sakmeeks

OK this is a long one guys so any help would really be appreciated.

Was experiencing power loss in my car over 5k rpms. It also takes a little extra gas to get going from a stop. I had an extra set of plugs so I replaced them no problem, cleaned the maf, and reseated the air filter (I put it in last week), reset ecs brake stomp, but didn't solve my problem of no power over 5k rpms.

Called the local shop and scored a deal on some coils and replaced the coils tonight before dark. One of the coils was cracked in the middle and another had a little white spot, but overall I felt they were in good shape. I've replaced bad coils before and didn't look as bad as what I've seen in the past. Reassembled, but wait! One of the threads where you put the coil over snapped off as I was tightening the nut. Unbelievable. I was lucky it didn't fall into the abyss somewhere and was able to find it. I put all the other coils back on normally, but had to twist tie the one down to be sure it didn't jiggle loose. It's on there pretty good for now, but definitely a temporary fix. Car fires up great, sounds good too.

Now for the real problem. I don't know how or where or why, but the car isn't holding coolant. I'm assuming it's a radiator leak, but I have no idea I'm not a mechanic only done minor things like oil changes/spark plugs/etc. I let the car warm up for a while (about 5 minutes) and gave it some gas in neutral and it went up in rpms fine the 1st time, but that was it. 2nd time the car started shooting out coolant out of the drain hose like crazy when I revved up the engine for about 10 seconds 6-7k rpms. I shut off the car and used a towel to catch most of the spray. I could see the coolant bubbling around inside the reservoir and coolant was dripping from the car under the radiator. Had to rearrange the drain hose and burnt the crap out of my hand in the process heh. At first it felt like the coolant is stuck in the reservoir and not getting into the engine, but I really don't know. Radiator could be cracked open for all I know I can't really see in there now it's dark out and really I have no idea what I'm looking for.

Had to pull over once on the way home to have the car cool off and add coolant again. (I'm paranoid and don't want the engine to fry.)

When I got home, I checked under the car for any signs of glowing cat but didn't notice anything glowing. The inside of the center console was definitely warmer than usual, which made me hope that it really was the cat.

Any kind of input would be helpful to me. I obviously need to take this into a shop, but I want to be prepared for the mechanic over there. Is it possible my motor is dead/dying? I got no CEL. The soonest I can get there is next Monday unfortunately. If anyone could shed some light onto this subject let me know. I will be searching all night, but not till after a couple beers. I'm starting to think owning an 8 lowers your life expectancy..lil stressed out at the moment.

Thanks for your time guys.

CRO8TIA

You can have the cooling system pressure tested or use a Hydrocarbon test that will show whether or not there is contamination of the cooling fluid. Is there water in your oil ?

sakmeeks

After searching around for a while I'm thinking the radiator is cracked/broken. I'm going under the car tmrw to see if I can find/follow a trail where the leak is. Reading around the forums I've read that the drain plug is a somewhat common problem issue, but wondering if it's possible for the screw to fully break off?

I kinda babied the car a bit when I noticed the power loss..Wondering if me hammering the gas in neutral (after warmup and new plugs/coils installed) was "the last straw" so to speak because that's when it started leaking radiator fluid underneath the car. Never did that before today and I noticed the power loss happening about a week ago. Temp gauge never really moved over 1/2 mark until today on the way to the shop it went up a bit and after the major coolant leak it only took a few mins of driving before it was 3/4 of the way on the hot side and now the power loss is much more noticeable.

Weird no check engine light comes on. Does the engine have some kind of fail safe mode when it gets too hot? Driving home today kind of reminded me of the "limp mode" only not as severe.

-_- just.gimme.my.ticket

you can only lose coolant 3 ways
somethings leaking
your engines burning it
sumones stealing it

cro8tia that is the right thing to do but it costs $$$
for free or cheap possible solutions read on

step 1 dry everything and check for leaks even very very very very small ones across the whole system

step two check your oil for coolant if clean check for sweet smelling fumes out of the exhaust but dont sniff for more than a few minutes...its fun but its dangerous.

step 3rd get a malicious evil man eating german shepard...or a lion. keep it next to the car

if youve checked those things and nothing is found
do this: bleed the system. open the drainplug and empty ALL your coolant then proceed to rx8 club and do a search on how to bleed your coolant system follow the instructions. USE WATER if car doesnt over heat drain ALL water and do it all over again except fill it with coolant this time

if your car still over heats after all that shoot the dog you just bought because sumones stealing it and the dogs not doing its job. park inside and keep the lion cuz theyre awsome

sakmeeks

I will be checking for leaks tmrw am. I read your post too on the other thread. With my luck I probably have a clogged cat and a busted radiator hah.

I'm still thinking the radiator is shot. I don't see how the car can lose coolant that quickly otherwise. It was pouring out too quickly IMO to be just from the drain hose but I am not 100% sure.

-_- just.gimme.my.ticket

well the information is too spread out delete both your threads and post a new one with ALL THE SYMPTOMS/problems

i didnt know you were overheating and losing power AND god knows what else. symptoms alone could mean one thing combined symptoms could be a whole nother thing throw in broken bits and it could be a lot of things

please consolidate the symptoms to one thread so we can help

sakmeeks

Um..Everything is here in the 1st post. If you read the other thread you will see it was old and was recently brought back to life by another member and wanted to know if replacing the coils helped him. That was before i did anything to my car. Anyways I will condense it for you to make it easier to read.

Last week car was fine I didn't notice anything out of the ordinary. This week losing power over 5k rpms just started happening a few days ago. Today after replacing coils/plugs I let it warm up, gradually gave it gas in neutral, hit around 7k rpms then boom major coolant leak underneath the car. Coolant reservoir was bubbling like crazy and shooting fluid out of the drain hose.

sakmeeks

Would something like this be OK as a temporary solution? Less than 2 weeks (estimated shipping time for a radiator lol)

Liquid Aluminum

Assuming my radiator is cracked/broke which I'm not 100% of yet but judging from how fast the coolant came out I'd bet on it. I realize it could be other cooling components that leak fluid and will be checking all that tmrw.

I need to sleep now..

TIM33H

By this you mean the coolant is coming out of the overflow pipe connected to coolant bottle next to the cap and leaking down and thus dripping onto the ground?

sakmeeks

Yes it was coming out of the overflow. However I think that it was also coming from another area in the car but I am not sure just yet. Going under the car in a few hours to see what I can find.

Update: Popped the hood and wiped off all the mess from last night. Coolant reservoir was empty, so I filled it to the marker with just water. Was getting ready to start removing stuff so I could get a better view, but jacked up instead to take a look underneath. The whole area below the radiator is just soaked, but it could've been from the overflow line from the reservoir I can't tell from the bottom without taking out the plastic undercover off and actually feeling around for any cracks.

Got out from underneath and checked out the reservoir and it's already empty. So step 1 - replace reservoir. I don't think this will solve my problem though since it wasn't leaking before (or perhaps a very small leak), but like most problems, start with the easy solution first heh.

Is it possible for the reservoir to be clogged up somehow and the fluid wasn't going into the engine? The pressure would build up and eventually blow/crack/break the reservoir?

-_- just.gimme.my.ticket

check your thermostat might be stuck closed

sakmeeks

Yea I was thinking that too..going to check it out when I get the reservoir in the mail. After overthinking all this stuff and reading all kinds of similar symptoms, I've started to think it was originally my cat that was slowly getting clogged up that was giving me the power loss. Then when I did the minor work to the car and gave it some gas, the pressure was too much and busted my coolant reservoir (and possibly my radiator/lines). OR my thermostat was stuck closed and no coolant was going into the radiator and it busted the reservoir. OR maybe it's just all bad and I need to replace the cooling system entirely and the cat.

Anyways, thanks for the suggestions guys.

-_- just.gimme.my.ticket

did you verify the cat was bad?
i doubt you caused the overheating
i belive the resevoir is a common point if issue, but i thought it was the sensor that was the only issue. did you actually find the leak?

sakmeeks

No not yet, I'm going to wait until I get the mid-pipe in the mail should be getting that by Tuesday hopefully. I'm fairly certain there's a good size crack in the reservoir since I poured water in it yesterday and it was all drained in a few minutes. No puddle, few coolant drips but some/most of that was from the spray from the day before it was everywhere. Ordered a reservoir with the sensor too so going to install it along with the mid-pipe this coming week and go from there. Still need to look at the thermostat, never taken it out before so I'm going need to do some research first. Hoping the radiator/lines aren't busted, but won't have time to really dig into the car until my next day off on Monday.

-_- just.gimme.my.ticket

im blown away by the fact that your just throwing parts at it

if your pouring waterin and its dissapearing without a leak then your radiator is clearly empty
pour water in it with the engine running it should take a gulp and drain your resevoir...this is normal keep pouring until the car stops gulping and your resevoir is full the engine running is a crucial part of this

Sephitrask

I'm going to be the first to say it man, your about to join the new engine club. Overheating, disappearing coolant, and high pressure in your coolant system; sounds like a coolant seal failure to me. Check out #2 here: Rotary Resurrection home of the budget rebuild.

sakmeeks

I really hope it's not the motor. The car fires right up (I only started it once since the incident), idles fine, but I didn't leave it running for long or used the car at all since the night of the incident. It never overheated in the past and I always checked my fluids and did my oil changes on time. The only other time I experienced power loss was because of old plugs/coils.

I'm sorry, I'm no mechanic, I did just assume that there was a leak in the reservoir since it emptied out the water so fast. I thought the car had to be on before fluid would go out of the reservoir. The way the coolant was boiling inside of the thing when I popped the hood I wouldn't be surprised if I cracked/broke it but I should have taken it out first and actually inspected it before just ordering one. As for the mid-pipe I ordered that before the symptoms ever happened..terrible timing.

I'm just going to tow the car to the shop instead of me guessing what's wrong and have them tell me what's going on and what I have to do from there. I'm a little scared.

Karack

and has anyone bothered to mention checking to see if the fans are even running yet?

sakmeeks

Yea that def scared the crap out of me after reading that one. Does it just happen out of no-where tho? I mean the coolant didn't start disappearing until I revved up the engine after replacing the coils. Took it to like 7k rpms and then it just dropped suddenly and that's when all the coolant started leaking - spewing out of the bottom of the car and out of the overflow.

-_- just.gimme.my.ticket

wouldnt explan why coolant is "dissapearing"

gquinlan

pretty much same thing is happening to me right now. coolant was disappearing and fan stopped working. mechanic identified a short and replaced the fan motor. gave me back with radiator light on. returned vehicle to him the next morning as coolant still leaking. got car back that afternoon. mechanic says matter repaired but I might loose head gasket (yeah, I know). car now loosing lots of coolant (I've been using water for the last 3 days) and car will turn over but wont start now. would like to see where this goes. NO mazda dealer where I live

Karack

disappearing in this context is a vague term, since coolant is water and glycol, the water will evaporate completely and the glycol will simply leave a residue when it evaporates on hot components.

he already mentioned the overflow is spitting coolant so it's not really disappearing anyways.

in any case you should still always check fan operation, as a failed cooling fan could lead to other problems and could have been the initial reason of failure of the other components. if you turn on the A/C the fans should automatically turn on with the engine warm. i ALWAYS start by checking the fans, because without them the car will obviously have other issues crop up.

Sephitrask

As mentioned in the article by rotary resurrection, if a coolant seal is blown compression can bleed into the coolant system. So if you are revving the engine high, there will be more pressure forced into the coolant system, overpressurizing it causing the coolant to spray out. Then when the engine slows or stops you have less fluid. Compression test.

Sephitrask

I agree on checking the fans; I have seen several failures with the fan motors.

gquinlan

Thanks for the replies. Fan is working although mechanics discovered a short in the fan motor and replaced it one week ago. Prior to that the fan would sometime continue to run after the engine was turned off, sometimes for at least 5 extra minutes. Last night the engine turned over but would not start (it was hot). This morning it started without a problem. Drove it for 20 minutes. Did not discern any loss of compression or any other audible or vibrational issues. After replacing the fan motor the mechanic advised that I might need the rotary equivalent of a head gasket as a result of overheating. My specs are manual Tx 2003 (Japan model)