MagicChef

Hi Guys, I have been browsing the forums and videos for the past few days looking for a solution to my issue but haven't been able to come up with anything concrete, so I figured I'd make my own post to see if anyone had ideas or could redirect me to a solution!

How it started:
I was driving my RX-8 about 2 months ago to work in the afternoon during my break, and when I stepped on the throttle, it completely stalled while I was driving. Nothing exploded or fell off, it just seemed to stall for no obvious reason. I was able to pull into a parking lot and turn it off, but when I went to turn it back on, it would not start, it was just cranking and had a blinking CE light. I scanned it and it gave me a misfire code. I then called a tow truck and had it towed to a friend's shop where I could store it and work on it.

What I have tried:
Later that day, I tried all the usual ideas.
-Deflooding
-Resetting ESS
-Normal Starts
None of these worked and since it had a misfire, I did not want to push it very much, so I went and did some research and left it there for a while.

I ended up coming to the conclusion that it must have been the coils, wires, and or spark plugs. So I went ahead and ordered everything to get it replaced. The previous owner had already replaced the plugs and wires with NGK ones at about 86k kms and the engine is currently at around 106k kms, but never mentioned anything about changing or replacing the coils before, which lead me to believe that is very likely the issue or at least part of it.

After replacing the Plugs + wires (I also went with NGK) and the coils, I tried starting it but the engine was flooded, so I went through the de-flood procedure and it eventually started but immediately stalled afterward. I went ahead and kept starting it and gave it some gas to help it stay running which worked, I can keep it running if I am giving it gas, but it is very hard to keep it steady. I saw some people mention that after de-flooding, you have to hold it at 3k for a while and then it should be fine after that, but after about 1-2 minutes I noticed that the cat was glowing red and the exhaust was popping a lot more than it has, especially at 3k RPM.

Inside Car: (The beeping is the Scanner, not the car and the CE light is for the Bank 1 Sensor which I had on for a long time before doing this)

Behind Exhaust:
Once I noticed that the cat was glowing I decided to stop as I did not want to cause further damage to anything and the car was also not warmed up, so now I am here making this post to see what ideas others may have.

Extra Notes:
-The compression when I bought the car at about 98k kms was still good, there were no signs of failure and the previous owner knew how to take care of a rotary.
-The cat was replaced with a new cat at 90k kms
-Aftermarket exhaust installed at 102k kms
-Plugs and wires were replaced about 86k kms
-Starter replaced 90k kms
-Battery replaced 90k kms
-Everything related to the engine is stock and I had replaced the oil + filter less than 1k kms ago.

-I am currently leaning towards the cat is blocked and it is causing these issues, but I could not find anyone else with the exact same issues just from a blocked cat.
-My friend's father, who is very mechanically inclined, mentioned that it sounds like the timing is off. Obviously, there are no timing belts or chains for a rotary and I was seeing if it is possible for the rotor to not be timed correctly but I could not find very much on this topic and seems unlikely.
-I am also not sure if this is a user error for something I did while installing the new equipment, I had double-checked everything and made sure the Trailing and Leading were in the right spots and I had the wires in the right order, but I am human so it is entirely possible.
I do also live in Canada, but this car has basically never been winter driven.
-A few other things it could be, but I do not believe it is:
Fuel Pump
MAF Sensor
Altenator
Low Compression
Faulty part (coils, wires or plugs)

If you may know anything more than I do or have a post that you could direct me to, please leave a comment!

I will have some more time this week to work on it, so I will be trying some things over the coming days.
Thank you for your time!

200.mph

iTrader: (9)

if your cat is glowing i would remove and inspect it. make sure your ignition is all in the right spots and check that you didnt crack the porclin on a plug (i did that years ago and it caused a bad misfire)

MagicChef

Thanks!
Definitely 2 things I will be checking out, I hope that is was my error in installing something simple like that!

Setsuna

Definitely sounds like it’s running on one rotor. I would compression test it. Does it sound different from normal or uneven when cranking? My car sounded very similar when the engine went.

MincVinyl

As 200 suggested:

Here's what I would look at in order of most likely to least likely your issue.

1. First I'd look at the cat. Now you said it was recently replaced, was it replaced with an OEM cat or a random shop installed a cat? Your cat appears to be the likely suspect. You can also take a look on your header at your front 02 sensor for any damage to it or the connector.
2. Completely go over the ignition system. Take out all the plugs make sure they are not fouled. Check the leads. Swap around the coils, swap to a different set if you have them. Recheck the engine harness connectors. If you go as far as wire diagrams to confirm make sure you label them in some way.
3. The Eshaft timing sensor can be checked as it is on the front of the engine to the lower driver side of the main pulley. You could try spraying it with maf cleaner, but you should also double check it is mounted fully. After cleaning, put the key to the on position and hit the brake pedal 20 or so times until the oil pressure gauge blips.
4. The Maf is an easy check, just use some maf cleaner.
5. Considering you can still start the car I doubt it is the battery, starter, alternator.
6. at 100kms or 60kmiles I doubt it is just typical low compression. You would have experienced seal failure if anything. Which may be able to be seen by hand turning the engine and looking in the spark plug ports. If you have been able to run the engine, the spark plugs may look different between rotors and could indicate if it was the front or rear that had issues.
7. Another separate concern would be that with the glowing/clogged cat you may have been overheating the exhaust ports and may see premature coolant seal failure at some point. This would leak coolant into the combustion chamber, flooding the engine, fouling plugs, failing to start, thick white smoke upon cold starts.
8. Fuel pump failures are usually more evident when the car cant go above 6-7krpm.

For #6 you said it stalled while driving (as in while moving? or at a stoplight?) Then you drove it to a parking lot and turned it off. How did it drive to the parking lot? limping? no power? normally?

MagicChef

Hey Man,

Thanks for all the info!

For the cat, it was a less restrictive one that is not OEM, I am not sure what brand, but 100% not the one it comes with stock.
I will be checking the plugs, coils, and wires as 200 suggested, this was my first time doing it on the RX-8, so its not impossible that I messed those up or they could be fouled as you mentioned. The old spark plugs I pulled out were quite brown, they didn't look terrible from what I could tell, but 100% needed changing.

To clarify the stall, basically what happened is I was at a red light, and I was accelerating relatively hard in 1st gear (as I wanted to make some pops), I had gotten up to somewhere around the 6k rpms, (not exact, but a rough idea) and when I let go of my clutch to shift, the engine just died. I dont know the exact timing as I was caught off guard and making sure I was safe, but it was between switching from 1st to 2nd. The engine was not on at this point, my electronics were working but the engine dropped to 0rpm, but I was already moving at about 45-50kpm, so I just had it in neutral and let it glide as I was near a parking lot where I could safely pull in.

The first thing I did when I pulled in is I check for leaks, parts, smoke or anything like that, but everything seemed to be intact which is why I tried to start it again.

Let me know if there is anything I can clear up further, I will hopefully be in the shop today or this weekend to take a look at it again!

MagicChef

Hi Setsuna,

As far as I can tell, it doesn't seem to be the case but is something I'll consider. If I can't get it to run then I'll try to get it tested again to see and I'll update the post!

MagicChef

Sept 27, Update:

So I got around to removing the cat and it seems to have helped, but not solved the problem. When I removed the cat, a lot of dust and some small chunks came out from the cat, so it 100% got burned up or was already previously clogged.

Here is the video of the RX-8 running without the cat straight from the exhaust manifold:
Basically now with the cat off, it doesn't hesitate to start now, but it will not idle. I can hold it at 3k with basically no issues (I did not try pushing it past that) but of course, it is quite loud and pops a ton. When I let go of the gas, it drops the rpms as I would expect, but just stalls once it gets too low, it doesn't catch itself is the best way I can explain it.

With the check engine light, I now have a code for the bank 1 and 2 O2 sensors, which I assume is normal when you have the cat detached. I was trying to look around and see what others have come up with and here is what I have tried and what I haven't:

I have tried:
1: Cleaning the MAF
2: Reconnecting everything related to the intake and spark.
3: I tried resetting the ESS (I had just realized this morning that apparently you are supposed to start the car without the clutch pushed in when you do this, if so I may have been doing this wrong as I would press the break 20 times and then push in the clutch and start it)
4: Looked at the ESS Sensor to make sure it was plugged in (did not clean it but it will be on my list to do)

What I think I should try:
1: Properly resetting ESS + cleaning sensor.
2: Checking the barometric sensor
3: Possibly I may need to try deflooding it again?
3: My friend said I may need to get a mid pipe and a tune for it to idle correctly (I'm not certain but it could be worth a shot?)

Thanks again for all the help guys. If what I put doesn't work, I'll go back up the recommendations on this post and try out what I can!

MincVinyl

If you get a non cat midpipe (I suggest the Racingbeat or BHR) then you will have an engine light and fail emissions tests. BHR does offer a Cat midpipe which someone I think is selling https://www.rx8club.com/rx-8-parts-s...d-pipe-274289/ here.

A tune would not be necessary if you change your midpipe or catback. Unless you want to turn off the engine light which would be illegal as you might guess.

However while the cat is off and you are seeing an O2 sensor code you may want to check that there is no damage to the front O2 sensor. Which aids in controlling idle and low rpm. >>> the rear o2 sensor is just for emissions to turn on the engine light if you do not have a cat.

Also I cant find a diagram for it, but I believe the O2 sensor has a harness that can disconnect at a plug on top of the back of the engine where the transmission mates to the engine. Either that or I may be thinking of the transmission connectors. Regardless you should follow the harness up and make sure there are no issues.

MagicChef

For the midpipe, it shouldn't be too big of an issue as it would just be my weekend car anyways and where I live, there are tons of straight-piped, lifted, loud trucks, so its not as big of a deal around here, I'd get a new cat for emissions!

I'll be sure to check out the first sensor, could be that it needs replacing. Is that likely to cause it car to entirely stall out, maybe I didn't look into the sensors enough but from my understanding, it should still be able to idle, would probably just be rough.

Thanks, Minc

Loki

iTrader: (1)

If you disconnected the battery it's pretty normal for it to stall when you let off the throttle if it hasn't had time to warm up or learn to idle. Especially with the exhaust off. You're supposed to let it warm up to operating and do a drive cycle or two. Obviously a healthy car won't die outright, but given the history and changes it's going through it's not alarming by itself.
What exactly is the front O2 code? Out of range? Heater circuit low? Something else? There are several possibilities.

You can't start the car with the clutch not pushed in. It won't let you for safety reasons and no normal procedure requires you to do so. It just needs to be ON, but not running for the 20-brake push.

You don't need a midpipe for the engine to run.