LS RX8 Build - Project Doritno

[JohnnyTightlips]

Update:

Fuel System: Complete
Parts

• 5/16" (8mm) x 6" (150mm) In Tank Submersible Fuel Corrugated Flexible Hose Line for Fuel Pump Assembly E-85 Safe Compatible
  
• Aeromotive 13129 Regulator, EFI Bypass, Adjustable (2) -6 inlets, (1) -6 bypass
  
• EVIL ENERGY 6AN PTFE Fuel Line Kit,E85 Nylon Braided Fuel Hose 20FT AN6 PTFE Fuel Line Hose(5/16Inch ID)
  
• EVIL ENERGY 6AN Male Flare Bulkhead to 5/16 Hose Barb Fuel Tank Fitting Adapter Aluminum, Black
  
• I also used random other fittings "you can figure it out"

I put the fitting on the top hat but after the fact I should have put it on the other side as the fittings are too tall and I had to rotate it to get it to not hit the seat cover. Works fine but just a heads up.


I trimmed the return hose a bit to get it into the basket and it seems to like it as I was able to set 58 psi and it is stable.

This is pure overkill but I had this piece of AL sitting around and it worked to mount the FPR. You could probably hang the motor off this mount.

It's all back together and no leaks.


Alternator:
When the car first started up the alternator was working but after a few weeks it would do this weird thing where it would only work after I revved the car to 2k and then it was fine. Well a few weeks later it just stopped charging. I ordered and ebay special and it seems to work great. It has enough amps to run 3 of these cars so I should be fine.

Parts

• BLACK ALTERNATOR HIGH OUTPUT 300AMP FOR CHEVROLET SUBURBAN TAHOE 1500HD 2500HD seller: high-quality-parts

Intake:

Parts

• Airaid AIR-100-400 UBI (U-Build-It) Intake Kit
  
• 2@ Tandefio 90 Degree 4 Ply Elbow Coupler Length Silicone Hose 0.2 Inches/ 5 mm Thickness Silicone Pipe Intake Pipe with T Bolt Clamps for Turbo Intercooler Intake Piping (4 Inch)
• Some random Spectre air filter "idk it was in a box of crap I had"
• Maybe this? Spectre Universal Clamp-On Air Filter: High Performance, Washable Filter: Round Tapered; 3 in/3.5 in/4 in Flange ID; 6.719 in (171 mm) Height; 6 in (152 mm) Base; 4.75 in (121 mm) Top, SPE-8131, Black

I was able to make a heat shield to keep the radiator/motor/oil cooler heat away from the intake. I also got the IAT sensor close to the filter. Car seems happy and the Intake Air Temps are more accurate to what the engine is actually seeing now and not just heat soak.




Bonus:

Used some license plates to make a heatshield where the fuel and brake lines get closer to the exhaust.

 

[Mazdasloww3]

How much did you end up paying for your driveshaft? Not sure if I want to go 8.8 off the bat or just get the swap working first with the rx8 diff, mainly due to timeframe. Cost of having to do a custom driveshaft twice will probably determine which route I go. Really appreciate how well you've documented this build so far.

 

[JohnnyTightlips]

How much did you end up paying for your driveshaft? Not sure if I want to go 8.8 off the bat or just get the swap working first with the rx8 diff, mainly due to timeframe. Cost of having to do a custom driveshaft twice will probably determine which route I go. Really appreciate how well you've documented this build so far.

Thanks for the reply, it was 458$ shipped and worked perfect. I will be uploading my wiring info soon too.

 

[JohnnyTightlips]

Wiring - it's fun!!

This seems more complicated than it is. One wire at a time and after 1 million hours it will all come together. If something seems odd or does not make sense it is possible I fixed it but forgot to update the spreadsheet. This wiring will pretty much get you pointed in the right direction for an swap but even more so for an LS swap. I have never done this before but I took my time and was able to work through it.

I have not double checked the wiring but the car is working only thing I have not totally got working is cruise control but maybe someday. It is the attached excel file.


This is the Deutsch connectors I used for the connections to the RX8 and here is the paper cheat sheet. I might clean this up at some point for people but it should all be here.

 

[JohnnyTightlips]

Update:

Not a ton of tinkering going on lately. I have been going through and e-tune from https://www.evans-tuning.com/tuning and he has been super good to work with. It cost 500$ and I can't complain. We are pretty much done with the tune and the car feels great and oem to drive. I was going to tune it myself but there is just too much to learn about the haltech to get it dialed and I don't have time or desire for that. He also left the tune open so I can tweak as I desire. He really cleaned it up so it is smooth all over and feels OEM.

We have ran into one issue that is causing me a little grief. The Accelerator Pedal Position sensor is noisy. This causes it to think I am pressing the pedal when I am not which can cause it to stop idling because it thinks I want to drive but then falls on its face for a second because I am not actually pressing the gas.


I did check it with engine off and key on and it reads correctly so I am guessing it is some sort of interference with the OEM/My wiring. I plan to re-wire it directly from the ECU to the pedal so that it does not have to go through the oem wires and stays out of the engine bay as the ECU sits in the glovebox. Hopefully this cleans it up and should not be crazy work.

Other than this issue the car has been really good. Clutch feels nice and the car is a ripper. Super happy with the valved exhaust. If the pedal was working right I could see driving this all day every day even on a long road trip, it just works and is happy. When the pedal was right I actually kinda forgot I was driving it and it was just like a normal oem car which was a pretty cool feeling.

Things still to do.

Stereo
Suspension
Brakes
Clunk in rear
New Tint

 

[Easter Bunny]

so is the next step twin turbos or a supercharger?

 

[Enki]

U-Haul trailer full of NOS bottles.

Edit: 1500 dry shot.

 

[JohnnyTightlips]

Fixed it​

The haltech harness comes with a 4 pin can connector which is the same connector as the wideband controller so I had it plugged into that. Well turns out you are supposed to break out the 12v+ and Ground as the 4 pin on the ecu uses sensor ground and the wideband needs chassis ground.

Once I changed the 12v+ and Ground all the sensors had a much cleaner signal and the throttle no longer bounces. Haltech support actually helped me find it as they notice in the logs that the noise gets much worse when the widebands were heating up "drawing more current". I let my tuner know and now we are cleaning up the idle and around town driving.

I am pretty happy it was an easy fix and glad that this is the only real wiring issue I have had after doing all this work and this being my first time.

 

[JohnnyTightlips]

so is the next step twin turbos or a supercharger?

Boost would be a good time but it has enough power right now to be really fun to drive and not go directly to jail.

 

[Enki]

Are you even really having fun unless you have at least two jurisdictions and three helicopters chasing you?

 

[JohnnyTightlips]

Smol update:


The OEM stereo was trash and made bad noises. It has been a min since I looked at the stereo scene and I thought things might have changed a bit but they haven't. I looked at the nice brands like Sony, Alpine, Pioneer and they are all a rip off for what you get. I am sure they have about 35$ in these 600$ head units. I decided to take a gamble on the china unit. It seems to work great and actually sounds way better than expected. It has built in steering wheel controls for resistance based buttons which is what the rx8 uses so I did not need to spend 60$ more on a steering wheel control box.

Overall I am super happy with it. You can email them and they will send you an updated flash file to use as the boot screen wallpaper of your choice. I plan to do that at some point too. The install kinda sucked as you gotta mess with the hvac buttons and it is pretty tedious.

Next steps are to get rid of the Bose amp and speakers as I can tell they are on their way out. I plan to get a 4 channel and tap into the OEM speaker wires but this is not super critical right now as the current setup is working.

Backup camera seems to work well and I ordered a holder for it.

• 3.5mm Microphone HD Voice Assembly Car Radio Mic Replacement for Kenwood Boss JVC Sony Jensen Alpine for Car Vehicle Head Unit Enabled Stereo DVD GPS (9.85 Feet Cable)
• Metra Electronics Mazda Rx-8 2004-2008
• SJoyBring 7" QLED Double Din Car Stereo - Wireless Apple CarPlay & Android Auto, 240W 4.2CHN, SWC, Bluetooth, FM/AM Car Radio, 2 Subwoofers Outputs, Backup Camera
• Car Reverse Rear View Backup Camera For Mazda RX-8 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009

 

[Easter Bunny]

Looks clean

 

[JohnnyTightlips]

Bump

Well I got tired of the rev9 suspension. Pretty sure it was worse than normal due to the previous owner lowering the car to the ground, it didn't even have bump stops anymore. I think the shocks were all shot. It felt like I was riding on nothing and the car would sound like I was falling off a cliff with any sort of decent bump. So I upgraded.

@andale927 suggested I look at the Meisterr coils as he has them on his miata and loves them. https://www.meisterr.com/products/meisterr-zetasport-coilovers-for-mazda-rx8-se3p-03-up/

Well I did and OMG they are so good. They are nice around town but still very sporty. It did lower the car some but it rides awesome and I have no scraping or clunking anymore. I did not adjust ride height or the dampers on them and they have been amazing. I have been driving around and just forgot about it and that is the best feeling when it is just doing the job and you don't have to think about it.


I had to get some longer bolts and add a washer so the Front Sway Bar mount did not ruin the new coils. This is relocated here for the LS swap.



I also replaced the rear sway bar end links.


One thing I did notice is that the coils Old and New don't filly cover the knuckle ear so if you over tighten the bolts on the rear lower it will just crush the coil bushing so you need to be careful. Previous owner crushed both the rev9 bushings. I talked to a few people with miatas and it is the same for them but they have never noticed any issues so I guess just keep the tq spec right.




I also picked up some fake wheels but they are certified and got some really good reviews. They about about 2lbs heavier than the fancy ones but cost 4x less.

18x9.5 Bronze Wheels Vors TR37 5x114.3 35 (Set of 4) 73.1 hoping to get some 255 40 on them.


Radio Upgrade AGAIN

Well my Android Auto headunit was awesome and worked great but after much thinking and tinkering I decided to get a headunit that is similar but runs full Android.

UX6S - Eonon 7" 2 Din Android Car Stereo – Wireless CarPlay & Android Auto, Qualcomm QCM6225, 8-Core, 6GB RAM 64GB ROM​

7 Inch Q-LED CarPlay & Android Auto Car Stereo UX6S | Eonon

Eonon UX6S, 7 inch universal 2 din car stereo with 8-Core 6GB RAM and 64GB ROM. Support wireless CarPlay and Android Auto, Brand new panel design with physical volume knob.

www.eonon.com

This took a while to fit as it is a little bigger and the knob sticks out but I think I got it looking good. I am going to move the other radio into my old van which will be really nice.

The main reason I switched is so that I can use RealDash "android app but also on windows and linux" and show the haltech data on the headunit vs adding gauges or doing a ton of extra work. Someone already did a ton of work on this so it was easy for me "mostly" I still have to tweak it for the data I want as they did it for a rotatory RX8. https://github.com/nextez/realdash_haltech?tab=readme-ov-file

USB to CAN Analyzer Adapter with USB Cable - https://www.seeedstudio.com/USB-CAN-Analyzer-p-2888.html

RealDash | Manuals | Supported CAN/LIN Adapters

realdash.net

The Can Analyzer worked right away and did not need anything special for android to use it "which is what I hoped" You do need to remove the jumper if you have other canbus devices as they will have the resistor already setup. I have it on the canbus with Haltech Wideband02 controller so it is doing the job.

Data is flowing but I need to do some tweaking to make sure I get the data I want and the gauges I want. You can do some really cool stuff with realdash like setting up logic so the screen will flash if oil pressure is below 20 psi over 1000 rpm or if oil temp is too high etc. The only thing that kinda sucks is there is no tool for building the themes so you gotta know some coding. You can edit the screen in the app but it is kind of clunky.

So far I am happy with the radio but I need to spend some time customizing it. It does have OBD built into it as well but I am not sure if it would do the haltech stuff so that is why I went with the USB.

 

[JohnnyTightlips]

Well it took some messing around but I got the gauges setup and working with real live data. I used a premade theme and then modified it. I had chatgpt help me create the xml file with the canbus. It took about 9000 hours or prompts and went into madness a few times but I finally got it. I probably would have been better off doing it myself. Head unit is working well so far just lots to figure out and tinker with but Android Auto and RealDash are working great.


I had some issues getting the data to be clean and not mess with my widebands. The WB2 is on the haltech can network. Below is what fixed it.

Realtech canbus Hub - seedstudio and wb2 plug into this
Seed Studio without Jumper
Seed Setudio set for Baud rate is 1228800
Realdash Can Network Set for 1mbps

I included the dash theme and xml files.

 

[Easter Bunny]

Every time.i drive our Odyssey with a big display I year for a button that would give a real time display like that. All the parts are right there!

 

[JohnnyTightlips]

Every time.i drive our Odyssey with a big display I year for a button that would give a real time display like that. All the parts are right there!

I know people have also got it working with the android auto add on displays. Might be able to do something like that if you wanted to add car play / android auto and get some gauges.

Connectivity issues- Haltech CAN

Hey @mOS_cOww , glad to know you’ve resolved your issues, I didn’t think to double confirm your NSP settings at the beginning to be honest… I’m happy to report that the IO Box Send functionality is now working perfectly with no timeouts @ 1.2Mbaud UART settings, so now we can happily emulate...

forum.realdash.net

 

[Easter Bunny]

i hadnt thought of that but it does have android auto, now i have to look for an app that will do it through android auto


seems like the newest update to torque might do it natively looks like i am ordering a bluetooth obd2 adapter

 

[Dan_s_young]

Thank you for the really good write up. One question on the wiring (which has been very useful for me by the way). You listed that you grounded 4E to chassis to trigger the EGI relay, but it looks like this would cause this relay to be closed constantly, even with the ignition off causing a possible parasitic draw?

 

[JohnnyTightlips]

Thank you for the really good write up. One question on the wiring (which has been very useful for me by the way). You listed that you grounded 4E to chassis to trigger the EGI relay, but it looks like this would cause this relay to be closed constantly, even with the ignition off causing a possible parasitic draw?

From the top of my head I am pretty sure it is only live when the key is set to ON or START. I can't recall if I tested it. I do have a draw which I have not tracked down but I was leaning towards the dying bose amp. Right now I just turn off the battery in the trunk when it might sit for a while. Fell free to let me know what updates need to be made to the spreadsheet if you find things out of place.

 

[JohnnyTightlips]

Updates:

I was not in a hurry to do this but it all kinda fell into place. A guy was selling the Ronin 8.8 kit for 500$ off because he never used it and dropped the project. It is currently on the way. This kit will allow me to drive the car like an idiot and do hard launches without worrying about the diff exploding. I plan to install a Eaton truetrac LSD. I am not sure when I will complete or start this as it is a big job and I have plenty going on but everything aligned up to get the parts together.




I then mentioned to a buddy that I was on a lookout for a Ford Explorer 8.8 pumpkin and axles and a day later he found me a good deal at a junk yard.




Tuning:

I have also been cleaning up the tune a little to be more specific to my driving style and feel how I expect it to drive. The tuner did an awesome job but these little tweaks are fun for me to do and make the car just that much better at around town driving. I was able to give it a little more down low so I can crawl in 1st without pushing the gas "nice for traffic" I was also able to adjust the throttle tables so it is more friendly around town and easier to keep it from chugging.
I also did some burble tune stuff for the lulz and it was WAY too aggressive and was like the battle of Gettysburg whenever I let off the gas so I need to adjust that lol. I would like it to have a little tiny bit of burble but if I can't get that I will just go back to my known good tune. It has been fun to try out new stuff and the haltech works great once you learn how to use it.
I did enable launch control for fun too and it is also VERY aggressive so I will need to adjust that was well.