The Full Frame

This is my review of the Esmeril Racing Turbo Kit for the Mazda RX8

http://esmerilracing.com/

I bought this kit during the Christmas special of 2007. I purchased the kit for $5000 without engine management. At the time of this purchase this was the single most powerful turbo kit that one could buy for the RX8.

Click Picture to begin Slideshow:

Track Review

So I did a track day today. I had to call it quits since my gauge pod came off my dash and was flopping around, making it difficult to take corners whilst trying to hold the gauge pod. I did get a good impression of the kit though.

Ambient = 60 degrees.
Session run time = max of 20 minutes.
AFRs = tuned to 10.2-11.0 @ 10psi
Tires = Azenis RT 615s, 30% thread left.
Max track straight = 1/8 mile

Well, there was a little smoking (small puff from under hood) as the heat shielding got further settled into high heat use. I did a nice warmup lap before I got her into boost before every session.

Cars I murdered on the straights (couldn’t catch me, I just kept pulling away):

C5 z06 vette
another c5 z06 vette
04 GTO
Elise
R32 Volkswagen
G35
s2000
05 M3

Watching me pull hard from a vette is truly an exhilarating experience. Truly this power/weight ratio is something to be reckoned with!

In the corners: I had some pretty bad tires (well I would say maybe they were at allseason stickiness at this point), but I have enough experience with the RT-615 tires to know that they are far from their prime.

Typically a huge point of the kit is the oversized turbo for the RX8 application. Usually this size of turbo is better suited to a V8-V12 application due to the large amount of lag that would be present upon trying to use it with smaller engines. Well in practical use the huge turbo stayed spooled up over the entire course. I learned that instead of being able to go from WOT to slightly off WOT like I would have been able to do N/A I had to take my foot slightly more off the throttle to get the BOV to activate or else I would get some slight surge in the higher revs. Easy enough, its only a minor change in driving style after the first few laps. This could be avoided, however, by using a sequential BOV like the HKS SSQV.

The power!

Having a huge turbo spooled up over the entire track has its ups and downs. I no longer had to stay at the brink of 8-9K to achieve max power over the course, I took the entire course 1 gear higher than normal, which I thought was a very nice change from constantly shifting to stay in the narrow upper powerband of the N/A engine. The bad: when approaching the corner I would heel-toe and this would blow off the boost. But don’t let this fool you! That boost gauge my say 0psi in the corner, but the turbo is still at full spin! Anything but the most precise foot throttle movements will bring the turbo online and give a near instant 6-10psi and its accompanying 300+hp. And I’m talking slight! At first it was a bit uncontrollable and I left the DSC on. As I became more used to how much pedal movement would activate the boost in the corner I took the DSC off. I did some pretty nice powerslides I must say. It really was surprising how easy it is to control this car, even in its new high power state!

The sound:

People who know me and my setup from other track days remarked this about the sound:

Sounds super aggressive, the spool up sounds really aggressive, and I like the wastegate to atmosphere, really lets them know you are boosting. and that BOV is nice and mean, just a massive woosh

About the noise of wastegate to atmosphere:
It is less than the catless midpipe that I had on last year.

THE HEAT!

Well, first off, the heat shielding and the exhaust wrap held up nicely, even with the wrapped radiator pipes touching the downpipe had zero problems with structural integrity.

It did get super hot though, at 60 degree ambient, boosting pretty continuously at 10psi for 20 minutes, oil temps were about 220 Fahrenheit. Water was around the same also. As I kept hammering WOT every chance I got, I noticed the coils starting to overheat a bit also, I started getting some misfires. I was running the stock plugs 7s and 9s and had no problems with ping or detonation. Probably lucky on my part so I will switch to all 9’s before the next event.

Sure the temperatures sound good in its current state but I’m positive that a vented hood, A/C removal, and radiator upgrade will be the gold standard for anyone that wants to seriously track a 300+hp RX8. A third oil cooler is looking like a very good option at this point.

The intercooler held up great! I could feel hot air on the inlet side and nice cold air on the exit side.

Wastegate held up great also! Steady 10psi every time I boosted, no surprises or weird noises.

Overall:

Esmeril Turbo on track = car feared and revered by everyone. I got a new respect from the BMW and vette guys as they see the rx8 as a serious challenger.

The heat = Needs several upgrades for track sessions, but looks just fine for street and autocross use.

Parts quality = Everything preformed exactly as it should, BOV blew off when it should, wastegate had no chatter and opened smoothly each time, turbo spooled more and more quickly the hotter it got, sounded great no smoking even after hammering it. Heat shielding worked great (even though I added some extra aluminum tape than what comes in the kit) Tapped oil pan worked great!

Two thumbs up