RX8 gets a little love at last!
- Details
- Parent Category: Old projects
- Category: Project RX8
- Created on Thursday, 01 March 2012 22:22
- Last Updated on Tuesday, 24 April 2012 22:04
- Published on Thursday, 01 March 2012 22:22
- Written by Dale
Updates on the Project RX8 have been a little thin, I'll admit. So tonight I'm going to rectify that. In case you aren't aware already, this is newest BTG Project Car and the result of reading the UK PistonHeads classified ads a little too much.
If you're interested in what thoughts were going through my head when I decided to buy a second rotary-engined sportscar with over 120,000kms on the clock, you'd better read my lengthy article on PistonHeads.com! What have I changed since the last update? Let's do this piece by piece...
- Brakes
The pattern brake pads that were on the car stood up surprisingly well to a fast lap of the Nordschleife earlier this year. This confidence in the genorously specced 323mm discs meant I was happy enough to simply buy the cheapest track-ready brake pads: EBC Yellow Stuff. Luckily for me, my friend and fellow nordschleife junkie Freddy Ritschl runs a company called Special Brakes here at the Nurburgring (take note of that website and number if you ever need brake components at the Nurburgring in a hurry!). I refrained from changing the fluid, as I will be changing the hoses at some point in the near future. Rear discs were healthy, though rusty, while the fronts were very thin indeed. New, and very cheap, Blueprint-branded pattern discs came via eBay. Performance is very good, with no fade on the GP track after two sessions back-to-back with a passenger. Though both the old and the new discs are very noisy.
- Springs
After the new wheels (actually second-hand and loaned to me by Fredy of Rent4Ring), the most visible change has to be 45mm deeper H&R springs. While I would never recommend changing springs without changing dampers on a track car, I thought 'What the hell'. And did it anyway. While the car does look awesome and feel sporty, the reality is that the perfect balance has shifted slightly towards understeer. When I upgrade the dampers and anti-roll bars, it'll also be prudent to check the geometry. Truth be told, I should have done that anyway... <cough>
- Oil
The crappy gearchange felt like knackered oil, so I changed both the gearbox and diff oil to top-spec Motul stuff. It's a bit better, but far from great. My worries about disintegrating gearboxes are not going away...
- De-cat
While 80% of the exhaust is still standard, and not a little rusty, I have removed the catalyser in favour of a Toyosports pipe with a single resonator. More noise, some great flames, and the reassurance that I'm not about to destroy several hundred euros-worth of Mazda catalyser
No big changes, but I thought it would still be worthwhile taking some video of the car and talking about these points further... enjoy!
