I had my Miata in the shop and got to see a couple of new RX-8's up close - I have to admit that I am impressed. The cars are much smaller in real life than what I expected them to be, and as such - look much better in person than in the pictures. (They look OK in the pictures, but real good, IMHO, in real life).
I am also impressed with the amount of space in the rear seat and the interior looks rather nice.
If this thing drives as nice as it seems - they have a winner here.
Ron.
The silver and the titanium gray are beautiful and the yellow is fine. Our local dealer expects to have a demonstrator available for test drives in the next couple of weeks.
Tim Herbst
94 VR baseSo...who will be the first to drop that wonderful motor into a Miata? How easy/hard would it be?
Isn't some future version of the Miata supposed to be based on the RX-8 chassis? At that point, the rotary swap might be a lot easier. Of course, when that happens there may already be an RX-8 coupe that is a, er, Miata with a rotary engine and no swap will be necessary.
I'm not sure if that move will be a good thing, but it seems likely to preserve the value of the MK-1 and MK-2 cars. ;)
Bwob stated recently on the Miata.net forum that Mazda no longer plans to use the Rx-8 chassis for the NC Miata. According to him, it will have it's own platform.
Rick
In the past, people have also noted that this is not an inherent problem of a rotary, a standard engine having sumps and such to raise the axis, though it is true for the RX-7 engine. Don't know about the RX-8 engine in this respect.
Leon
I suppose a custom transfer shaft is always possible, if you're a mechanical engineer.
weight ..... try lifting a V8 by yourself !!!
Tim.
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