05 RX8 - ATS-V Twin Turbo 3.6L Swap/Build

Hey Guys,

Figured I would get a thread going here to show some of my progress building my RX8!

Bit of a back story;

Bought the car September 2013 with front end damage and intentions to do an LS swap. The car ended up on the back burner while I built a few Duramax's , but eventually managed to get the LS swap setup and ran it for the 2015 season. Was a ton of fun with the LS swap, ran it a shit ton on the track until I ripped the differential mounts apart, the diff came down, pulled the CV axles apart etc, which I didnt bother to fix that year and pulled it all apart to rebuild. Intended on redoing all my mounting and changing the engine position, sold my swap kit, started making some new parts, and then a customer build came along which I pretty well lost my shirt on, and lost motivation to touch my own.

Final pics of the car with the LS swap setup.



Customer build I did was a '04 RX8 with a Procharged LS2 in it.




So I eventually got back to working on the car, but I was longing to try something I had never done before.

I loved the car with the LS swap in it, but I hated the fact that it was "Another LS swap" , So I spent some time trying to think of something else I could do that had good power potential, was still a GM powertrain so atleast my knowledge on the electronics could transfer over.

Initially was thinking of using the 2.0L LTG Turbo engine, but there was not many used ones to find, and the OEM parts for it were kind of pricey given the relatively low performance ceiling.

After a chat with the shop foreman at the GM Dealer I was working for, he suggested I take a look at the new ATS-V LF4 Twin Turbo 3.6L and that it was based off the LFX engine found in tons of GM SUV's. I didnt believe it but after some time pouring through the catalog... I had a plan!

Spring of this year I started major planning to figure out how I would go about the build. There was/is no information around on setting the LF4 up in a swap environment, which was exactly the challenge I wanted, and I started obsessively researching to figure out the best way to make it happen.

The engine is a used LFX Engine block, and I started a mad dash of "Overnight parts from America" to build an LF4 engine. There was nearly no used parts to find, so GMPartsDirect became my best friend LOL.

Skipping out on a bit of less exciting things, but eventually got to mocking up the setup!




The original electric steering was replaced with a hydraulic steering rack. Turbo inlets are hopefully improved over the OEM design which was nearly 90* Angles right off the turbo's



I had some issues with the LS in the car where the front brakes were difficult to keep temperatures in check, so I decided to go big, instead of goin home





Also knew I wanted to put a half cage in it. I had no prior experience bending a cage, but I had fabricated a tube bender last year to build the tubular front bar section, so I gave it a shot.

Learned lots of lessons and ruined lots of tube but it came out okay!



Knowing the engine bay will be a fairly compact environment, cooling is obviously important.

The cooler's are 3x Heat exchanges for the water intercooler system, 1x Radiator, 1x Engine oil cooler, 1x PS Oil Cooler





On the note of cooling, despite the cooler count, I wanted to make sure a shit ton of air is ducted through the front end. The air for the center coolers will enter the bumper and exit the hood after passing through the radiator and center heat exhanger





Progress was feeling good! I was basically working 40-50hrs a week on it outside of my full time job.

Shout out to my buddy Rob @Basicbuilds for coming to take some shots of me at work!



I wanted to do the R3 front end conversion on the car for a long time, and after the decision that it would be painted or wrapped, it was the perfect time to do so.

This is the look I am going after;



Mocked up the new front end parts to see how the fit was



While the car was out of my way at the body shop for paint I started work on building the engine for it (Which never ended up happening after sitting there for a month)





Ported cylinder heads being assembled! This shit is time consuming and annoying AF



The amount of timing chains in this engine gives me major anxiety, but I guess I'll deal...



The oil pan sat too low on the engine, so I had a buddy mill the lower part of the pan off so I could fabricate a new lower section to it. Decided to make it out of steel to avoid paying more people to TIG parts up for me.

Designed a trap door system for it in attempts to keep oil at the pickup, and add some oil capacity. Fingers crossed I got it right!



Finished engine looks pretty



The turbos bolt to the heads on this engine, and with an incredibly short distance from the turbo to the throttle body, it will have incredible throttle response which is one of the biggest advantages to this engine



Pretty crazy how busy the back of these engines are, and its probably the most annoying thing about it despite 17 miles of timing chains, too many cams and too many valves (Yea, im an LS guy)



Oh yea, this was some fit for the wheels



Which pretty well gets us to the latest. Took a month off of working on it while I was pissed at life, quit my job, moved towns, smoked some doobs....

But eventually got motivated to look at it again. Still tons and tons to go, but this is the latest on her position. The engine is in it to stay, and the assembly is under way. Wiring is going to happen this weekend and then I have to finish the fluid line fitting before I can look at firing it up!








I will keep this updated as I continue getting it ready! I am planning to static display it at a few events in September, but otherwise it will be pretty well everywhere next year !


If you survived the novels to here... thank you

 

Yea the High Feature/Alloytec 3.6L V6 was updated to have integrated exhaust manifolds with the LFX engine in 2013. Its a blessing and a curse, but definitely a blessing for packaging.

The benefits of it are the turbos bolt right to the heads, and the intake manifolds have integrated intercooler blocks similar to roots blowers, so the turbos have a incredibly short shot to get back to the throttle body.

I have only done time attack racing with it so far, but I am planning to get into some fun sliding this around. Only fearing that the reduced airflow in the front end during drifting may lead to heat soak issues, but we will see!

Thanks for the kind words

 

Hey Craig,

We have the cluster sorted out already, I am lucky to have a brother with his masters in computer science!

All original mazda wiring and electronics have been removed from the car, I wired it from scratch, and the cluster is the only OEM electronic bit which we have controlled via Raspberry Pi. The Infotainment system is also a 1 of 1 developed setup and will utilize a 7" touch screen display for the center stack that will control body functions, extra gauge information, OBD2 CAN Spoofing, and be part of a fairly elaborate sensor suite for us to do lots of data acquisition!