Sapphonica

What Ike said. Also, it doesn't matter how much a reeking pile of dogsh*t costs, it's still a reeking pile of dogsh*t. Save your $$$ for a kit that doesn't suck a*s like the GReddy.

romycha1

Looks like I'm just gonna have to settle for the Greddy kit with the EMU

nycgps

iTrader: (1)

Im with Ike on this one.

although my 8 is still N/A, but since Im here long enough to go thru almost every post(more than a year, hehe) I can tell you that Greddy's kit is a piece of half-baked ****. and they have no customer service at ALL in NA market just like Blitz.

Do NOT get it, eventually it will fuxk your car up and give ya more pain.

Fanman

Then you are a fool. Remember to save the extra money for all the extra parts that you will have to buy to make this kit half functional/reliable. Would be better off just saving up, and dropping the money on a more complete kit. The Petit will be in the $4300-$5000 range, and a ton more reliable.

Sorry to say this but you are being short sighted. You're looking at the upfront cost, but not seeing the support cost afterwards.

romycha1

It's not really the cost I am worried about. If I can shell out $3000 for a turbo kit, coming up with another 2 or 3 grand is no problem. The problem is tuning. I don't know how, and I don't know of any good tuners around my area

slavearm

Then why buy the EMU? It needs tuning as well. If you think you are going to take it out of the box and have a wonderful running car, you are severlly deluded. If you want something that does not require tuning, you will need something that is going to reflash the factory ECU. The only thing I know right now that is going to do that is the AFSC. So you might as well just wait a few months and get that.

rkostolni

Sorry if some of you haven't had a good experience with the Greddy kit, but many of us have. My 8 runs great, pulls hard, and hasn't had any major problems, at least as of now. My kit has been on for over a year and a half.

Greddy customer service isn't good, but HKS, Blitz, and other aftermarket companies are just as bad if not worse. They're a large Japanese based company. What do you expect?

If you just want a nice 80 to120whp gain over stock, the Greddy kit with the IntX is the way to go IMO. If you want more, then go with the Mazsport kit.

slavearm

I just noticed... you are running the Interceptor. He is talking about buying it and using it out of the box with no additional tuning with the EMU, so are you saying it will run fine and pull hard like that?

Fanman

Sorry, but I don't know how much experience you have had in dealing with these other companies, but HKS is LIGHT YEARS ahead of Greddy in customer service. They actually stand by their products unlike Greddy that basically blows you off. This is from PERSONAL experience. I used to have all Greddy on my car. Now, I have basically pulled off the BOV, boost controller, & FMU and gone to other stuff. Not to mention the place you got your Int. X.....Mazsport. Scott is awesome.

But your setup is not close to the Greddy out of the box solution. It is the Greddy kit (price is about $3300), then you added the Interceptor X ($1300) , now you are looking at $4600 or about 40% increase on the initial investment of the kit. At that price range you will have the AFSC or the Petit SC which will be even more reliable. Not to mention, like me you probably saw the intake temps spike because of the way the Greddy kit was designed (having the mushroom inside the engine bay), so you had to do the custom CAI and also you haven't mantioned the hoses, etc.

rkostolni

I wouldn't recommend the EMU if you don't have the expertise or have access to the expertise to get it running right. My opinion is that the EMU is not plug-n-play at this time and still has issues to be worked through. The IntX can usually be used out of the box, but for maximum performance/reliability, you of course need to get it tuned.

No my kit is not out of the box, but aside from the EMS, the other changes are minor and fairly inexpensive.

Go ahead an wait for the Axial flow. No offense to anyone here, but last time I checked that is still a long ways off. I'd be surprised if its on sale before 2008. Besides, how can you say the AFSC or the Pettit SC will be more reliable? It's not even available yet, let alone tested by a large customer base.

I'm not trying to say the Greddy kit is "all-that". It's not, but for $4300 with an Intx its a great bargain to make the car respectable. If you go the used route you can even get them for $2300 with an IntX. For 300whp, you can't beat that!

I am completely agreeing though, the Mazsport kit is far better, and Scott provides the best customer service of ANY company I have dealt with. If you don't mind dropping $8-$10k it is the way to go.

MadDog

I'm going to side with Ryan on this one. Even with the expense of the IntX added in the GReddy kit is a bargain. Its been proven time and again that setup will conservatively net close to ~280whp.

Saying that someone should wait for the AFSC or Petit SC is telling them to wait for products that have no set release date, no set price, no demonstrated reliablility etc., etc. I can't stand people saying that the SC's are going to be so wonderful when, in fact, they aren't even commercially available.

The GReddy is an entry-level turbo kit and should not be compared with the Mazsport kits. If you take it upon yourself to push the boost up on the GReddy, which we have for the most part all done, then you shoulder the responsiblity for the reliability. If you aren't talented enough to take on that responsibility then by all means DON'T. As good as I'm sure the Mazsport kits are, you can also f*ck them up if you start upping the boost, tuning, and doing other things that alter the as-delivered product if you aren't capable of doing so responsibly.

I haven't really dealt with GReddy in terms of getting parts warrantied. What I can say is that Benny @ greddy has, in general, been VERY cooperative with the 8 communty. He's not going to waste his time talking with very jerk who calls. Thats not whay he's paid for. But he was always willing to have techincal discussions with those of us that were making headway with improving the kit.

HKS, on the other hand, won't even send you a goddam data sheet! That company is THE most secretive company I have ever dealt with.

RX8FOREAL

It is time to speak up - I am another Greddy owner and have been for over 1 1/2 years. Although I am on my second engine, mainly due to my own stupidity - for increasing the boost without properly having the car tuned and driving like an idiot - racing people from red lights and such.....

I do not claim to have the rotary knowledge of MadDog or a few others that I respect, I have enough practical experience from trial and error unfortuneately. I have my car since July'04 and have seen many, many claims since then to have a working reasonably priced turbo or SC. It has actually been at least 2 years since claims have been made - any day now. The greddy turbo is a good entry level turbo and has been reliable for me - EXCEPT - for their Emanage. Unlesss you can tune like Mazda Maniac, anyone with the greddy should be looking to get another EMU - in my case the Interceptor, which although not inexpensive, is a great improvement, especially with the support of Scott, and in my case MadDog as well for helping me with my adjustments.

There have been many like me who have bought the RX8, and many bolt-ons because that was all there was - there had been talk about a turbo and then Greddy came out pretty quickly - Granted their customer service is not great - but it seems like back in the day now - Benny had spent a lot of time with me on the phone - in fact I was the first guinea pig that got the first test dongle after getting the dreaded R flash. The dongle helped a little but could not be adjusted to fix the problem - the solution was getting the interceptor - car stopped backfiring and ran great at 5-6 lbs of boost out of the box until I raised it to 9-10 on my own. There are always going to be people that sit on the sidelines and talk out of their *** without making the commitment or sacrifice. Most of us that have gotten the Greddy were looking for some speed and were willing to take a chance -IT HAS BEEN TOTALLY WORTH IT.

Fanman

Many of us went to Sevenstock and physically saw the Petit car. We talked to Richard Paul & the Petit team. That is where we are getting our knowledge from. Not speculation. They have run these kits on their cars for tens of thousands of miles on several of their own test cars (for example PTP has 4 RX8's). When I was one of the first cars with the Greddy kit, and ran into numerous problems, they wanted me to bring my car down to Greddy because they did not have any in house car to do the testing. We found out that I was one of the cars with the first batch of Greedy Emanage Blues that had a bad software load and essentially my car was running without an EMU !!!. Benny has been OK, that's not the huge issue. it's getting a part when it is missing from the kit. The run around, and flat denial from Greddy. It's when a part goes bad within 3 months of buying the kit and they tell you it's your fault that it went bad. It's their BS customer service or lack thereof. With HKS I had a problem with one of their parts, guess what, I called they sent me another one, no questions asked. That's what it is all about. Not making you go to one of their authorized dealers, who has to submit a return & requisition form for you, and then you get the inevitable refusal, and you & the authorized dealer have to fight it out with them. Do you know your parts supplier that well, and will he fight for you when the Greddy kit comes and 2 pipes are missing ?

I would rather have them spend 2 years on developing their product & getting it right then putting something out there quickly, just to get it out quickly & wind up damaging our cars or making the community deal with the issues and come up with solutions rather than doing it right like some of these other companies like Petit & Mazsport & PTP. It's their sales pitch of an out of the box turbo solution, when it has proven it is not. If they would have sold it, and had parts ala carte then that's fine, but they claim it is a plug & play kit when it is not even close. if you have the time & resources, and willingness to tune, and upgrade the kit, then go for it. It's a compromise at all levels. Take it for what it is.

mysql101

Fanman, I think it's clear to everyone you dislike GREddy's customer service, and we're all aware of the problems with emanage blue, and some of the other issues it had. With the change to EMU, and help from people like MM (fix #2 for example), there is no longer a huge drawback to the kit as there once was. Just get better hoses, apply fix #2, and get an int-x if you dislike EMU. It's a great way to get started, and give the RX-8 a 50% power boost.

You paid the price for being the first in line, instead of waiting and seeing how things shape up. It does reflect poorly on GReddy for not making a complete kit and doing proper testing, but it allowed some of you to get turbocharged 2 years ago.

Far as reliability goes for the upcoming superchargers, that's speculation on your part. I'm sure they'll be fine too, but you never know. You have to factor in that it's test hardware that hasn't been mass produced, and that Petti's SC is still undergoing major changes at this point in time.

MadDog

Totally worth it for me, too. I can't imagine the frustration of waiting for one the other FI kits to finally come to fruition. Every time I blow the doors off some STi (or that new M6) I get the biggest sh*t-eating grin you could imagine. I've been doing that now for a year and a half. Even with all the time and effort to get my kit the way I wanted it, the past year and a half of surprising the crap out of other cars around the state has been well worth it. Besides, tweaking is part of the fun. Does a year and a half of boosted driving equal less fun than an additional 30whp? Hell-f*ckin-no. I'd even gladly replace my engine every 30,000 miles for the fun I can pack into a year and a half of boosted driving.

romycha1

I was under the impression that the Ultimate had a map already loaded for the 8 with their kit. I guess I must have misread other posts.


I'm actually happy with the power the 8 makes stock....but I would rather have a little more, that is why I wanted to get the Greddy kit. From what I understood, the Ultimate (right out of the box) was all the kit needed. But I guess I was wrong. I don't want to run high boost or anything like that. And for all of you that say when you get some power, you always want more, BS. I had a WRX with the basic mods that you do, and I was totally fine with it.

mysql101

The EMU does come with a map, and it runs about 11.5 AFR under boost. It is specific to the RX-8, as it even has an RX-8 ignition chip. It's not a generic EMU.

romycha1

So, can I run the Greddy kit w/EMU out of the box, no problems?

And I read your other post about what the Greddy kit needs, so I know I need at least those items to run efficiently.

mysql101

I don't think you can say any fuel management system will run out of the box without any problems or require no tuning.

The good thing about the EMU is that the factory PCM controls fuel until it sees boost. Because of that you're able to run with the EMU even if you're having problems (just stay off of boost).

Please make sure you have a wideband installed, that way you will know if it's running too lean and need to make adjustments.

romycha1

I'm sorry, I think I'm getting a little confused again... I thought everyone was referring EMU to E-Manage Ultimate...

mysql101

we are.

look over this page. http://rotaryinsider.com/rx8-9.html

romycha1

Yeah, this was the post that I was talking about earlier. Thank you.

MadDog

Just FYI, the picture on that page is a Greddy turbo kit, but not the one for the RX-8.

kw1k

i remember driving fanmans car once.. best feeling ever. I was thinking of going with turbo as well but i'm just going to go with a nice nitrous setup soon. Charles on the forums has done an amazing job with the nitrous crew. he ran 13.1 with his setup pretty damn crazy!

Fanman

Your post is fair.

Some things not covered though is that people have not only gotten breaks in their hoses, but the bearings in their turbos going out as well. Not to mention the reason I bring up the EMU, is exactly what happened to the poster afterwards. People seem confused on that issue. Just want to make them aware of that. Once you ditch the E Manage (even the ultimate is not all that, even tuned you still get some issues), the Interceptor X adds $1400 to the bottomline. Just want some people to understand that.

Also, there are 2 different approaches to putting out a kit. In terms of your last statement. Outfits like Pettit have a very good reputation in the RX community, and a lot of us physically saw the Pettit SC RX8 at Sevenstock. They put in the range of 20,000 miles+ on their car to perfect it. PTP, I know for a fact had 4 RX8's running their turbo kits for 12,000+ miles to test their kit. These companies would rather put their test cars through what we put our cars. They would rather be late to the market but put their kits through regular testing to make them functional & reliable than putting out a makeshift kit and making us fix it. I know these things for a FACT (not speculation).

The way I see it is Greedy's kit is very similar to when K&N first came out with their air intake kit for the RX8. People thought "hey it's from K&N their a big company they can't make a bad product." But as we found out later on, the unit did not function as it claimed. They later came out with a v.2. It's better now, but there are better alternatives.

And before people claim I'm botter for no reason I have this kit ON MY CAR right now. I'm not one of those guys that hate Racing Beat, but then when you ask them if they have any Racing Beat product they say "um, no." I have this product. I've probably had it on my car for longer than anybody on this board except a handful. If you like it by all means praise it, but if somebody has a different opinion than you don't go blasting them. I'm not one of those posters flaming people calling them names if they have a different opinion. We choose to disagree that is fine. The beef I have is with Greddy and their products.

Looking back, would I do it again. Absolutely NOT. Like kw1k said I would do the nitrous setup and call it a day. In talking to Charles R. Hill & seeing Addictive RX's setup it was a much better solution. Or saved up and gotten a more complete kit.