rx8dude907

Yesterday i went to the dealership and got my car aligned,..well as the guy test drove it to make sure it was off allignment he was hot roding a lil bit i was like WTF! u doing.Supposenly im suppose to drive the car hard and thats what the car is make.He said that if i dont drive it aggresively that im going to mess up the engine. he said that the people who baby there cars are more likely to have problems than the ones who do hot rod them his theory was mazda is noticing a carbon build up and driving it hard is the only solution.is this true? or did that guy just want to have fun with my car?

8is>enuff

Yes you're supposed to redline it on occasion to break up any carbon deposits in the chambers (search "carbon deposits")

Yes, he wanted to have fun with your car. It should be up to you to redline it, not some shmuck at a dealer.

missinmahseven

Let it warm up well wait a few minutes after temp needle gets up to 'normal' -- then go have fun. Redline it a couple of times (in gear, car moving) and it'll be a happy motor.

Example:

When I used I-95 to commute (30 mile, 60 minutes in 2nd gear creep-crawl traffic) my engine oil would get black within a couple of weeks. That black is carbon. That's an unhappy motor.

Now I use a toll road (28 miles, 45 minutes) -- but in that road I can cruise at 70 avg. Oil stays clean for the duration... just a little darkening. The car feels and sounds much happier. I get to redline it 2 gears coming out of the tollbooths. Every day.

Running it well is great for the engine... and in a sportscar, for the driver too.

This is not just the rotary engine -- it seems the higher performing the engine is, the more true this becomes. My Miata was the same way. My old Rx-7 was the same way. The two folks I knew that had Ferraris were even worse... you *really* had to beat 'em silly to keep 'em happy..

416to212

I firmly believe that you should just kick the crap out of a 4 cylinder and the RX8 once in a while to just blow out all the carbon in the valves and in our case ports. 4 cylinders and Rotarys where just made to rev high and hard.

Winning 8

carbon build up will cause ports sticking, and loss compression.
got to red line it a few times to break up the carbon build up.
beside you got 9k of rpm, got to use it some times.

captain mercury

all this is true, but i wouldnt expect some guy at a dealership to drive a customer's car in a way that would concern the customer. maybe if he had explained this BEFORE hot rodding and got some permission it would be a different story, but it doesnt sound like that is what happened. no one wants to see someone else driving their car hard.

cjkim

at least you know now.

Joe_914

That's a good thing to know.
However I agree the guy at the shop has no business hot rodding your car. The shop has to carry insurance incase a bone head wrecks your car. I bet if you brought it to the managers attention the guy would be out on the street.

Back when I had my 928 I made it perfectly clear that the car WAS NOT to be driven after alignment. I will drive it period.

So I am hanging out in the lounge see the car come down off the rack. Tech starts rolling down the lot towards the road. Good Thing I can run fast. Tech was disappointed and when We returned to the shop the Manager got a chewing like there was no tomorrow.

So no excuse for it.

Razz1

Hot Rod is a mater of perception.

crossbow

To lend some evidence to this theory...

Last year I drove down to VIR (roughly 4.5 hour trip, virginia international raceway) to attend some High Speed Drive Education courses.

On the way down, I got roughly 26-27 mpg (I'm in a mazda 6s here unfortuantly), and had to fill the tank up once.

After two days of eight 25 minute plus sessions (last sessions were usually longer), we sadly had to go home. My car was never more responsive or grunty then when I drove home from the track. The difference between the ride down and the ride back was night and day (and bout 25% less tread).

Additionally, I made it home on a single tank, and pulled nearly 30 mpg, a 3-4 mpg improvement. And this was under "caravan" conditions, for those who know what that is.

And for those who don't know, or those who baby your car, being at the track basically means your car is in the upper 2,000 rpm range the ENTIRE session. Down the straights I'd be at 6500 rpm (remember poor sad 6), for a good 20 seconds or so, flying down in fourth at roughly 120 or so.

Carbon is for plants and animals, not engines.

Stavesacre21

I really find this interesting, because I've always lived in the age-old train of thought that runnin yur car at higher RPM's really do wear the engine quicker. The carbon deposit deal does sound like a good point. I guess that on my 4.6L V8 in the Cobra, I try to not redline her too often because you start to get some engine tick from lifters/sparkknock, but I guess i'm just now realizing that half those moving parts don't exist in the rotary...then engine really is like no other.

Maybe it has something to do with the fact that the faster the rotary revs, it only spins in one direction WHILE a piston engine simply means that faster RPM's are equal to more and more violent directional changes of the pistons.

I'm getting a lil ancy to get out of the 1000 mile break-in range....but i wanna do this right. Having a car like this and not being able to take her above 4K for another 900 miles is like having a lottery ticket and not checking if you've won!

Thanx for the pointers though...I have noticed that sitting at 3K in this car feels about equivalent to sitting at 2K in either of my other cars...so the extended power range makes sense!

Joe_914

Need to let the wife read this thread. Maybe she will let me take her "Broom" to the next DE.
There is really no place else to safely open up the RX-8 under load for long enough to make a difference.

jaguargod

This makes no sense! Some dealerships are telling owners to do this, and other dealerships are voiding warranties because of the same driving style. Which is it, Mazda?

missinmahseven

^ None of my business, and I dunno which one of the documented "voids" in this forum you're referring to, but banging the limiter or shift beeper *AFTER* the car's properly hotted up is *not* the same as oh, bangin' gearz, dumping clutch at 6000+ rpms (to get a m4d launch yo), etc.

See those things *can* break cars. Kissing the redline in a sportscar isn't bad for the engine. Driving it like a drag car is. But of course, now I'll get accused of saying the car's made of glass.

missinmahseven

o.O I would've thought the 4.6 liter twincam ford is a decent motor, capable of running hard all day long without breaking a sweat.. including repeated and enthusiastic trips to the redline.

Piston engines tend to get ragged/rough near redline.. that's how we shift 'em.. when they start feeling like crap. The wankel, on the other hand, is so smooth they had to put a buzzer (now beeper..dammit) on the cars to tell you to shift.. I've caught myself doing 70 in 4th gear.. oblivious to the fact.

BTW, if that 4.6 twinkie your Ford has has hydraulic lifters, there's nothing you can do.. she'll tick when cold, till the oil warms up.. old miatas are the same thing.. clicketyclacketytappety when cold (or with dirty oil)

SOlution? Drive the snot out of it

captain mercury

great question. ive wondered the same myself.