My burning rubber smell ...
 

... was the remnants of some type of plastic bag or similar that I must have been driven over, and got stuck to the exhaust/cat converter ... and burnt up. Blackened its of it were still to be seen on top of the exhaust, wedged between the cat and heat shield.

Thanks to SM at dealer, who put the car on the hoist to check.

A mystery solved;)

Timbo

PS: am awaiting labrat's analysis that the smell was not rubber, but thus a string polymer of ... :D

Good to hear that you found the solution Timbo. :)

After reading a few of the warnings about the ability of hot catalytic converters to start grass fires I've been doubly careful about parking my car - particularly as the car is pretty low slung and I live in the country. :eek:

Hard to defend against the ubiquitous bloody plastic bag though...

About the only consistent smell I experience is that which accompanies fear. It seems that my little red 8 attracts hoons wanting to give me a scare up. Like on Wednesday night when a F100 tried to pass me on the inside coming off the Rode Rd. roundabout, or last night, when some roadracers in (variously) a Holden SS, a Nissan Silvia and some other blur weaved in and out of the traffic at ~130kph+ on Old Northern Road. Never happened to me in my previous and much more sedate ride.

If a plastic bag is made of polythene, it usually smells like candle wax when it burns.

Well the dickheads in the Commodore and Silvia always seem to try to proove something to each other. But that doesn't seem the time or place for it. I'm really itching to get out for the sprints at Qld Raceway and mix it with my SS mates... But I promised...

Cheers,
Hymee.

I cant wait to get my car again. I'll be showing them all what racing is about. I'll help the Rx8 get the name that the rx7 has achieved.

I've noticed that if I'm too keen on the clutch for any reason, such as the near hymlic manourver it takes to get into the parking garage in our office building in North Sydney, I get a god awful "shit that must have done some serious damage" smell from what has to be the clutch pad.

I've since found a method of entering the ramp at full speed with some heal toe work.

But around the city, in particular the hilly west end of say Bridge street in Sydney, juggling the clutch and hand brake between the 5:30pm traffic also has the car stinking of the same "oh shit there goes the clutch pad" smell.

I've put it down to "newness" as such but am wondering if anyone else has had anything similar?

I've started defaulting to recycled air inside the car with the air con turned on due to this as well as what I've been told is a rotary engine issue being the hot oil smell that you get if you're stopped at the lights or parked for more than 30 secons with air con sucking air from the front of the car - I'm amazed that so much exhause lingers at the wrong end of the car actually.

++dez;

I always run on recirc unless on the wide open road. But that's because of other cars, not mine.

Actually it's my pet peeve... turning on climate control sets the fresh/recirc to fresh. I've now trained myself to hit recirc as soon as hitting the on button for the climate control.

I always leave mine on fresh. I expell enough stale air without having to re-cycle it.

Re the clutch smell. Mine has it from time to time (normally from entering my d'way), but I haven't noticed any physical degredation in useage. Heck, it had 20 odd blasts from "a set of lights" a few weeks ago ;)

Cheers,
Hymee.

I miss my car.

sco:

> 've now trained myself to hit recirc as soon
> as hitting the on button for the climate control

We've got a washing machine [ fisher and pykel I think ] that has three memory buttons for different wash settings, but every time I get in the car, I find myself doing the RX8 button push to get sound, air and drive control to where I want them * grin * - and frankly I wouldn't have it any other way.

hymee:

> 20 odd blasts from "a set of lights"

hee hee - oh how I can relate to that!

mine has a thing for clutch drops going around the slightest bend, round 'about, actually, it's just got a thing about bursts of power.. I'm sure timbo could find something in that * larf *

++dez;