So I bought a 2004 RX-8 on July 10th 2012. When we bought it, the previous owner had the car serviced at a Mazda Dealership 2 weeks before we got it. They put in a brand new 2012 rotary engine. The car now has 238hp. I went to a shop that only works on rx7's and rx8's. They have tons of racing rx7's there and I bought some lubricant for my gas. Lately, I've been wanting to put modifications on my car. I was looking into getting a Turbo, Blow-Off Valve, and a Catback duel exhaust. I tried doing some research on them 50% of people said to get a turbo and 50% said not to get a turbo because it will wear down your motor faster.
At this point, you should realize that I know nothing about cars. When I was in school, they never put me into the Auto-Programs so I never got an opportunity to know much.
From what I read, People said that even with the best tuning and taking care of the car, the motor will blow because of the turbo. So I looked into getting AEM Cold Air Intake instead to make my car louder. I couldn't find that much information, so I went down to the Shop that specializes only in rx7s and rx8s, and the guy who had the rx7 Veilside said not to put Cold Air Intake in because im paying 400$ just to gain a couple Horsepowers. He said the best thing to do is to just put a Heat Shield on, it will save me money and give free horsepower. But I don't just want the horsepower, I want to make the car loud. That's why I wanted the turbo, bov, and exhaust. I've watched videos of RX8s with turbos and they looked fine. The owners were happy.
I know I just joined this website today, But I've been looking on this site for a month already and never really had time to register. You guys are my experts on this stuff. What do you think I should do? Can you tell me more about turbos on a rx8 or give me an opinion to what I should do with my car without paying a lot?

 

"Loud" comes from the exhaust usually, focus on that, expect to pay $500-600. Please don't try to turbo it if you're not a car guy... there's a lot more to it than just add turbo and go, you'll just end up learning this the hard way.

But before you go crazy with the mods, put some thought into reliability. There's a reason the car had its engine replaced and you don't want to repeat that. You know about the oil thing right? And ignition coils?

 

didn't you just create a thread that was locked down .... the admin gave you fantastic advice which is to search for your commonly asked questions.

This is why you need to stop posting and start reading.

 

You have LOTS of reading to do. And I mean LOTS. Here is your post broken up so I can answer point by point. I am giving you specific points to search on in each so you can educate yourself. These points are highlighted blue. Copy the blue text into a Google search and start reading through the threads in the search results.

In addition, read the first 9 posts in this thread: https://www.rx8club.com/rx-8-discuss...t-here-202454/

If you have a 2004, it does not have a 2012 engine in it. All warranty replacements are remanufactured engines, ("remans") not brand new ones. They stopped making brand new engines a while back. In addition, putting a series 2 engine (2009-2012) in a series 1 RX-8 (2004 to 2008) is incredibly expensive as there are quite a few things that have to be modified for the engine to work correctly. You do not have a 2012 engine in your car. It is just a reman that has a shorter life expectancy than a factory engine that they put into your car in the year 2012. Big difference

search: site:rx8club.com series 2 engine in a series 1

Don't be so sure about that. Even brand new, it's hard to say that your engine has the official HP rating. If you were to dyno the car, it would probably be somewhere around 180-190whp (not the same rating as bhp, since they have to remove the engine from the car for that)

search: site:rx8club.com horsepower claim buy back

I believe you are referring to premix here.

Search: site:rx8club.com premix

A turbo will always have a blow off valve, it's part of a complete turbo system. A blow off valve is needed to vent excess pressure when the throttle is closed while under boost.

Search: wiki blow off valve

Similarly, you will need many other parts in order to have a complete turbo system on your car, including a custom intake for that turbo (since the turbo is in a physically different location than the OEM air box), the turbine itself (which needs to be specifically and appropriately sized to the engine you are using it on), custom piping from the turbo cold side down to the intercooler, an intercooler (to cool back down the air that is getting heated up), custom piping from the intercooler up to the throttle body, a custom turbo exhaust manifold (since you need to control the engine exhaust flow to make sure it is routed through the turbo's hot side), a wastegate to vent excess gasses at the turbo to prevent overboosting, a down-pipe to match up to the rest of the exhaust, and larger fuel injectors (appropriately sized).

Search: parts of a turbocharger

On top of this, you will need an engine management solution, something that will be able to tune the ECU that is in your car to handle the dramatic changes to airflow and fueling, or a stand-alone ECU. If you go stand-alone, you will be dealing with replacing the wiring harness and many sensors, and still need someone to tune it for you, or you need to learn how to tune it. If you go with a reflashing option, you will need the hardware to do the reflashing and someone that knows how to adjust the tables. A very very tiny flaw in tuning can destroy your engine in a heartbeat when it's turbo'ed. We are very very serious about this.

Search: site:rx8club.com turbo engine management options

As far as the other modifications you mentioned, try reading the first 11 posts in this thread: https://www.rx8club.com/rx-8-discuss...rx-8-a-233937/

Search: site:rx8club.com newbies guide to modding the RX-8

I seriously doubt that it's 50% on each side. Even the people that have gone turbo will advise you not to get one. Anyone that is advising you to get a turbo either doesn't know you at all and/or has NO CLUE what is involved.

Search: site:rx8club.com turbo engine failure

The auto programs in school are not required to get a good knowledge of how a car works. You just have to be willing to educate yourself. If you don't know how to perform brain surgery, are you going to just jump in and try while telling the patient's family "I don't know what I'm doing" ? Or would you actually go get the education you need first?

Educate yourself on stuff before you start trying to do it.

Search: how a car works

Pretty much, yes. Our engines fail WITHOUT turbos, and pushing far more air and fuel into the, subjecting them to even greater pressures and strain than they were designed for will shorten their lifespans considerably, even if tuned perfectly.

Search: site:rx8club.com turbo engine failure

The AEM intake is not compatible to a turbo system. Pictures might show you a bit better:
This is an AEM intake installed:


This is a turbo installed:


Notice the difference in piping routes? Running the pipe in a physically different path means not compatible. Every time.

search: site:rx8club.com AEM intake

He is correct. Aftermarket intakes are not very good at increasing power, because we have a very good one from the factory already. The AEM intake is one of the ones that will actually increase it, by 2-4hp. Most other intakes will actually cause you to lose power because they are not designed as well as our stock intake.

Search: site:rx8club.com Intake options

This doesn't make any sense. I don't even know what to tell you to search on here.

If you just make it loud, the best way is to replace the stock exhaust with the HKS HiPower catback exhaust. However, keep in mind that most of us hate "noise". Louder does not always mean better. Many many many people hate cars that are just "loud".

search: site:rx8club.com HKS hipower

I'm sure you could find people that aren't happy with theirs any more.

Search: site:rx8club.com turbo engine failure

If you don't have time to register, you clearly haven't had time to read. Buy you made purchases anyway? This is a not-wise method of handling it.

Search: site:rx8club.com how to search



If you truly acknowledge that the people here are the experts, then you will take what we say to heart and REALLY acknowledge it. Otherwise this is just mere flattery that doesn't really work because you are going to ignore what we say anyway because you think you know better than the experts.


What will you do?