There's a well built roller available for good money. What's the least expensive motor to get it running with let's say at least stock power that will be reliable? Renesis? Older 13b? Pistons? One point dyno harness ran the Renesis that was in there before.
I love and fear the spinning Doritos..... Would the older 13b be more reliable and less fiddly? Is it v8 time?
Thoughts?
I'm going. I type good....
I'm itching to find an RX8 roller and drop in a warmed-over 2.5 MZR.
Ooh! He card read good!
Good working V8 swaps are still somewhat mythical in these cars, not impossible but lots of $$$$.
Any 13b swap is far from a drop in affair and has a lot of finicky adjusting and reengineering from my understanding so not quick.
A Renesis is the most reliable rotary out there as much as others might not want to say it, and remember it is just a drop in, but if you are going to be buying a roller why not get a good street port before you put the engine back in?
Either way good luck and ask yourself how much $$$ would you want to put in to it?
renesis is the easy button. v8 swaps are thin on the ground - then again - engine swapping a bare shell vs a street car is a different animal than trying to make all the street stuff work. There's also the factor of classing stock vs modded.
JtspellS wrote: A Renesis is the most reliable rotary out there as much as others might not want to say it
My opinion is that the NA 13B that came in the S4 FCs was probably the most reliable rotary ever. Back in the 90s when there were still lots of FB and FC RX7s running around, many of them had 150-200k on the original engines. I'm not seeing that with the RX8s.
JamesMcD wrote:JtspellS wrote: A Renesis is the most reliable rotary out there as much as others might not want to say itMy opinion is that the NA 13B that came in the S4 FCs was probably the most reliable rotary ever. Back in the 90s when there were still lots of FB and FC RX7s running around, many of them had 150-200k on the original engines. I'm not seeing that with the RX8s.
TBH I did not even think of the early S4's, I have to agree completely with that, IMHO I think what helped a little with that is that is people still were willing to take care of vehicles in that timeframe where as with the renesis everyone then (and now) see a Japanese car and figures it will take anything like a honda (its a compliment I promise) and treat as such, but it also did not help that they had to turn out such a large number in such a short time which lead to less then stellar build quality of the early models.
oldtin wrote: renesis is the easy button. v8 swaps are thin on the ground - then again - engine swapping a bare shell vs a street car is a different animal than trying to make all the street stuff work. There's also the factor of classing stock vs modded.
I don't think an LS swap would be all that bad in a race car. The tricky part seems to be interfacing with all the CANBUS stuff to make things like gauges work.
22RE.... 
I swapped an NA S4 13B in my RX8, I'd gamble it's pretty close to stock Renisis power with a big street port and a 4 barrel intake.
As simple as that swap sounds it's still complicated. The stock ecu is running the electric power steering and alternator control while Megasquirt-3 runs the engine. I have a goal to ditch the stock ECU but it's a ways out. Hopefully MS3 CAN broadcasting is the answer. The RX8 temp and coolant "gauges" are analog idiot lights with huge dead bands. I'm just running a windows tablet for real engine data.
oldeskewltoy wrote: 22RE....
Dude, as a fellow Toyota enthusiast I hope that was a joke-
Edit- reread it, definitely a joke.
whats the scoop on the build does it operate ABS and original ECU? thats the big question, if its just a regular rx8 I would say renesis. otherwise it would be close between stock reney or a mild wankel.
How much else is missing from the roller? Is the ECU present? PPF?
The ECU is coded to the car, so if that's gone, you may have to incur additional expenses if you want to run a Renesis. I'm assuming it's missing the motor and gearbox, but check how many other small bits are missing from the engine bay. The more that are missing, the more expensive it's going to get to just drop a Renesis in there again.
I rode in a 1JZ swapped RX8 once. That was 2007 when motorsets were pretty cheap and I have no clue what they go for now. That was a nice combo though.
LS engine is definitely possible in the platform - we've got the tools to make the gauges and everything else work. But it'll cost money.
Easy install would be an MZR - use an NC Miata subframe and you can bolt it up. Getting it to work can be a bit of a pain, but there are companies that sell standalone controllers for that engine.
Thanks for the feedback. The car is not to far from where I work so a lunchtime visit is in order to see what's included. More to come.
In reply to Keith Tanner:
Add a supercharger and I would be extremely intrigued..........
Adaptronic is about a month away from having a plug and play solution to the CANBUS problem.
Already available for preorder
I'm two weeks away tops from ordering one for myself. Then it's 13B-REW single turbo swap time.
JtspellS wrote: In reply to Keith Tanner: Add a supercharger and I would be extremely intrigued..........
That is a fully solved problem 
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