My dealer came back with this response on flooding;

"With regards to the 'engine flooding' we have moved a number of RX8's
over short disctances in our compound and have only found that the
vehicle idles and runs 'rough' We have not encoutnered any difficulty in
starting, we have have found that a drive of 30-50 yards uses any 'non
burnt fuel and oil' still in the rotor chambers. No techinical points /
incidents have been advised to us. I hope this answers any questions."

On talking to him he suggests that after the 3rd start up and small movement the engine it will sound rough due to the rich mixture but a short burst of speed will sort this out. Also suggest that if caught in traffic for long time this may occur.

rael

 

I think I nearly flooded mine this evening.

I turned the engine over to start it but unfortunately released the starter before it caught (it is very hard to hear, it's so quiet). In fact I did this twice. I was only turning over for a second or two each time which usually does it, but for some reason this time it wasn't enough (the weather was damp and 12 degrees so hardly extreme conditions. The battery was fine and it was turning over OK).

So, third attempt. This time I was going to make sure I didn't release the starter until I got the thing going. I had to turn it for about 5 or 6 seconds and it just about spluttered into life and ran rough for the first 10 seconds or so.

I think it was a damn close thing and I nearly didn't get it started. And all this because two brief unsuccessful attempts at starting nearly flooded the engine.

I think this engine is pretty much on a knife edge as far as flooding is concerned. It is completely unforgiving of any error and I don't have any doubt at all that my car at least will flood if I don't absolutely follow the rules.

What particularly worries me is that this problem is supposed to be worse in cold weather. What happens in really cold weather when the car has been left outside for a few days and the battery is down on power?

 

Are there any simple to follow instructions anywhere for how to recover from a flooded engine? My dealer mentioned cleaning the spark plugs but I wouldn't have a clue where to start!

 

Is this risk of flooding only on cold engines. For instance, if i were to drive for an hour, park the car on the drive turn the engine off, go into the house, switch off the alarm (garage door is connected to house alarm), start up again and park the car in the garage and switch off. Would I still be at risk of flooding the engine, even though it should be warm?

 

Yes there is.

Floor the throttle, crack for 10 seconds. pause. repeat a few times.

Then try start normaly.

Flooring the throttle on startup cuts fuel and should clear the fuel eventualy, you will get a ton of smoke out the exauhsts.

I have stoped turning the enigin over when cold to soon , before it catched once. 'Almost flooded' type senario, started next go but had a cloud of smoke lol.

 

No, I don't believe there is any risk if the engine is still warm. It is caused by cold fuel vapour condensing around the spark plugs and fouling them, so it won't happen to a hot engine.

Just to update you on my starting problem, it was fine this morning, starting in a second or two with no problem. So my difficulty last night must have been down to my two attempts to start it which nearly flooded it. So the moral is: don't release the starter until you are sure that the engine has started.

 

I thought that only worked in something small like 10% of cases?

 

Seems to me like its worked in all cases reported here who've persevered with it.