About a month ago I bought an 05 8 as a project car after falling in love with the rotary engine. I'm a relatively new car enthusiast since about June of this year, so I'm nowhere near a veteran but I genuinely think I've found a passion with mechanics. I was fully aware of the cost of buying an 8 in the long run but that didn't stop me from buying a sh*tshow that didn't run for 500 currently finishing a motor rebuild on a different car but after that I want to start working on getting my 8 going. I've done a bit of troubleshooting with it already and have ruled out a couple of the easy problems like a dead battery, starter motor (still not sure on that one auto zone says its fine but I've heard that the 1st gen starters are seriously underpowered) I am getting a reading from the obd port for the rpms when cranking (about 150) so it's not a crank sensor. I removed the spark plugs to do a compression test and noticed that there was a pretty hefty layer of gas on the plug so I'm assuming its flooded. I couldn't really get an accurate reading from that compression test, wrong tester, cold engine, slow cranking speed so I have no idea how the engine really is doing. While trying to crank the engine I have noticed that it's not sparking at all, I cant hear any firing just the engine spinning. I dont really know where to go from here without pulling the engine and just looking at the internals. I'm sure you veterans are gonna know a hell of a lot more on where to go from here so any advice on what to look at would be a big help. I've been lurking on the forum for a hot minute but this is my first thread so if I need to take my help wanted sign somewhere else just lmk

 

The first thing you want to do is to try to deflood the engine then try to start it. It can take hours but I bet it will fire right up. Compression readings are impossible to get from a flooded engine. Do you have the rotary compression tester or just a regular one?

 

Did you check the battery, terminals and grounds?
If you don't have one get an HEI tester to check your ignition parts.
If you don't know how old they are, get new plugs wires and coils.
Check intake for vacuum leaks.
Clean ESS & MAF sensor.

 

Hmm okay I'l give that a go for sure, it would be real nice for that to be the only issue, and yeah I had the wrong tester, just rented one from autozone before I knew that that really ain't gonna do the trick I got a max reading of 5 psi sooo yeah

 

I replaced the battery cause the one I got with it was completely shot, the thing with the car is that there is just shotty electrical work everywhere you look including a security system that for the moment I put in valet mode, I've tried securing different wires but at this point it's hard to tell what's even stock

 

Do I need to check the entire intake or just everything after the throttle body? Also would soapy water do the trick for the test aswell?

 

You likely have many issues but it's always worth trying to deflood and start the car. At least then you can see if it runs before putting any money into it.

 

No, you don't want water going into your intake.
Very bad.
Smoke test is best, but once you get it running you can spray starter fluid around vacuum connections.
Vacuum leaks shouldn't keep it from flooding, I'm listing things you can do that are common problems.
Gas on the plugs suggest flooding.
It flooded for a reason, usually bad ignition components causing misfires, dumping unburned fuel into the engine.
If the engine is toast it will flood anyway.
I suggested those because you said you're going to try to fix it, you're going to want those anyway, most likely.
In the meantime you can get a $15 HEI tester to confirm if you have spark.

Also do you have a catalytic converter?
If you do and it's bad that can cause flooding.
If it's been flooding the cat could be bad.
Drop it and check it.
If it's bad, gut it.

Misfires kill cats, bad cats kill engines.

 

So I took you're advice and deflooded the engine and it worked! It started up and well yeah it ran like sh*t but atleast I have some check engine codes to move forward with

 

So I took the advice of deflooding the engine and it worked it started running but smoke immediately billowed out of the exhaust and I threw multiple codes but hey its progress

 

Good stuff! Misfire would likely be related to ignition system or clogged catalytic converter so that's a good place to start. Before all that though, now that the engine is deflooded and can start, you can now compression test the engine. This is absolutely mandatory before going forward to have someone with a rotary compression tester test your engine. No point spending any money trying to get it to run better until you know the engine's health.

You are on the right track, you may have gotten really lucky.

edit: completely normal for it to smoke heavily after deflooding. The smoke should clear up as you run the car.