A lot of magazine writers are bad mouthing the RX8 if not out and out
slandering it. These jerks must not know how to drive a six speed. We filled
up in El-Centro, ran three or four max acceleration runs to
90 or 100 MPH at Agua Caliente airport and then drove home to West LA on one tank
of gas. That roughly works out to about 20 MPG. Part of the time we
were just keeping up with traffic on I-15 at 90 MPH cruise. Sorry Ernesto.
We had several max effort high speed passes on two lane roads between Agua Caliente and 
Temecula. The rest of  the time 70 or 80 MPH was typical. We had to climb
from sea level up to about 4000 feet and back down to sea level.  
Also we drove from west San Diego up over a 4200 foot pass and down
to sea level again in El Centro right around 100 miles on 4 gallons
or right around 25 MPG.

It is real easy to forget you are in fourth or fifth instead of sixth
gear in the RX8 as the engine is so smooth and quiet. If you do that 
the engine goes into a low intake manifold pressure, high RPM mode that 
results in operating the engine in a high BSFC part of the fuel consumption map.
See a typical BSFC  map below. 

If you drive it around at 5000 to 6000 RPM... yes you will burn lots of extra fuel.


Paul Lamar
 
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