Had the exact same problem in my Sonata this spring. I found a nest in my engine cover right in the middle of the engine bay in January and cleaned it out. Set traps around my garage and caught the bastards. A month later I changed the cabin filter and found a second nest. The little rodents were making my car into a freaking apartment complex.

You don't need to set any traps in your car. And as mentioned breathing rat/mouse poison isn't the brightest idea. Just make sure that whatever garage you have has some traps set with a little bit of peanut butter. If you don't have a garage and have an assigned parking spot outside or a lot that you always park in or something like that than just check your engine/cabin filter on a regular basis.

Also if you put your 8 in storage make sure you use some steel wool in your exhaust tips to keep them from getting in to your engine bay that way.

 

I won't glue it in the cabin air filter just around the inside of the engine bay because I found a nest on top of my alternator a few years ago also.

I'm also wondering if the mouse is still back in the vents. Because I hear scratching but i'm not sure if it is just leaves from the nest blowing around behind the vents.

 

Probably. But they just sleep in your car. Assuming you don't leave food all over the place they have to leave to get food. A trap or two under the car when you park will answer that question. And use real wood snap traps. Don't use poison. Remember that the body of the mouse rots wherever it dies. Better in a trap outside your car then in your cabin filter. Stinky.

 

Yeah it is just hard since I work outside at a camp. And the car is parked outside always i feel like i'd be attracting mice to my traps even if they normally wouldn't be bothering my car.

 

You guys ever have any luck buying parts from the forum? Is it legit?

 

ok, i'll be more straight fwd this time.. if you put poison under your hood, you will breathe rat poison. it's that simple.

you've been warned.

Jon, whatever happened with your car problem? solve it yet?

 

Okay thanks for being more straight forward haha.

I saw Jon out driving today so i'm betting yes.

 

Guess so...
Since I cleaned the two studs on the starter (mounted on the solenoid) and the electrical terminals to them, its been starting just fine.
They were caked with rust and corrosion.
I have a couple starters and one has a solenoid with clean studs, so I'll swap that with the starter that's in my car (since its the upgraded one).

Really? I was barely out yesterday!
Stalker...

 

Yes, the FS forum here is pretty good. I have had success in both buying parts and selling parts.

I only had one problem when selling, and that was because the buyer didn't know the intake manifolds for an automatic was different from the manual 6 port.

I issued a refund for the price minus paypal fees, and we both absorbed our shipping costs.


Just be smart: get pics of actual product, negotiate shipping & paypal fees before sending money. Make sure to get a tracking number. And MOST important: pay using a credit card via paypal or other protected source, this offers dual protection in the event the seller ships you a brick in a box instead of that turbo you think you bought...


------------------------------

On an unrelated note, anyone feeling like getting together for a beer this Friday?

 

Forgot to post this... saw this last Friday in the Massillon Applebees.

I hope this person steps forward to claim this work of art.

 

Damn... after I swapped the starter solenoid with a "cleaner" one I had, the car starts so much better.
I honestly don't think I've ever heard this thing crank faster before!

 

Don't know whats worse... the annoyingly large RX8 across the window or the "MYGR8 8" plate!

 

+1 for Steve's guess

Also, I got this month's Car and Driver. For those interested, they matched the 8 against a BWM 1 series.

 

Yea, C&D was pretty polite about the aging RX8. the 1 won, (one one?) of course because its a BMW in a C&D comparo... however, the RX8 technology is 7 years old now, it should be getting beat down pretty good at this point.

 

Been posting here for a little bit but never really noticed a cleveland / akron thread until now. Glad i found it ! Let me know next time you guys plan on meeting up .

 

Hey bcdjudo7 welcome to our group.

 

It sure is quiet in here...

 

You guys mind if I join in here?

 

Welcome bcdjudo7... where you from?

We seem to get quiet moments...
I'm in Franklin, Massachusetts now for company training, so I've spent very little time here on the forum.
Some of the other guys are busy with auto-x/track events, which is why its difficult to get us all together on weekends.

I don't think anybody would mind... been awhile since we've heard from you.

 

Well hopefully funds will fall in place I will finally be upgrading springs and shocks... then we can have a little install meet.

 

Sounds fun!

Actually, per the last autocross... my clutch in the S2000 is starting to rebel against the 7k rpm launches I'm doing. So... anyone feel like helping out with that? (I don't have the parts yet though.)

I mean, a clutch in rwd is a clutch. Slave cylinder looks easier though.

My fear is that I'll find where I'm getting a little oil around the bell housing when I crack it open.

 

Looking for observations - I pulled my car off track one lap early during the last session at Mid Ohio on Sunday because it sputtered several times - felt very much like when the rev limiter kicks in. In fact, the first time it happened was exiting the Keyhole and my first reaction was to check to make sure I hadn't accidentally thrown it into second instead of fourth. Then it happened again going *****-out through Madness between turns 8 and 9.

I'm pretty sure sure it was only fuel starvation since it only happened coming out of or in the midst of a series of high speed turns, and there was only about two gallons left in the tank when I filled it outside the track (which brings up an interesting aside: my gas gauge never reads accurately on track days - it always shows much more than is actually in the tank. More than once I've left the track with a reading of a third tank, only to see it drop like a stone to near empty before I've gone five miles). It ran normally when I dialed it back on the way to pit row. It idled fine at all times, and ran perfectly all the way home with no evident loss of power, so hopefully there's nothing else going on. Any thoughts?

Would bringing beer, offering the occasional worthless observation, and being available to pitch in with unskilled manual labor qualify as helping out?

 

You had me at beer.

 

So how has everyone been? You guys have any events or gatherings coming up?

 

Sounds like what I had when I experienced the starvation. I first had it exiting Oak Tree at Nelsons. Basically put my foot down and as the car straightened out it just stopped doing anything. Lifted and then put it back down and started going fine again but like you I pitted, borrowed some gas, and drove out to the BP station to fill up before the next session.

I had it after the key hole at MO too but by then I knew what it was. Since both turns are big right hand sweepers with continuous high g's followed by a straight I related it to that although reading of other people getting it it seems to happen on big left hand sweepers too. But none of the course I ever drove (Sebring/MO/Nelsons) had lefties into a straight. Sebring came the closest but they also had a gas station at the track so I was never under 1/2 a tank.

That was exactly my experience. I stopped getting on the track without at least a 1/2 tank reading. A lot of the time I would leave with the gauge at 1/4 and by the time I was at the station (within a couple miles) I was empty. I don't know if you have ever seen how our fuel tank is shaped but IIRC it is basically two containers seperated with a 'hump' down the middle. I think that the reader for the fuel gauge gets confused with the humps. In regular driving it's not a big deal but with the g's generated on big sweepers on the track, the gas gets shifted to the side of the fuel tank back and forth so the reader(s) pick up the higher level but doesn't adjust fast enough to get when it's at the lowest level. So you get a false read that is always on the high end.

Until you get it back into the pit and the fuel isn't sloshing the gauge doesn't have enough time to get back to a more accurate read. And when you hit the rev limiter after resetting the computer on the car it was a similar feeling. Like you are pushing down on the gas and expect to get a lot of feedback from the car and instead you get almost nada.

I thought swapping to the series II fuel pump helped correct the problem. I'm sure Doc has experienced this or at least taken steps to avoid it. I was planning on doing the same until Dec 12th, 2009.