Was at the Mazda USA facility (Irvine, CAL) the other week & noticed over a dozen dead 13B-MSP engines. They all had coolant leaks.

Asked about these engines & was told that they are just the September ones coming back from the various dealers throughout Nth America.

Then I had dinner with some Mazda Australia people on Sat night & found out that a few engines are coming in from dealerships around Australia too. Symptoms are coolant all over the engine.

After some technical talk & information from the Mazda people, the conclusion was as follows.

The coolant is leaking from between the rotor housings & the side plates. The reason for this was gaps between these parts was allowing the coolant (under 15+psi) pressure to leak out & overheat the engine.

The reason was due to warped aluminium rotor housings. They get crushed by the cast iron side plates when the faster expansion rate of the aluminium is exploited. The cast iron side plates crush the over expanded rotor housings when they warm to operating temprature.

The cause of this is due to people thrashing the engines when they are stone cold in the morning. This harsh treatment doesn't give the two dissimiliar metals a chance to expand evenly from a gradual warm up.

Conclusion is.............. Warm up the engines guys or suffer premature failure

As a general rule. I always warm up my rotary Mazda's for this very reason. 3-minutes of warming & 3-5 minutes of careful driving are worth it in the long run.

REgards

 

I have been pulling out my car out of the garage , once in a blue moon stalling it on the way out. and thrashing it up my street nearly every second morning for 6 months and have no trouble at all... j/k

I also always wait about 4-5 mins for the car to warm up before i move it, if its been sitting in the garage over night.

Regards
phillip

 

Good advice DMRH.

A thorough warming up should also help avoid the flooding problem. I usually warm my car up before moving, but on one occasion I started backing out after the bare minimum 10 seconds that the manual recommends. The car cut out as I was reversing (probably due to that odd rev drop and recover routine that often occurs in the warm-up period). The car flooded and wouldn't restart even though I did all the proper 'deflood' procedures. A trip to the dealer on the back of a truck followed.

Since then I've warmed the car up for a lot longer than the manual suggests! The short warm up suggested might be in response to the anti-pollution laws in some countries?? The manual suggests that even warming it up for 10 seconds is illegal in Germany! Seems a bit over the top to me.

 

How high should you rev the engine while it is warming up then? I'm talking about the first 5 minutes or so.

I rev each gear out to about 5000rpm at about half throttle before changing gear while it's still cold. That doesn't feel like it is stressing the engine at all. It's so tempting to do more!

 

Wildcard, long time no see.

Yeah DMRH thanks for the info. Just confirm what we believe in. I never rev the car that hard until I reach the track. Just save fuel for my next mod - every cent helps :D

 

It's always been a force of habit of mine to both warm up and warm down my vehicle.
That's because I always drive my cars hard and give them a fair bit of stick, so engine longevity is somewhat a concern of mine.

Having owned a turbo (200sx) and a highly strung 4cyl (DC5), I'm used to the obligatory 5 min warm up and 5 min cool down, so I do the same with the 8.

 

There was a guy that used to post here who was pretty hard on a cold engine. He could chirp the tyres upshifting into third. He'd also had a warranty engine fitted because his new RX-8 had dumped it's coolant.....

 

usually i just let the engine warm for abt 10 secs roll the car out putting a bit of rpm and travel at low rpm until it warms up

 

On the FD's after 10/93 the ECU really cuts power until the water temps hit the ideal range.This has caught me out more than once on track days I'm surprised Mazda didn't do something similar on the RX-8.

 

That's exactly what I do. Start the car, put seat belt on, adjust radio, and take off. Keep rpms low 3-5k range until it warm (middle of temp guage). This only a mile or two in non-winter times. I don't remember last winter how long it took but it wasn't too long. Once it warm, it's redline as much as possible. Hitting the fuel cut-off just means an incorrect shift.

 

Good memory Gomez. I remember that whole saga too. It's all coming together now...

 

Taka, I'm always here, lurking in the shadows.... Just haven't had much to post lately. Expect to hear more of me once Hymee's supercharger project becomes reality.

 

Gomez,

What's so unique about being able to chirp the tires upshifting into third?
I could do this when the engine's warm with the stock 18s and even now with my 19s.

 

The problem is, your engine still isn't warmed up. What you describe is the coolant being warmed up. The engine takes about twice as long as that. Give it another 3-5 minutes after the coolant is warm before you start redlining.

 

I s'pose nothing really. It's not something I've tried to do, even into second. It just shows a lack of mechanical sympathy for the drivetrain. And doing it on a cold engine, definitely so.

Gomez.

 

I'll let you know when I break something.

(Probably explains why various components of the drivetrain on my S14 needed replacing.)

 

If judging the number of "need help, grinding into 2nd" and "bent shift fork" threads is anything to go on, "when" is the operative word.....

Gomez.

 

Was that Kas?

He had an engine start to dump coolant after he'd done 1400ks. It was one of the first failures and he got a complete new car out of it, from memory. As part of the deal he agreed to respect 'confidentiality' and stop posting any more details of the deal here.

 

Havent seen him around since :D

 

I'm at 22K - I'll take a new engine =)

 

I think your right, actually. Yes, I was referring to Kas.....he got a new car, not a new engine!

Gomez.

 

Apparently, sitting at idle is bad for the engine as well as the environment. The preferred way to warm up your car is to let it idle for 30 seconds on synthetic oil, and 60 seconds on conventional, and then to drive very conservatively until warm. Beyond a minute is pointless. BUT, there are tonnes of different views on this stuff. So in the end you choose the one your most comfortable with.

 

I've been doing that - well 30 seconds like the sales dude recommended.

However, I am glad I found this thread as I have experienced problems as of late in regards to my RX8 slowing down and even stauhling out after I leave my parking lot. So, for now on I will bring some magazines to read and wait for about 3 minutes for the car to fully warm up.

 

Yeah, unfortunately I live on 355 in Maryland which has cars doing 50 all the time right outside my parking lot. So unless it isn't busy - which is rare - then I have to push full throttle to get out into this American Autobahn

 

They did.

When the coolant is below a preset temp, the rev limit is lowered and the throttle can only be opened 80%.