Wow. I did not know someone had worked out the CAN bus issues and if I read it right it is only $525 for the unit. That is really cool.
Wow. I did not know someone had worked out the CAN bus issues and if I read it right it is only $525 for the unit. That is really cool.
We did an LS swap for the shop. Let me tell you 500hp in an RX8 makes for a very fast car. We used the CX racing kit but should have gone with the V8 roadsters one. It was a lot of work and fabrication but the thing was a rocket with a T5 transmission.
The shop owner ended up selling it after a year for fear that one of us was gonna get killed in it.
Big thanks to Stubbs for answering a lot of questions we didn't even think of asking.
I always thought the RX-8 should be a more popular swap candidate than it is, seeing as it has a reasonably large engine bay and transmission tunnel to fit bigger engines, has a great stock suspension, quite large stock brakes and can fit some decently big tires under the fenders. Add to that the ready supply of blown motor swap candidates and it should be massively popular, but apparently people would rather start with a more expensive, inferior E36 or something else.
In reply to RX8driver :
They rust and rust and rust, though.
In reply to Knurled. :
As much as I liked mine before the mice did a number on the wiring, even that only-ever-been-in-CA car had a rust bubble or two.
In reply to _ :
Not really, our ProMaster conversions used an AC motor with a reduction gearbox/differential unit that would (probably) fit in place of the differential. Would probably require custom axles though. $7K would probably get you decent performance with about 90 to100 mile range.
In reply to Kreb :
The big problem with EV conversions is the cost of batteries... $200/cell for 3ish volts and 180 amp hours times 90 for a range of about 90 miles and times 108 for 140 miles. Even in the ProMaster at 7600 pounds a 135kW motor gives better performance than the gas version.
What about controlers? Back when I was following this stuff, the Curtis seemed like crap, and the only aftermatket one that stood out was the Zilla - at a pretty high price point.
I keep wondering, what would it take to make the RX-8 reliable while keeping it a rotary? (I know I know, it's impossible. But could you mix and match parts from older rotary engines to make it at least as reliable as an RX-7?)
In reply to Kreb :
The only real way to go is with a TM4 or UQM motor and matching inverter (controller). Not cheap but lightyears ahead of the DC motors and controllers.
slowbird said:I keep wondering, what would it take to make the RX-8 reliable while keeping it a rotary? (I know I know, it's impossible. But could you mix and match parts from older rotary engines to make it at least as reliable as an RX-7?)
Premix oil in the fuel.
The biggest problem is its greatest asset: the side exhaust ports. That makes the side housings warp all to heck and it makes the side seals die early. That seems to be the main failing once you add in the oil that Mazda didn't in order to maximize converter life.
The other thing that seems to kill RX-8 engines is not keeping oil in them. Peripheral exhaust rotaries blow a lot of fuel past the side seals and this dilutes the oil. RX-8s with their side exhaust ports lose that blowby out the exhaust pipe, so no fuel to dilute the oil as the metering pump injects it, with end result you might use a quart of oil every 200mi despite injecting less oil than any previous engine. (So check the oil every fuel stop)
dean1484 said:Wow. I did not know someone had worked out the CAN bus issues and if I read it right it is only $525 for the unit. That is really cool.
yeah until you have to explain to your Dad why the tach goes to 10 when the engine only runs up to 5500rpm...
In reply to triumph7 :
The whole electric thing is something of a hijack. I just wanted to take issue with the "Tesla performance for $10K" claim. Maybe if you don't care about refinement, longevity or weight and have a remarkable skill set. But for us mere mortals.....
Kreb said:In reply to triumph7 :
The whole electric thing is something of a hijack. I just wanted to take issue with the "Tesla performance for $10K" claim. Maybe if you don't care about refinement, longevity or weight and have a remarkable skill set. But for us mere mortals.....
Also depends on what you can salvage. 7-8 years ago you could pull a Jehu Garcia and take peoples used batteries for free to make a pack big enough to run an EV car- but now that we're getting recycling off the ground you basically have to 'know a guy' to get a good stream of lithium cells of any stripe, not just 18650s or whatever. Most places now have too many legal questions than to just let you go with old computer batteries.
Kreb said:In reply to triumph7 :
The whole electric thing is something of a hijack. I just wanted to take issue with the "Tesla performance for $10K" claim. Maybe if you don't care about refinement, longevity or weight and have a remarkable skill set. But for us mere mortals.....
Right, can you even get a Tesla battery for 10k?
RX8driver said:I always thought the RX-8 should be a more popular swap candidate than it is, seeing as it has a reasonably large engine bay and transmission tunnel to fit bigger engines, has a great stock suspension, quite large stock brakes and can fit some decently big tires under the fenders. Add to that the ready supply of blown motor swap candidates and it should be massively popular, but apparently people would rather start with a more expensive, inferior E36 or something else.
The problem is that nobody wants to put money into a cheap recipient. “Why should I spend $x on the kit, I only paid $y for the car!”
Emotions aside: LS or EV. Is it even a question anymore?
EV is clearly a steep learning curve. If you don't have EV donors nearby it's not a budget one either.
Knurled. said:In reply to RX8driver :
They rust and rust and rust, though.
That depends on where you live. Around here in the dry belt, you just don’t see rusty RX8s.
cdeforrest said:Emotions aside: LS or EV. Is it even a question anymore?
EV is clearly a steep learning curve. If you don't have EV donors nearby it's not a budget one either.
I’m not sure what you mean. It’s only now becoming a legit question, and an interesting one.
I still don't think EV is a legitimate budget option for your typical home tinkerer.
I'm really interested to understand if the Ford Duratec/Mazda MZ motors will actually bolt-in with a mix and match of MX5 parts. I only found one thread on another forum about it. It said you had to cut out part of the firewall. Does anyone know if that is required?
Also, has it been confirmed if a MX5 ECU would plug into a RX8, or Are there other plug and play engine control options for RX8 and the Ford/Mazda 4 cylinders?
I have spoken to a fellow in the UK who told me the NC subframe and engine bolt in. You would have to do a PPF. I expect the body side of the harness will be compatible but I would not expect a simple plug and play. That doesn’t often work across model years, never mind across related cars. Some time with factory wiring diagrams may be worthwhile.
Can EV swaps be done on a budget? I think it’s going to come down to your expectations. There’s currently no EV equivalent of an old Chevy 350, boatloads of crude performance for next to nothing. But if you’re looking at swapping in a modern engine, I’ll bet you could get close. The big variable is going to be how much range you want, because that’s going to be your battery cost. Note: I have not done an EV swap, but I’ve been looking casually at the higher end of the spectrum for integration and performance.
In reply to Keith Tanner :
I think a Tesla drivetrain in the back with some powerful batteries shoved in somewhere would make a great FlyinMiata Halo-Car EV coversion like your LS swapped cars, but I think a leaf is the one stop shopping easy button.
One option is a custom subframe and axles in the rear to mount a Leaf drivetrain behind the driver. Using the room normally taken by the fuel tank, diff, and center of the subframe it looks like a Leaf motor/inverter/charger stack will fit. Then stuff the leaf batteries in a custom enclosure using the tunnel and engine bay. Decent fit, balanced, moderate range, and probably similar acceleration to stock.
You could do the same single donor leaf build with a TorqueBox mounted to the leaf motor in the tunnel with the batteries stuffed up front.
At this point there are a few options to push the leaf motor and inverter to higher HP numbers, but they are not that well tested or developed and they rely on different batteries than the stock leaf.
MrJoshua said:In reply to Keith Tanner :
I think a Tesla drivetrain in the back with some powerful batteries shoved in somewhere would make a great FlyinMiata Halo-Car EV coversion like your LS swapped cars...
That's pretty much what I've been looking at. A Model 3 motor might fit pretty nicely between the rear wheels and the napkin math says we should be able to match the LS performance and range. But it's hard to make the business case for doing it. We already have a problem with the V8 halo cars being better known than the bulk of our product catalog, so it's far more likely that we'd do a four cylinder build.
EVs are interesting - acceleration is all about rate of discharge, range is all about capacity. So you can fine-tune the latter by choosing just how many batteries to load into the car.
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