it just occurred to me that i've posted a few times in this thread and not once have i addressed the actual topic. for that, i apologize to J9fd3s.

the only one i was aware of was the gentleman in England that was referenced earlier in the thread. i can't say i ever gave the thought of a Renesis in an FC much thought. in an FB? yes. in a Miata? yes. in a B-series truck? yes. i saw one of the original Nissan 200SXs recently and i had a thought about that, too. however, never thought about it in a Gen II.

i do think it would be a good idea. i think the Gen II has enough space to do a lot of positive things to aid in cooling the Renesis. however, unlike my thoughts on swapping a Renesis into an FB, for the FC swap, i think it would have to come with the 6-speed and rear end though.

 

Gotta agree with RotaryEvolution on this the whole way around. While the RX-8 engine's means of mounting to the chassis appear quite similar to the JC Cosmo, the electronics/wiring portion of the swap is what makes the swap more work than benefit.

I'm gonna be the Devil's Advocate for the FC's engine here
Sure, the S4 & S5 have less power, 146 & 160hp respectively in stock form, but the benefit to this makes perfect logical sense: Wider Powerband. For this example, I'll stick with the S4NA as it is what I am most familiar with.

S4NA puts out 138 ft.lbs @3500rpm and 146hp@6500rpm
2004 RX-8 (MT version) puts out 159ft.lbs@5500rpm and 238hp@8500rpm
2002 Celica GTS: 130ft.lbs@6800rpm and 180hp@7600rpm

Examine a stock dyno graph for both you'll see that the RX-8 is much more 'peaky'. Included above is a more extreme form of peaky NA factory tuning found in the ZZT231 Celica. With a narrow powerband, close gear ratios are vital to staying in the powerband. In the case of the Celica, it wouldn't surprise me if it dropped out of the powerband on every upshift. as the quotient between peak power rpm & peak torque rpm is very close to 1.0

S4NA: 1.857
RX-8: 1.545
T231: 1.118

These numbers are the ideal difference in gear ratios that the transmission should have, to stay within the powerband on every upshift. Logically, they should be skewed a tad lower to account for early upshifts. Let's look at the S4NA's gear ratios and see how they fare against the Powerband Quotient. Divide the lower gear's ratio by the higher one to see how close it is to the idealized point.

1st: 3.475
2nd: 2.002 1st to 2nd is 1.736
3rd: 1.366 2nd to 3rd is 1.466
4th: 1.000 3rd to 4th is 1.366
5th: 0.711 4th to 5th is 1.406

The S4NA gear box is geared well, ensuring that if one upshifts at peak power (6500rpm) or slightly before, it stays in the powerband no matter what. I don't know what the Celica's ratios are offhand, but if its first gear is 3.475, second gear would have to be 3.108:1 to keep it within the 600rpm powerband.

And seriously, who honestly enjoys a powerband of only 600rpm? Might as well be driving a 1.8L DIESEL...

 

but it doesn't! you're lucky the cat lasts 40k! that is one good thing about the FD the main cat is built like a brick shithouse, they hardly ever are bad.

the plugs are easy, but yeah when the MSP floods its BAD. its those damn side ports. i checked the fuel pump on the P port, and when i was done i had 500ml of gas that had to go somewhere, so i poured it down the carb. did it flood? yes, but barely. if you poured 500ml of gas into a Renesis is would never run again!

yeah me too, i take the long way home a lot in the 8 cause its fun. i think the FD and Rx8 had kind of the same problem though, we got the 1st year car, and then it needed all this sorting out. if we got the 99 FD, the reliability would have been much better i think. or if the Rx8 showed up in 2006.

i started @Mazda in 1997, when the FD's were still under warranty, and the only part i haven't seen fail is the driveshaft, and the steering rack. the body breaks, i've seen the hood break, the dash, the actual DASH break. they came out of the factory with clunky rear suspensions, and noisy transmissions. the recalls were really invasive, the engines failed under the 3 year warranty, they leak oil from everywhere....

although its all relative, except that the mode of failure is to replace the engine, the FD is better than a BMW E36, those things are JUNK.

no they aren't. the Mazda people are by and large the best, the only club event i've been to that was close was the Bugatti club. i wasn't impressed with the Porsche people, in fact after going to rennfest, i'm not even sure i like the 911, although rennfest was like 5,000 horrible ones in a row, and 2 cool ones.

even the "bad guys" like ReTed are cool in person, i'm sure you could bump into even the biggest A-hole on the Rx8 forum and they'd be ok in person

 

oh and just to be on topic, we've seen people do much less sensible engine swaps in an FC than the Rx8 engine!

 

agreed ^^

 

If it were me and I wanted the ultimate NA, it would be an NA 20B. Any reason you don't want to go that route? When I was looking, it was easier to obtain a 20B than post 2009 Renesis. Effort wise, and engine swap is an engine swap... and if I were to go to all that trouble I'd rather have 300hp than 238hp or less.

It was easy to get 25 mpg with my 20 year old 13-BT with stock turbo and that's with more power than the Renesis... which has HP is in the 230s with 13 MPG. If I remember correctly, it wasn't till the last couple years of production where the issues with premature wear were fixed on the Renesis. I just don't see the appeal, but if it's your favorite engine or something, you better try and source the later version.

 

what?

 

“thank you for your support” bump

 

you're more than welcome!

i guess you should be careful what you type too, no idea who i was referring to anymore, its like 4 B.C.