STX RX-8: Introduction

This is my 2005 Mazda RX-8:

I bought it new in July of 2005 and since then, it's been through a lot:

And by that, I mean a lot of dirt

I started autocrossing the car back in 2008 with the Detroit Region of the SCCA. I started out driving it completely stock in our local Street Tire B Stock class. In 2009, I graduated to R compound tires to run in the nationally recognized B Stock class. I also began to travel a little bit more for events, hitting the large sites in Peru, Indiana, Toledo, Ohio and Oscoda, Michigan.

In 2010, I decided that I didn't want to have to buy more R compounds (they're super expensive and last less than 100 runs) and I wanted to tinker with stuff, so I made the leap to the Street Touring eXtreme (STX) class. I used the Koni Sport dampers that I had been running in Stock, added some coilover sleeves, machined some spring perch adapters to take 2.5" ID race springs, bought some wheels and tires, welded together a catted midpipe, and I was in STX for only about $1500.

Pictured: Really cheap suspension

The car handled pretty well from the get-go, netting me better indexed results than I had ever achieved in Stock class. Of course much of this could be attributed to experience, but it was also more fun than ever without the massive body roll brought on by the soft-spring/high-grip setup Stock setup. With just some alignment tweaking and driver adjustment, the car got better and better through the year. In fact, my co-driver at the Toledo Pro Solo took second place just behind the eventual STX national champion, while I coned away fourth place and ended up way back in tenth.

In 2011, I netted myself a co-drive in a friend's STU Mitsubishi Evolution IX (to continue my trend of jumping classes every year). The car is extremely well-built, featuring AST dampers and TONS of horsepower.

It's real pretty too

I ended up making my first trip to Solo Nationals in that car and having terrible results on one day and pretty good results the next.

For now, the plan is to go back to Nationals, with pretty good odds of driving my RX-8. This means that it needs to be close to the level of prep that the Evo is at so that it actually has some shot at being competitive. Unfortunately, I'm super cheap so I try to do everything the hard way rather than spending a few extra bucks to get bits and pieces that already exist. But, that affords me the opportunity to make stuff and get some fabrication experience. So, I'll be documenting some of the stuff I make/buy/modify for my RX-8 here on the blog.

Things on the list:
1. Intake
2. Little battery with custom billet tray/tie-down
3. New rear dampers
4. Custom full 3" exhaust, possibly including header
5. Cobb AccessPort and tune (well, this one is just paying somebody else)

Let's see how much of this actually gets done!