Silver7

If there is a reprogramming fix I would hope that mazda would issue a recall or at least contact all rx8 owners to make them aware of this. Please keep us posted on this.

shebam

I think I was just a victim -- initially blamed the Immobilizer, which indeed is blinking, but recall that I briefly moved the car Thursday morning -- had not read this thread and was not aware of flooding potential. Would not start tonight and now at the dealer. Hope they can handle on a Sat. morning as I must go 600 miles to get home! Ugh.

dablues

Picked up my car today. Talked to the service rep and I guess I misunderstood him when he said there was a fix. At least I got an oil change and the car was cleaned inside and out. I guess I'm lucky it happened in my garage and not 600 miles from home.

Silver7

I am interested to see how many people have had this happen to them more than once. The reason I am asking is because when mine flooded, I pulled out the plugs and they looked horrible. There was a thick oily residue on them. The trailing plugs looks much worse than the leading plugs. I am wondering if this is something that was caused by the break in of the engine. I know the motor has to burn off all the lubricants used while building the engine. I don't know for sure, but I am assuming the dealer replaced the plugs when it was brought in. Since then I have started the car and shut it down prematurely with no flooding issues. I am thinking that a clean set of plugs installed after break in may reduce the chance of flooding to occur. What do you guys think?

hunn

Just had mine towed to the dealer. Was backing out of the garage and it just died and wouldn't restart. Tried holding throttle open to no avail.Got it back and the reason was flooding. Dealer "deflooded" which involved removing spark plugs and cranking engine with fuel system disabled. Cleaned plugs and reinstalled and engine fired. New cars shouldn't be prone to flooding, especially fuel injected cars. I'm concerned.....

hunn

Has anyone had it flooded more than once? If not, this might support the engine assembly lube/plug coating theory.

chuck246

Well, count me among the "flooded".

Walked out to the car, started it, put it in reverse, and stalled it.

Tried to re-start, to no effect. Followed the instructions for "flooded engine" in the owner's manual. (Repeatedly) Still no effect. Tried again this a.m. You guessed it. No effect, except a significantly discharged battery.

Called the dealer and set up an appointment to have it "de-flooded".

Called "Mazda Roadside Assistance" to get it towed to dealer.

Now, here's the interesting bit, the response from the individual that I talked to at Mazda Roadside Assistance was - "RX-8, oh, we get two or three of those a day." (This followed my description of the problem I was having.)

Statistically relevant? Well, I would think that Mazda would think so.

thered1996

It's always been my understanding that cold-starting produces more wear and tear than any other automotive activity. I was taught by my avionics engineer father that you should always try to avoid shutting down any cold engine.

But there's no avoiding errors with a new car and a new clutch:

This is a very valid and unavoidable mishap and brings the flooding issue into sharp relief.

One slip-up and you may need to send your car off to the dealer on a flatbed. Not good.

After reading posts, here are some proposed rules for the treatment of our cars:

1. "Never put it away wet" -- it's an old nautical saying -- run the car up to temp or don't start it.

2. If you need to wash it, have an assistant help you roll it on to the driveway from the garage. Drive it afterwards 5 minutes to dry.

3. Do not loan your RX8 to people who are 'rusty' or new to manual-shift transmissions.

Maybe Mazda could retrofit these cars with a fuel cutoff switch. In this way we could crank a little to clear the extra fuel vapor. I'm thinking a big red handle under the hood which would open the throttle, activate oil injection and disable ignition & fuel.

- Eric H., Marietta, GA
2004 RX8 (titanium)
1976 Alfa Romeo Spider (rosso)

yellowGT8

I have just gotten home after picking up my car from the dealer. It took a ride there this morning on the back of a roll back after it stoped running then refuesed to restart. It was started and run for appx. 1 min. when it shut down from 1400 rpm as recorded on the prom. It would not restart or even try to fire. A victom of "wash out" or no compression from flooding. After pumping the motor out (spark plugs removed and cranking with the starter) changing the oil as it was contaminated with fuel and installing new spark plugs were on the road again. The dealear told me he had two in today with the same problem. Both were low mileage cars. Mine has 4000 on the od. This is a real problem.

shebam

Mine started when the dealer followed the Mazda crank 10-sec. to the floor and then 10-sec. off the accelerator regime. (This is also in the manual but they DON'T say why.) He downloaded a Mazda dealer memo on what to do; next step was to pull the plugs, etc. (This was an L-M dealer for whom Mazda is secondary and the "Mazda tech" did not come in that Saturday after Thanksgiving. Lucky this worked and that dealer svc. was open on Sat. or I'd have been stranded 530 miles from home.)

Car seemed to run fine thereafter and from Ann Arbor back to D.C., but mileage was 1 MPG down from the trip out (but we had a headwind....). I ran it up to 8500 a few times hoping to clear any residual fouling, as plugs were not inspected. Have service appointment next week, however, and will ask dealer to check (1) whether the old oil has any gasoline in it and (2) whether plugs are fouled or bad looking in some way.

Wonder if this has happened in valet parking lots where cars get shuffled around? A truly evil problem.

8_wannabe

Excellent question. I know a restaurant in Old Town San Diego that has ONLY valet parking at night. I'm not going there anymore, or at least not in the '8. Despite how much you tell them, you can't trust these kids to treat your car with the care you would yourself. And it's not really their fault: What you would consider normal driving for a piston engine could spell death to a rotary (like shuffling cars around in the crowded valet lot. Lots of cold starts and quick shutdowns.)

Considering the inconvenience and expense if they mess up, I'm sure they would disclaim all liability and leave your stranded. No valets for me, thank you.

WoodyCH47

My car wouldn't start, called dealer he mentioned flooding. First time I had heard of this. Waited till next morning attempted start, no luck. Car is being towed, hopefully this is a rare event.

Rx-Appreci-8

Not yet, but it IS reason # 35982354 that I'm glad to be a member of this forum. Now I'm carrying tools in the trunk in case the procedure in the manual doesn't work and, in a pinch, I decide to temporarily disable injectors, remove spark plugs, crank and reinstall cleaned/dry plugs.

Thanks to all who shared their experiences thereby giving the rest a heads up!

8_wannabe

Read what balletsushigirl has to say at this thread.

"today i picked up my spacepug from the mechanic (oil light sensor issue fixed with new oil pan). they brought my car around and shut the engine off cold. given that this is a mazda dealership, should we be able to trust that they know how to care for the rotary engine? should i complain or let it go?"

Brian_TII

One thing that has always worked well for the 2nd generation RX-7's is to inject a little automatic transmission fluid to help to restore compression. IMHO I would do this with the 10 sec cranking with the pedal to the floor.

On the issue with the spark plugs looking nasty, I've never seen a rotary engine with clean plugs... broken in or not

One other option would be to install a turbo timer. These little devices keep your car running for a set period of time after you remove the key. (although I don't know how well it would work with the new cars) With my RX-7 if I have to move it, I move the car and set the turbo timer for ~8 minutes. I've never flooded the car this way. I don't think I've ever really had my TII flood, although I've always known NOT to EVER shut it off cold...

rotarygod

As with most of my posts this will probably turn into a book so before you read any farther just be warned that you should probably take all of your bathroom and food breaks now if you intend to read this! We get up to 20000 characters max per post so I will exercise my right to use them!

I see many people wonder why the rotary floods so easily and ask why it takes so long for it to unflood. Luckily I know what actually happens in the engine and now you will to.

First of all I'm going to explain through a real example of what can happen to your engine when flooded. When I say flooded I mean high water flooded not fuel flooded. I will get to that as well in chapter 2! 5 or 6 years ago my friend Chad and I met a very distraught 3rd gen RX-7 owner who had foolishly driven his car into high water. The water got into the intake and right into the engine. The engine died and would not restart for obvious reasons. The car sat in a parking lot for a couple of days until we could get there with a trailer to haul it back to my friend's place to work on it. Typically when water gets in your engine it is time for a new one. The first thing we did is to remove the spark plugs. Water poured out of them. Yep, I'd say it was flooded! The intercooler came out next and again more water was poured out. We pulled the intake manifold off and drained it. There was water sitting in the turbo manifold and the exhaust. It was getting impressive. When all was said and done we poured out a few gallons of water from the whole engine assembly!!! We turned the engine with a big ratchet and noticed that it still turned fine. We used a mirror and looked into both exhaust ports (this won't work on the Renesis) at the apex seals as the engine was spun over. They all looked fine. We didn't expect that. Rather then go all out and remove the engine for rebuild we made the decision to put the whole thing back together. If anyone here has ever worked on a 3rd gen RX-7 engine then you know what kind of a nightmare the vacuum lines are. We were afraid that we'd still have to undo them again later and 70+ vacuum lines on and off twice sucks! Anyways we got the car back together 100%. Tried to start the car. The engine just free spun. No compression pulses or anything. We installed new plugs since we first tried the old ones. Nothing. We poured a little atf (automatic transmission fluid) into the spark plug holes. I'm not taliking pints here just a couple of ounces each. I don't care what anyone says, it does NOT build compression. What the atf does do is to soften up the carbon deposits within the engine. We then cranked the engine over for a while and actually started to get a very small amount of compression. Knowing that you can start ANY rotary engine that isn't seized by pulling the car down the street in gear, we decided to do just that. BTW, I have actually started a rotary with a blown apex seal that scored up the housings and killed a bearing by pulling the car down the street in gear. Ran like crap but the point is that if you can't get the car started do this. OK back on track now. We pulled the car down the street behind Chad's truck in 2nd gear at about 15-20 mph or so. We kept trying to get it to start. Finally after about 2 miles of pulling the car tried to start. We started getting excited now! After a little more pulling the car did start but sounded like absolute crap. If the engine was shut off we couldn't get it restarted and would have to repull it. As another little side note, when atf burns in the engine you have the most impressive smoke machine out the exhaust the world has ever seen for about a half an hour! Words can't even begin to describe but we were damned sure the fire department would arrive. Once we got the car started the main goal was to keep it there. We noticed that the longer it was running the better it would run. Did this mean it would return to full power? We were just happy that it was running at all. We only left it this way for a few minutes. Now that we knew the engine could run it was important to get new fluid in the car. If the engine was in fact alright, we didn't want to mess it up. ALL of the fluids were changed, tranny, oil, antifreeze, brake fluid, etc. Hell we even topped up the windshield washer reservoir. After this was done we once again tried to start the car. Almost but not quite. It wanted to though. After a quick pull a few feet we got it going again. We let it idle for about 2 hours monitoring temperature and looking for leaks and noticed that it ran much better after this. We drove the car around the subdivision with several runs up to redline over the next 2 days. The engine felt good and started perfectly but the power wasn't there. Oops forgot to put a very important line from the turbo to intercooler back on! Re-installed it and holy crap that car ran good!!! A 3rd gen engine brought back from the brink of death and it was perfect!

OK if you're still with me now I'll get to the technical stuff and explain why this happened. On a piston engine, the piston rings have sharp edges. The rotary engine's apex seals are rounded on top. This is due to the fact that the apex seals rotate in relation to the rotor housing as the rotor moves around it's phases. A piston ring always has the same surface contact and consequently does not develop this rounded appearance. When water gets into a piston engine, it fills the combustion chamber. When the piston moves upward and the valves close, the water has nowhere to go. Remember that water can not be compressed only pressurized. At this point something has to give. The piston rings usually do and they allow ring parts and water to flow down into the engine crankcase and oil pan. Viola, one dead engine in need of a rebuild. A rotary does something very unique though. When water fills up the rotor housing and the port closes, a small amount of water is also under the rounded tip of the apex seals. Since water can not compress, the pressure exerted on the water is redirected at the apex seal. This results in the seal pushing upwards into its groove and the water passes by into the next chamber and so forth and so on until it finds a way to leave. The 3rd gen we had, had water sitting in the engine for a few days. The seals just stayed back in the grooves and the small amount of carbon around them ended up temporarily glueing them in their grooves. This was why even though the inside of our engine was dried out, we had no compression. This is what the atf was for and it was what weakened the carbon's hold on the apex seals. Now just because this engine was fine does not mean that every rotary that gets flooded will be OK. I'm sure the amount of sediment in the water had it's long term affects on that engine. The air filter can only do so much for such a large rushing volume! As with detontation, once may kill it or it may survive many. There is no telling but it should give you some comfort in your little engine's abilities.

Now as to why the engine floods so easily from fuel. It doesn't take hardly any amount of fluid to get a rotaries apex seals to push back slightly. The same thing is happening with fuel even in small amounts. A fuel injector may leak or there may be some residual fuel from the last run still hanging out in the engine. Maybe it was cranked for too long. Who knows? The point is that just enough fuel was present in the rotor housing that the apex seal was moved slightly into it's groove. It doesn' t take much to let all of the pressure escape into another chamber. What happens is that the fuel backs up along the back apex seal to that particular chamber. The small amount of pressure present from air compression has pushed up on the small amount of fuel under that particular apex seal and some of the pressure has bled back into the following chamber. It isn't much but when the engine is turning this slow, you need all the compression you can get. Ever tried to get a big mammoth low compression V-8 started? It sucks doesn't it! If the started could turn the engine twice as fast, we'd never hear of a flooded rotary at startup. When people flood their cars, the first thing they do is to keep cranking it like it is still going to start. You are only making it worse! As with my above story, you can almost always push start the car by popping the clucth. This usually does it but I've had my car flooded bad enough that we had to pull it. Interestingly enough when you flood the engine bad enough, as with the water you may also still have little to no compression for a little bit while cranking. It might just sound like free spinning. This is the sign of alot of fuel. The plugs also get fouled and this only makes matters worse. Don't go spend $40 for new ones. Just take them out, clean them and reinstall them. You shouldn't have to do this unless you really messed up though. The cause of flooding on the 1st and 2nd gen RX-7's was typically due to old leaky fuel injectors. They can't close all the way so the leftover pressure in the lines pushes the fuel in the lines into the engine and floods it. Another cause on all RX-7's was that the car was turned off before it was warmed up. Those cars run really rich when cold. Remember it only takes a very small amoutn of fuel to cause this. The cure was always to find a fuse that went to the fuel pump and remove it. On the 1st and 2nd gen RX-7's this was within reach of the driver under the dash. You'd just remove the fuse and crank the engine for and few seconds. This gets all the gas out of the engine and doesn't allow any more to enter. Reinsert fuse and ther car starts every time! The Renesis will prove to be a pain in the butt here as the fuel pump is controlled directly by the ecu. If the fuel pump does not run off of a fuse that sends power to the ecu then this should work just fine. My concern is that with the computer control of the car that a CEL will come on. Then again maybe you can't do this and I am typing for nothing!

Well after all of this you should now know exactly how and why a rotary floods so easily and what ways there are to get the car started again. Sadly I can't be completely sure why the car just randomly floods if you are doing everything properly but at least I can explain the internal forces at work when it does! Unfortunatly I also am not sure how to quickly get the car started other than pushing it or pulling it and popping the clutch. Also as a disclaimer, I can not guarantee that if you drive through flood waters that your engine will definitely survive. If you are careless enough to do this don't blame me for it should it not survive. Why couldn't I write this long on reports back in school? If you got this far I sincerely thank you for taking the time.

rotarygod

I started an entire new thread that explains in technical terms what happens when the rotary floods and why it does. This should answer anybodies questions. It is also in the tech garage section.

Brian_TII

This is an interesting theory, however what proof do you have that the seals get stuck from normal fuel flooding? I believe this concept with the water in the motor in your case, however my experiences with rotary fuel flooding seem to point more towards the oil being removed and causing a lack of compression. I don't see how the fuse pull trick would work on several stuck apex seals. You would have to stick 4 of the 6 seals which I find hard to believe. When I've had them flooded badly there was NO compression. (meaning that 4 of the 6 would HAVE to be stuck with your theory)

With the RX-7 most of the fuel would be pushed out of the exhaust when the rotor turns over which would help to unflood the motor. With the side port of the Renesis, I can see how the problem could easily keep getting worse because the location of the exhaust port wouldn't lend itself to clearing fluid from the engine as quickly.

You make some interesting points however I would like to see further proof that this is occurring rather than one example that included water. At least with an RX-7 you would need a LOT of fluid entering that engine to "hydrolock it" since nearly all of it would get expelled from the exhaust port each time it past it. I believe that this fuel in the exhaust is why you get all of the white smoke after it's been badly flooded. (you get this smoke even without ATF)

Also, when the guys on the honda forums suck up water into their integra motors, they usually break rods, not rings...

Rx-Appreci-8

rotarygod

Don't apologize for sharing knowledge! I'm very familiar with piston engines but this is my first rotary.

I'm learning and very much appreciate your effort!

hunn

Interesting theory but I think it is more than just the inherent design of the apex seals. I'll advance a different theory, the fuel map designers who design the fuel schedules are walking a fine line between enough fuel for cold start, not too much fuel for cold start emissions, and the relatively poor thermodynamic efficiency of the rotary engine from a swept volume/cold surface area perspective; and haven't gotten it right yet. . Let me explain.. one reason low emissions are hard to attain in a rotary is the large surface area relative to combustion chamber volume..fuel likes to condense on the rotor face until things warm up. When I worked for Mikuni designing fuel injection systems we always struggled with the cold start problem on turbocharged piston engines; correct fuel maps that worked well under all conditions were very difficult to derive. I suspect that this issue is compounded with the rotary, not due to the apex seal design, but due to all of these other factors; there are cases where the fuel maps are wrong, the spark plugs foul, and the engine won't start. If it were solely a compression related issue, cleaning the plugs would do nothing. After all, the situation started with "clean plugs" in the first place. THe irritating leaking injectors in the later gen -7's would do just that, excess fuel would foul the plugs and the engine wouldn't start. With carburated rotaries, we would occasionally flood them (we worked with RX-2's, -3's, -4's, Cosmo, and 1st gen -7's), but in their case our foot controls the accelerator pump and we could insure that it wasn't still pumping in fuel as we cleared the flood. Not an apex design issue at all. In the injected -7's and -8's this isn't the case. Pull starting a car pumps lots of air through and may do more to clearing the plugs than "restoring" compression. I think there is a "corner" in the fuel map that is occasionally encountered where a cold engine is started (rich injector map to cold start), it dies (excess fuel in the combustion chamber coupled with fuel on the rotor face fouls the plugs), combustion doesn't happen, more fuel is pumped in and the engine won't ever start unless the plugs are pulled and cleaned. THis may be made worse with new engines if the plugs get coated with a slight coating of engine assembly lube (makes them more susceptible to not firing); hence my earlier inquiry if anyone has experienced flooding after the plugs have been cleaned once. ( I haven't yet but like many I'm reluctant to try!). The fix?..it wouldn't surprise me if new cars get a different fuel map software load that may or may not be available to existing owners... In the meantime, no throttle on cold starts, let it warm a bit before motoring, and enjoy!

Brian_TII

I agree that the spark plugs probably have something to do with it (possibly helping to get it to the "fully flooded" state), however I think there must be a loss of compression. The motor clearly sounds like it isn't making any compression and is just freely turning over.

rotarygod

The seals don't get stuck from normal fuel flooding. They merely have just enough pressure exerted on them from the buildup of fuel that they will allow pressure to bleed into the other chambers. When the engine is severely fuel flooded and seems to freespin, this doesn't mean that the seals are stuck. It merely means that there is quite a bit of fuel present inside the chambers that is still allowing some pressure to get by. If you keep cranking the engine, as it dries out you will hear the compression start to return. Pulling the fuse does not unstick the seals since they aren't stuck. It just allows the engine to be cranked over with no additional fuel entering so what is there has time to dissipate.

Good point on the side exhaust ports on the Renesis probably making unflooding harder due to the tendency to hold some through the next cycle. It doesn't take that much to flood a rotary at startup especially at such a slow speed. If the starter spun the engine much faster we'd never have this issue.

On a piston engine, seals breaking, rods breaking, etc. The point was that something has to give when the piston rings don't allow the pressure to bleed off around them.

Yep you do get some smoke when you start a rotary that has been flooded but with atf it is just sheerly impressive. It looks like you have a fire extinguisher in the exhaust blowing out the back of the car. Drive the car twice around the block like this and you'll swear that there must be a huge fire somewhere or that a huge fog bank rolled in. I just don't know how to emphasize how much smoke there is.

markpmm

Last time we cleared one from a "flood" situation

The Sams Club next door called the fire dept.