Hi all !

I've been lurking the forums for a few months now, but finally signed up after much reading. I have a question for those of us who are RX8 owners in cold temperatures.

I don't generally drive the RX8 much during the winter, but I try and make sure it gets out once or twice a week. 3 weeks ago I went on holidays for 10 days, and when I got back, I was just too busy with work and New Years and didn't get a chance to start the 8. Up until this point, it hadn't been too cold here, between -10 and -20 degrees C (4 F and -14 F). Then we hit a cold snap where we got to -38 degrees C (-36 F). My other car wouldn't start so I tried starting the 8. It did fire up, went right to 2K RPM and promptly died. I tried restarting it and realized it was most likely flooded

Anyways, fast forward to today when it finally warmed up considerably. I attached booster cables and spent a good 20 minutes de-flooding it with the gas-pedal-to-the-floor-method. I did get it started finally, and drove it around a bit. No problems, all is good.

My question is, how often should I be starting the car to avoid this ? Did I lose compression simply because of the deep cold, or because I let it sit too long unstarted, or a combination of both ?

Any suggestions / comments / own stories are much appreciated !

 

Get yourself a smart chager, you and your car will love it

 

I have a Noco Genius smart charger, so no battery issue for me

 

Living in Winnipeg for the last 1.5 years. Shinka is my DD (right through last year's "polar vortex" ) so...

Oil pan heater and Battery blanket warmer are your friends. (Renesis has not provision for a block heater, so I added a stick on (epoxy) pan heater)
Winter tires are a must.
on -40 cold soaks she will rev to 2500 rpm for 10-15 secs and then settle to the standard fast idle until warmed up.
Biggest PITA is the gearbox grease and brake/clutch fluid thikening on the extreme cold (so you want to sit there idling and let her warm up a bit before driving off)
releasing th eclutch (on neutral) with such thickened/ cold soaked grease will place significant drag on th eengine, so you want to release slowly so that you don't stall the engine that's probably what stalled/ flodded you last time. a slow clutch release allows the engine to compensate on the idle and remain running through the thickened trans grease.
TCS and DSC are a godsend on crappy/ snowy roads for daily driving, and the "DSC OFF" button is the most fun you can have when it is time to play (full opposite lock drifts at 5 MPH are freakishly fun)
If you are only starting her to get the fluids going and not for actual driving, make sure you let her warm up throughly, otherwise the condensation created by the combustion process doesn't evaporate and ends up making more harm than good.

 

I don't recall 100%, but I'm betting that's exactly what happened.

Thanks a bunch for the tips! That helps a lot with learning how to handle this new engine in cold weather.

 

My RX-8 hasn't had any troubles starting in the cold yet. I guess I have good maintenance...

 

I have an 04 with BHR Igntion and Mazda's upgraded Starter. Starts every time. She is my Daily, last year's winter we had Ice Storm and the car was completely covered in a thick layer of ice it was -38 and she started in first attempt.
Maintain your ignition components and let the car idle till its warm in extreme cold..
Also, I noticed thinner oil (5w20) makes it easier to start and quicker to warm up in extreme cold weather.