So last post went over how I got the RX-8 and that I found the motor was blown. At this point, my immediate decision was to go out and buy a rebuilt Renesis. In the meantime, I decided to pull the blown motor out. I rolled the car into the garage and got to work on it.
Without this turning into a DIY on how to pull the motor, I referenced this guide, which is a really good how to post on everything you need to do. Although you do need to be careful of your OMP, I would also suggest you take care of your clutch line. I ended up ripping this when I pulled the motor out, and replaced it with one of these braided clutch lines. Also, to reach the top bellhousing bolts, you can actually access these easier by lowering the motor and taking them out from the engine bay with some ratcheting wrenches. Once you pull the motor out, you can reinstall the crossmember to let the trans have something to sit on.
why is the ground soaking wet you ask? because my exhaust had almost a GALLON OF COOLANT IN IT
Once I pulled the motor, I resisted the urge to lower it in the trashcan, and put it somewhere safe in case I need sensors or parts from it. At this point, I removed that horrible fuzzy crap that comes standard on the RX-8 engine bay walls, and cleaned the area up real nice.
I had a while to think about engine ideas. I like the rotary and I think it's a really cool motor. Unfortunately, with my power goals, I was worried that I would ruin it by trying to boost it. The idea of spending upwards of 3-6k for a new engine, only to blow it up after a few thousand miles didn't sounds good to me. I thought about 13B-REW swapping it, and researched this thoroughly for a while. Although it would be awesome and I'd love to do it, the price tag didn't seem so nice; around 10k-15k for the swap. I didn't really give LS swapping an actual thought. Even though V8s are fun and torquey, I worry I'd ruin the handling of the RX-8 chassis by putting a big heavy motor in the front of the car.
Now how did I settle on a K Swap? I've driven a couple Hondas, specifically an RSX Type S with the K20A2 motor in it. I really like the motor and VTEC, but also that it could handle lots of power on the stock internals. That makes it a great starter motor, not to mention, it's a four cylinder which weights only slightly more (around 20 to 40lbs) fully dressed than a Renesis. I found that Collins Performance Technologies makes an RX-8 K Series Swap Kit. I'm not affiliated with them at all, but they've had great customer support for me, and shipped my kit out literally the day after I ordered it. After the kit shipped with the stage 3 clutch, I paid around $2300 for it. This comes with almost everything I need to fit the motor into the car, apart from a steering column adapter they recommend to use, since I'll be lowering the steering rack down to make room.
The plan for the swap is to do it for less than $6000. I'll cover how I plan to do that in the upcoming posts where I'll start documenting the swap. stay tuned for the next post where I'll be fitting the engine into the car.
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