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| The 20B has a pretty complicated intake manifold. The manifold looks stock but was actually cut apart, ported and reworked into a plenum type manifold and welded back up. The throttle body is a late model GM 90mm LS6 part that is drive by wire and controlled by the Motec M800 tuned by none other than our own Eric Hsu. Two stage RC Engineering injectors are somewhere in there. 600cc for the first stage and 1000cc for the second stage. They are fed by an Aeomotive pump and regulator. |
In addition, I opted not to use use the factory 3-rotor throttle body and instead implemented a 90mm GM unit that uses a “throttle by wire” design. The Motec M800 is more than capable of controlling it. We also relocated the throttle body further downstream of the manifold to deter any effect of creating turbulence in the plenum. This design would make sure that all runners would be receiving equal amounts of air as well as equal delivery. In the end, the manifold and throttle body is extremely simple and functional but a pain in the ass to build.
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| The tubular header was fabricated from Inconel tubing from Burns Stainless. The tuned lengths were calculated by Jack Burns himself and the whole thing was fabricated by Steen Chassis. The fit of everything in the engine bay is so tight this is the best we could do for pictures! |
With the intake manifold area completed, the turbo side needed to be addressed. We employed the expertise of Tod Kaneko of Mazdaspeed Research and Development. He recommended a Tial dual ball-bearing unit GT40XSPL that had good characteristics in the lower RPM as well as great horsepower at higher RPM’s. Bottom line, it’s a bad ass turbo. We mated the turbo to a Burns Stainless Inconel manifold. Steen Chassis did all the fabrication on the manifold with recommendations for runner length from Burns and Tod Kaneko. With the manifold being fabricated from Inconel, the sucker was damn expensive but bulletproof to handle the 1500 degree plus temperatures in the exhaust manifold. Wastegate and blow off valve duties are all handled by Tial Sport.
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| A Tial BOV is used. |
To make matters even worse, we had to package a big whompin CSF radiator, a big whompin HKS Intercooler, and the big whompin Tial turbo into the front of the Mazda RX8. All of these components wanted fresh cool air to go through them. It took me two days to mock shoehorn all these items into the front of the mouth of the RX8 front bumper. It’s like having three kids yelling at you that they all want fresh air.
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| A Star Mazda 3 stage dry sump system is used. The pan is scavenged and fed to a Peterson 3 gallon tank located in the back of the car. Look how much lower the engine can be placed with the low profile dry sump pan! Everything was packed too tight to get a picture of the rest of the system! |
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| Bulkhead fittings for the dry sump system. The car uses plenty of Earl’s Ultra Flex fittings and Pro-lite hose. The Ultra Flex fittings are lighter and simpler. The Pro-Lite hose has a lightweight and non abrasive nylon jacket instead of stainless steel. The Ultra-Flex fittings must be crimped with special tooling. Baker Precision assembled all of the car’s crimped hoses for the team. The dry sump tank is located under the dash on the passenger side. |
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| Ron checking out the fuel level in the bladder equiped fuel cell. |
