The MazdaSpeed RX-8 concept is back!

[Renesis]

An anonymous reader sent in the following pics of that White concept Mazdaspeed RX-8 that was featured in last fall's SPEED Magazine by Road and Track. This car fell off the face of the earth for a while, and we could not get any information from our usual sources on the fate of it. Now, here it is, being shown in a public location, a place that some hard core rotorheads should recognize. Enough talk, here are the spy photos of a concept for the Mazdaspeed RX-8

http://rotarynews.com/node/view/633






Old article:

This is a development project that members of Mazda's R&D team have been working on. Because our engineers also happen to be enthusiasts, they're never completely satisfied and they're always tuning and developing vehicles one step further. This car is not for general sale now or in the future.

We're not ready to confirm when - or even whether - a MAZDASPEED version of the RX-8 is coming. We're always looking to improve the power, styling and drivability of our vehicles in each successive generation, and we're certainly looking at ways of adding the MAZDASPEED-DNA to RX-8, but we are not ready to talk in more detail about it.

Mazda touched on some details about this particular car, though...

It is supercharged. Because of the location of the exhaust ports in the RENESIS rotary engine, it doesn't respond in quite the same way to turbocharging as earlier rotaries. Our team thought they'd experiment with supercharging for this project car.
Virtually everything on the car is custom-designed and built, including the bodywork, interior trim, suspension and exhaust. Our R&D team saw this project as an opportunity to take the RX-8 as far as they could, while still maintaining its streetability."

[bren_35]

it doesn't respond in quite the same way to turbocharging as earlier rotaries

what the hell does that mean? instead of making more power it turns the engine into a nice fruity merlot?

and why does a supercharger work?

[Got3n]

OMG thats freaking HAWT, that would be the only RX8 i would buy.

[Raven18940]

I think cause the exhaust ports are on top of the spinning rotor rather than the side like the earlier models they aren't getting as good exhaust gas velocity. That would ruin a turbo setup right quick. I think the delay is probably in getting this thing US legal. The NA version has rather poor gas mileage and the supercharger would only make things worse. The gas-guzzler tax on a japanese car would be the kiss of death.

[Cruzz563]

Meh.






Yeah that's right Ren, I said it, just to piss you off too

[Alex_0700]

IMO, Mazda should have designed and built the RX-8 with FI from the beginning. Wankels can be a bit weak in NA form, but with a little boost they can become real beasts (RX-7!) Mazda is definitely on the right track with this car.

BTW that hood scoop looks mean 8)

[Renesis]

It's funny, I posted it on DS too and everyone's loving it.

But actually... I can't say I like it. Styling wise, I'd take a stock RX-8 over this any day!

[jayjaya29]

I like the way that it looks, except for the front headlight tint covers. Take them off. As for the supercharging, go ahead, make it more powerful.

[andyhui01]

supercharged it?... if I'm not wrong, doesn't the RX-8 run on high compression ratio?... they must have done alot of work to it

[jasonchiu]

thats hot, all i wanna see is a bad mother fucker version with a turbo

[patrick10]

that is the definition of sex

[Raven18940]

Originally Posted by andyhui01

supercharged it?... if I'm not wrong, doesn't the RX-8 run on high compression ratio?... they must have done alot of work to it

No, you just swap out the high compression rotor for a lower compression one. Shouldn't be too hard for Mazda of all people to do.

[Renesis]

Originally Posted by jasonchiu

thats hot, all i wanna see is a bad mother fucker version with a turbo

CAN'T YOU FUCKING READ?

A FUCKING TURBO DOESN'T WORK WELL on a RX-8.


Goddammit you're so fucking annoying

[jasonchiu]

actually it does i went in one in japan and there are loads of turbo rx-8's around u fool

[Renesis]

*takes pills*

*takes deep breathes*


AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

*takes more breathes*


I'm saying the engine doesn't respond well to Turbos, most of the RX-8 turbo's around have 13b engines in them and not Renesis.

Plus, MazdaSpeed can't and won't release a turbo RX-8 due to emission laws, horsepower gains wouldn't be as good as with a supercharger, and a supercharger has no lag, which is ideal to solve the low torque problem of the stock RX-8.

[jasonchiu]

ur a nerd

well i went in one with a renesis and 13b while i was there

[Renesis]

Any further post of explicit stupidity by you in this thread will be deleted. And I'll charge you for those pills I had to take.

[andyhui01]

renesis is right... there is not much point in fitting a turbo into the rotary and just giving it huge horsepower gains but not resoloving the problem that the Renesis Engine has to overcome which is the really shit torque... therefore in this case, the Supercharger does this best, fitting a turbo on a 9k rotary engine would do very little performance increase (in terms of track time) because turbo comes in at about 2.5-3k rpm and usually peaks at about 7k rpm, which means there would be a drop in power from 7k to 9k which isn't good

[Renesis]

^HEAR the smart man

[jasonchiu]

i never said turbo was better, i said i like it better