I think I almost might have flooded it today. Stopped at a garage to inquire about alignment, car was plenty warm from driving around searching for somebody ... anybody, to give me an alignment. Anyhow, that particular garage was officially closed but having a meet with a bunch of cool camaros, vettes, 350Z, etc. and they were all looking as I got into my black 8. I must have done something weird, it stalled for a second. Had to turn the key a second time and it started fine. But for a second there my heart stopped. Used up one of my 9 lives, I think.

~ Elliott

 

She just got a little nervous with all that horsepower watching... She's fine...really!

In all seriousness though, I can imagine how you felt. Did you at least give her a nice rev to redline?

 

This is normal. Flooding and hard start happens when your engine hasn't fully cooled down but is no longer too warm to touch. If you park the car and try to restart it after say 2 hours, it'll struggle a little. After owning the car for a while, you sort of know instinctively when this will happen before you even put the key in.

 

Wolf and Climacus,

Thanks. Guess it was a good wakeup call to treat this car right. I didn't exactly rev her too much after that because I was a bit embarrased after saying "f_ck!" out loud when I though it flooded and they turned to look. Yep, made a bit of an $ss in front of the power cars. But they laughed.

 

Had mine flood on me once (I hadn't had the car long). I was lucky it happened in my driveway. Basically I pulled the car out of the garage and turned it off. Went to start it a little bit later ... flooded. However this is the only problems I've had with the car starting and that occurred in my early years before I got myself some skooling here on the forums.
Now zerobio yours occurred when the engine was hot (warm) of which I have never experienced a problem starting. Once my car is hot I do not fear shot run times. I'm not trying to start anything with climacus but I would say this is NOT normal. (at least I hope not, as it would be the first I've heard of it)
To sum up the problems I've had / read about is short run times where the engine doesn't reach running temperature.
Anyways check these threads out.

https://www.rx8club.com/showthread.p...ght=deflooding
https://www.rx8club.com/showthread.p...ght=deflooding

(I fear the day my car won't start when it's already reached running temperature and has had a short cool down time)
<shudder>

 

WCS, other than that one time, I haven't had any problems. I've been making plenty of stops along the way (car warm) and never feared that it wouldn't start. I am going to have to print out instructions for not flooding and de-flooding and put it on a cue card in the glove box and get used to always having my cell phone in case. I don't know ... maybe I got flustered and hit the gas as I was starting the car or something. But the car seems totally fine so I'm not worried at all about when it is warm. What I really fear is the winter here in Canada. Also, I need to clean out my garage and just don't know what to do about the car. I'm a bit nervous to move it to the driveway, shut it off, clean, and then move it back in.

 

Your car won't flood. I have an '07 too and I've done plenty of 10 second driveway moves with a cold engine and it hasn't flooded. Either I'm special or Mazda has since fixed that issue with their TSB and newer ecu flashes.

 

This is what I was hoping. thanks.

 

^^^ Don't worry about the flooding. Many many ECU flashes ago, they dealt with this problem. I think that you may have just experienced the longer than normal cranking for the 8. I find that with the rx8, it takes an extra second or two of cranking before the engine fires up. Again, don't worry about the winter. It may take a little longer cranking but mine has started up without issue for the past 3 winters.

I'm sure you know the deflood procedure? Hold gas pedal down while you start the engine (counter-intuitive but what this does is, is it tells the ECU to NOT give fuel to the engine).

 

ofcourse the high power starter and battery helps a bunch=)

 

Ya I kind of used TSB as a blanket statement for the starter, etc. Was too lazy to type it. Thanks for making me type it now. :P

 

Thanks for the reminder for the procedure. I'll get less paranoid I think in a while.
Thank you, friends.

 

Zerobia, I'm in the same boat as QTWR. I have an 07 and have never had a doubt about starting the car. I feel more secure with this one than the previous 04.

Rasper

 

Rasper,

Cool. I'm still a bit freaked out about the flooding issue (sorry this is sooooo old) but really no problems yet and hopefully none to come.

I have been noticing the bad smell some people talk about. Came out to the car this morning (in covered garage) and it smelled like old shoes. First time I experienced that. Gonna read up on it to see what advice there is before I start crying to all you guys.

Take it easy.