I just bought my rx8 a year and a half ago. I have had to add oil once a month for 6 months and coolant every 2 to 3 days. I took it in to a mechanic because about 3 weeks ago it stopped and shut off while driving it. Knowing this is not good for Any vehicle I took it in. They first told me I had a coolant leak from the radiator. Upon closer inspection they told me that coolant was getting into the oil and that the oil looked like chunky chocolate milk and that I would either need a new head gasket or a full rebuild. Upon researching this problem I found that rx8's do not have head gaskets. ( so I have read). What is wrong with my baby? A PROFESSIONAL response Please.

 

Find another mechanic because yours is clueless. Frothy oil is a common issue and not a big deal (search milky oil). As for the loss of coolant, well a simple coolant system pressure check will tell you where you are leaking coolant if you are leaking it.

And oil consumption is normal for a rotary, it consumes oil by design (as do a lot of newer piston engines). I hope that part was a joke................

 

ditto on the mechanic....

The oil use is common. The coolant is not. Like he said, pressure test the cooling system and find the leak.

 

Coolant in the oil in a rotary is a bad thing..there are o-ring type seals between the different parts of the motor sandwich. In order for coolant to get into the oil one of these is leaking.

It is common for condensation to form in the breather and in the oil if these engines aren't driven long enough to get to a temp where the water evaporates off

Like already said...find a mechanic that doesn't think the rotary engine has a head gasket who can figure out where the "other than oil" goop in your oil actually is and how to fix it

 

So i boosted my poor eight, but now i can't keep it cool enough to run around much with it. I saw some other threads 'do's and don'ts' for all these mods and tweaks. The coolant starts boiling when idling too long. I have a haltech ecu piggybacking off the stock one and watched the coolant temp rise from a cold start. New stock radiator, since that was all that was avail when tuner was trying to tune it. (old one died). Also extended the hose that comes from the side of the coolant tank down past everything in the engine bay. Any ideas??



Runs all the way to bottom





Never buy esmeril as a friendly reminder








I shut engine off before it got way up there. 80 degrees celcius

 

It looks like your first problem is the turbo kit you used.

 

Do you have a coolant seal breach? \

If you have a small breach on the compression side of the motor it will pressurize the coolant and it will overheat. do you get a lot of small bubbles in the coolant when it it idleing?

 

Yeah same for you, you need to do a coolant system pressure test or test the coolant for the presence of hydrocarbons. On a side note, clean install but that Esmeril kit, ugh.

 

Why are you totally hi-jacking the OPs thread.

You're issues here are quite worthy of starting you're own thread or posting in one of the numerous boosted threads that already exist.

Kit "looks" good, however.

I can't see all the rad hose connections but I would check first that none of them are kinked restricting flow or even connected wrong.

It also appears like the rad hose (hard to tell) is basically resting on the down pipe with very little protection from heat.
https://www.rx8club.com/series-i-tec...3/#post3432330

Have you considered Mazmarts high flow water pump and T-Stat?
Are you sure the T-stat and water pump are working?

my 2 c and sub-d

edit:
Oh I would also be interested in knowing when your car starting overheating like this?

There isn't a lot of time context to your question.

Has it been doing this since the kit was first installed or have you started tuning or even completed tuning and now this issue shows up?

Have you run a 1000 miles or 0 miles with the kit installed?

 

to overheat at idle i'm going to guess no flow... now why? thermostat.... kinked hose... busted water pump... no water/antifreeze come to mind.

 

Yeah it does bubble! Thats why I extended the that purge hose near the cap to let it go past all the engine bay components. Got tired of cleaning and cleaning the bay.

I'll have to bring that up this weekend. I hope no seals are damaged :'(...too much to deal with atm. I have like 2 weeks with the car then i have to abandon for 1.5 yrs..work. I am suppose to bother petitracing this weekend if they have time for me. Haha and thx, i saw your build thread with all the crazy hoops you had to jump through to get what you needed. Then got dizzy on the cooling part..ALSO may trouble you later in the year about doing that oil filter relocation. sucks so much trying to change oil..

Ah sorry i hate making new threads cause people complain about it so much. I've had it tuned a little, thats where the coolant thing became an issue, but at that time it was due to a small crack at the neck of the reservoir, and wear on the radiator. First time both those were replaced since the car was made as far as i can tell. I wanted a performance radiator but the only thing we could get a hold of quick enough due to time constraints was the factory radiator. I drove it to ship it, shipped, then i drove from GA to FL. It would get its major boil out at the first idle from driving, then all idles after is just little bubbles. I can't monitor it while i drive with the computer because that harness for the ecu is so short.. I'll have to double check the heat shielding, all that should have stayed on but i wasn't the one who did the radiator install.