Well I have gone looking for true RX8 owners, and i am actually taking tips from a guy with well over 300 whp on his S/C RX8. He has a fully built PETTIT motor (or however you spell it...didnt ask..lol) so like i said i appreciate the info but i am going to be more trustworthy of somone who has one. Also and fyi i wasnt planning on just opening it up and beating on it without at least insuring my HP would not just take the life out of my motor. FYI the parts i said i want are just to get my Power/Tourqe(lack there of) up, doesnt mean i dont plan on upgrading my it further. By no means do i want to just ruin my car with get fast quick mods without touching all bases of my car to ensure quilty and performance.

 

Well good luck with the car. Wish I had an rx8... maybe when the recession is over

 

SmokeyXRT, you never mentioned opening the motor. Pettit racing does some amazing work, but it also comes with the price. When I was running my shop, Pettit had a 3 month backlog on customer work. If you plan to drop it off, expect the car to sit for a while till they can get to it, and at the same time, they were not much for on time promised delivery. Do not get me wrong they know their stuff, just a little slow, and a little on the high side.

Port work in your engine will do a lot as far as power is concerned, also in a boosted application the power is always there. But reliability becomes the factor when the boost just is not enough. Most shops do not want to deal with a 500hp rotary, because there are too many variables that start to show up at that power range. Pettits supercharger kit might get you a few more ponies, but the cost per hp may not be to your liking. I prefer turbo setups over superchargers due to the fact that you can get a kit, and when your ready, only swap a few components for more power later on, whereas with the supercharger, you have limited options, and going to a larger supercharger usually means a whole new kit, rather than just swapping out the S/C. Yes you can swap a pulley, but you are still not going to be able to push the boost of the turbo in the long run.

$10,000 will go quick when you try to get above the 300hp mark. One of the things I try to tell the guys that I deal with is to look at everything in the car, will your car support a 3, 4 or 500hp rotary as it sits, and are you willing to spend the money to make the car accept it? Things like brakes, tires, suspension all come into play when you start making power.

I have had kids roll up to my shop with a 87 FC, on stock rims, federal tires, and a 120k mi motor and ask me what it would cost them to get the car to run the 1/4 mile in less than 13 seconds... When I start laying out the cost for the motor, turbo, new tranny, rear diff, suspension, tires, and fuel system, they look at me like I am smoking crack, and they tell me they bought this car on Ebay for $500 and are not looking to spend nearly $12,000 on doing all that.

Now you seem more willing to spend the money, and by all means, please do. Just make sure you put the money in all the right places when you do spend it.

 

porting the renesis isnt as easy as one may think. The water jackets run really close to them which makes them hard to open up. I am not sure you will be able to do that.

 

Porting can be done, but the gains are not the same as with the non-renesis designed motors. But like I said in an earlier post, this is a new engine, and the after market has not caught up to it. Most guys are not willing to drop their car off at a shop for an experimental process. The shops that are willing to work on them, have the market, and therefore can charge what they want due to limited competition right now.