I know that the general consensus on these is that they are not a great drift car but .... well - Mazda RX8 4dr [192] 1.3 Its actually a great looking car with all the trimmings and just shy of 200 bhp on an 05 plate and they go well cheaper than this. I heard that they are gutless down low in the revs but with a welder will they not be okay or is this like mx-5s where people moan they are underpowered but others say they are fine for drifting? When looking for cheap drift cars it seems difficult to ignore these as e36's seem to be going up in price, especially 328's. Any one run a welder on these and not overheated one drifting lol?
no they don't drift they do how ever do really good at grip events its the torque they don't have and i'm pretty sure if you dyno'd one even a 231 you would only see 180 isn hp. The other thing you need to remember is the motor will break no point saying it won't. your then left with a 1500-2500 quid bill or break it but means there is 100s been broke they are worth very little.
Buy one with a mushed engine, Sr20 in it, power and torque problems solved, i remember reading that someone was going to make a kit to do the swap more easily.
To say they don't drift is wrong as there are a few 8's being used.... Majority of it is geometry setup and if I remember correctly they have fully adjustable camber, caster & toe, front and rear like the 7's! So you are able to dial out rear end grip untill its correct for you?! The RX8 motors tend to have seal failure at about 100k, so as long as its well below that or had a rebuild you'll be fine!
Car tax on an 07 one is ~£490 a year roughly, on an 04 it's half that apparently. Check it first before buying one if you're gonna run it on the road or anything.
I still fail to believe they don't drift just fine as standard. It's like everyone used to say MX5s don't. I reckon they just been owned/drifted by people who can only drift with power. I'd love to give one a go but fuel cost and likelyhood it will die and become even more worthless puts me off.
There's a lot of them out there that are very cheap because most of them are approaching rebuild point, have a look on the RX owners club it's not a case of if but more a case of when. I'm sure you'll be able to get it to drift but best bet would be if you really wanted one, buy one with a knackerd engine and drop something different in.
About 2 years ago I started reading a build thread by Martin Hadland (Reyland Motorsport) .. he was going to put a VAG 1.8T 20v engine into one of these.. not sure how far he got with it though, will see if I can find out
They never finished it. last time i spoke to them. The rx8 will drift and I'm sure welding the diff helps but after I finished the sr20det swap in mine its only stage 1a but its a different beast totally.
You could go cheaper than that. Alot of people sell them as spares or repairs because they think the engines given out. Tow start it and it'll fire right up (not all the time, some engines are goosed)
theres a bloke in the unit next to me putting a 1.8t vag lump in an rx8 with a custom adapter plate to use the mazda gearbox. will see if i can get a few pictures up.
There was a guy drifting one fine at DWYB in the pens the other day. Not seen one on the big track that I can remember as people generally only do one DWYB and they overheat! With the usual drifty mods I'm sure they will go nicely.
