesn't like turbos all that much.

im failing to see the problem here. please inform me, and if you have smart *** comments keep them to yourself, im looking for information not opinions irrelevant to making rad cars

 

The problem in general is that all you guys dream about this cheap turbo power when in reality it is anything but cheap to do it right, let alone doing it wrong and going through blown engines. A proper 2-rotor engine build in preparation for a turbo setup is $10k minimum from one of the top 3 rebuilders here in the US. Yes, you can do it cheaper yourself or on a budget, but it won't come even close to what those top 3 rebuilders will give you based on their mega years of building the best racing rotary engines in the business. Anyone who thinks otherwise is in denial or delusional. There's no shortage of back yard hacks out there who think you just throw the parts onto a wornout engine and suddenly become a Fast & Furious super hero. Good luck with that fantasy.

You only think this is a smart *** response out of the same lack of understanding about what is required to make that swap integrate with the RX-8 system, which is the equivalent of moving to a different planet in terms of how different it is from an FD3. This forum is full of failed or half *** setups with half *** tunes or not running anywhere near as effectively as they should be. The ones that are getting a reasonable job done are fairly few and far between. It simply amazes me how many people talk about getting onboard for an Esmirel setup etc when it never was anything more than a serious of failures and excuses.

 

if you're looking for lots of power your best bet is to sell the 8 and get something more meant for power...like sti/evo/supra.....or alwasy teh american muscle stuff