Cruisin's Drift RX-8; 3800 SC Swap

[Drakon543]

Re: Cruisin's Drift RX-8; 3800 SC Swap

There is nothing a good Sawzall and duct tape cant fix lol. Joking aside being that it is a purpose built car you should have some room you can trim the firewall and push the top edge under the hood seal lip and fill the gaps back in with fresh metal. Damn you lol you should live closer id love to get my hands into a project like this.

[CruisinG6]

Re: Cruisin's Drift RX-8; 3800 SC Swap

The engine will eventually be turbo, It'll all fit with a turbo setup without modding the firewall, so I'd rather mod the supercharger. Plus I could always sell the SC parts to a firebird/camaro owner who wants to blow their higher compression motor. ha
After looking at the supercharger for a while I think I can modify quite a bit off the blower and even the lower intake manifold to really clean things up nicely.

[slowsedan]

Re: Cruisin's Drift RX-8; 3800 SC Swap

The engine will eventually be turbo, It'll all fit with a turbo setup without modding the firewall, so I'd rather mod the supercharger. Plus I could always sell the SC parts to a firebird/camaro owner who wants to blow their higher compression motor. ha
After looking at the supercharger for a while I think I can modify quite a bit off the blower and even the lower intake manifold to really clean things up nicely.

That's kind of what I figured. It'd probably just be easier to hack up the firewall than modify the supercharger housing. And you most likely won't get a sale out of Fbody guys for that supercharger. LS1's are getting cheap so V6 guys usually keep their V6 stock and eventually trade up. Or if they want to be different they'll turbo or engine swap. Using the supercharger is a pain for them as you have to hack up the cowl and use RWD L67 parts that only come from Australia ($$$)

[CruisinG6]

Re: Cruisin's Drift RX-8; 3800 SC Swap

Nah I think modding the supercharger housing would be better.
If I cut a hole in the firewall I'll have an air filter next to my steering wheel. I'm not trying to push it all back in there,
I think modding the supercharger housing will give me a better chance at keeping everything under the hood

Then once I go turbo I won't have a huge hole in the firewall to worry about.

As for re-sale, I don't really care if I don't sell it ha.
And a lot of those RWD l67 parts aren't needed. the lower intake manifold can be modified for the coolant passage. The rest really isn't all that different as far as I could find, Really it's the supercharger tail housing (it curves around to move the TB) and the lower intake manifold.

There's probably also some changes in pulleys or flywheel, but negligible at best with my build.

[DelHuge]

Re: Cruisin's Drift RX-8; 3800 SC Swap

The closer of the firewall your engine is, the more room you get in front of it to install the turbo(s), the intercooler and eventually the transmission's oil cooler and the engine's oil cooler. That's a good advantage of an engine close to the firewall. Thinking about it, have you ever though to keep the supercharger, get a turbocharger and make a twincharged setup ?

[CruisinG6]

Re: Cruisin's Drift RX-8; 3800 SC Swap

I can snap more pics, but here's a shot right after I got the engine out.



The RED arrow points to a small cross bar that's just barely visible, I'l likely need to cut that out, but that bar is pretty much at the front edge of the wheel well.

The BLUE arrow points to the bump in the firewall that may be a problem. It comes out a bit to accommodate the wiper linkage, but I'm pretty sure the supercharger well end up right in that pocket.
I do have room to move it around so we'll see once I set it in there.

The engine will sit pretty far back as it is. The RX8 engine is pretty much all behind the front wheels ha

There will likely be quite a bit of room in front of the motor to fit all sorts of turbos and stuff, but all of that gets hot and heavy. So we'll see when that time comes
There's a chance I'll never turbo it, My friend who knows this engine very well is saying I'll probably be blown away by the power the supercharger has and grow to love it.
Again we'll see haha

As for dual charge, that's a lot of work and effort that I won't need to bother with. The supercharger provides low down boost while the turbos kick in and provide high rpm boost, To make it work right I'd need to make the turbo's bypass the supercharger while decoupling the supercharger so it doesn't spin and put drag on the motor.

That's too much work for me, it's either SC or Turbo. haha

[Drakon543]

Re: Cruisin's Drift RX-8; 3800 SC Swap

Well as far as low rpm boost you might have to do some digging around if you want to play a little in that area but they do make turbos for low rpm boost. Typically seen on trucks but as a drift car it will be bouncing between mids and highs almost the hole time so its probably not even a concern for the rx.

[DelHuge]

Re: Cruisin's Drift RX-8; 3800 SC Swap

Concerning the bump in the firewall and the front cross bar, have you check what they do to deal with that in a LS swap ?

[CruisinG6]

Re: Cruisin's Drift RX-8; 3800 SC Swap

A pair of small enough turbos will spool up quick and provide boost up to 6k easily. I'm not too concerned with that.

I believe the ls swap guys do cut that bar out. But I think also the engine just barely fits under that bump in the firewall, maybe slight mods to it.

If you look at pics you'll see the ls swap really fills in the engine bay. I don't think the 3800 will take up that much space

[DelHuge]

Re: Cruisin's Drift RX-8; 3800 SC Swap

Where is located the cross bar you showed in red ? What is it used for ?

I found this LS swapped RX-8 threadthat has a lot of pictures. So far the small bump is'nt an issue. Maybe it will be with the supercherger, I don't know. I can't see on the pictures where is that cross bar though. --> http://www.rx8club.com/non-rotary-sw...thread-252605/

[CruisinG6]

Re: Cruisin's Drift RX-8; 3800 SC Swap

They likely cut out that cross bar.
It's just there to hold the battery, ecu box, power steering module box, some wiring/tanks. intake etc.
It's just there to hold everything that normally sits in front of the engine.

The rotary engine in any rx car is incredibly small. There's more plastic engine cover than there is engine.

I likely will need to cut mine out as well, It's not structural at all, just there for mounting crap

[DelHuge]

Re: Cruisin's Drift RX-8; 3800 SC Swap

I likely will need to cut mine out as well, It's not structural at all, just there for mounting crap

If you need to cut it I guess it's welded and not bolted ?

[CruisinG6]

Re: Cruisin's Drift RX-8; 3800 SC Swap

Yea, I'll need to cut it, It's spot welded in, I can drill out the welds and pull it, But I don't care about this car so I'm just gonna cut it out.

[CruisinG6]

Re: Cruisin's Drift RX-8; 3800 SC Swap

Well I finally got the engine out to test fit it. And I think I'm pretty damn golden.


here you can see the rusty cross bar in front of the motor, Yup mine fits behind it!


In fact! It sits pretty much behind the front axle.


So far so good. I'll need some slight mods to the lower intake manifold. The supercharger I'll likely cut off the TB flange, cut that in half then box it partially in and come out on the side for a the TB.

I'll also need to move the swap bar forward, and my new steering rack will likely sit lower, so I think I'll have my clearance for the crank pulley then.
I'll also cut out that cross bar because who needs it.


PIC DUMP!





(ABS Pump will be deleted)



Plenty of room around the subframe and the frame rails under the hood to put exhaust or turbos

Also after measuring the trans length with the bell housing it looks like my shifter will line up pretty damn well in the car.

[DelHuge]

Re: Cruisin's Drift RX-8; 3800 SC Swap

LOOOOTS of room for turbos ! The engine sit behind the front axle should give a really nice handling. Will you add a skid plate to protect the oil pan ? Looking at the pictures it seems to be pretty low.