farinj

Ok.. To start I've been trolling this site for years guess I needed to actually post something. -- now I start in the newbie lounge

04 Manual - Grand Touring Package - I'm the Original Owner 135,000 miles.. It's stock and my everyday car. I really do love this car.

Thank you RX8club as you've taught me a ton of things and enabled me to do many service repairs on my own...

I've replaced the following over the years with the help of this site: Coolant Reservoir / Rear O2 Sensor / Starter / Fuel pump / Breaks Rotors SS lines / transmission fluid / differential fluid / ignition coils / spark plugs / air filter / cabin filter / oil filter and oil..

Now to my issue.. last summer at 120,000 miles I replaced my Coils, Plugs and Wires (and my fuel pump) as I experienced a loss of power up hill. I also seafoam'd and changed the fluids. Things were great for a few months then my rear O2 sensor died and I got my first CEL. Simple enough went to my local Advanced Auto had code read and replaced the O2 sensor. All back to good.

Over the last few months I noticed that my original starter was sounding weaker than normal and starts were taking longer (both cold and hot). I decided to replace it with a 2KW starter (and things improved dramatically) but 2 days before the starter arrived I received another CEL.

It was hot here in DE and my A/C was on when I drove to work (left car running since starting was becoming a gamble) while I grabbed some paperwork in the office and 3 mins later the car has a rough idol and a CEL.. Was late for a meeting so I had to live with it. After work back to A-Auto and P0302 cylinder 2 misfire was read.

I'ts been 2 weeks now and I've been looking at my options. Since the CEL I put the starter in, change the oil, had a new tank of gas, checked spark plugs / coils connections, cleaned the ESS, and did the 20 break stomp.

The ESS and 20 break stomp settled things down but didn't clear it up..

I've found that I do not have any noticable loss of power at any RPM and do not get a blinking CEL while the engine is under load. If I go up a hill at 6000 rpm and then push in the clutch to coast down the other side... when the rpm drops below 1,000 my CEL blinks (I've read that's a misfire). The idol is rough and the exhaust will puff smoke occasionally and kinda smell different than before.

So I've thought about pulling my CAT off to see if there is any visible damage. I've hesitated because of the no loss of power.

I called the Dealership and asked how much for a compression test they said $100 but then proceeded to say that this test doesn't tell them anything. The service manager said they simply send the results to Mazda and Mazda uses a formula to tell them to replace the engine or not. I proceeded to tell the service manager that I thought the purpose of the test was to measure the health of the seals and if we are at 7.2 to 7.8 at 2500 rpm we are in good shape at 6.4 not so good. He simply stated that he would rather use the $100 to troubleshoot than was time on the test. Let's just say this is the same dealership that gave me the Mazda 6 service schedule when I bought the car. I verified that there wasn't a different schedule for the rotary engine ... they said nope. Other than some re-call stuff I haven't been a frequent customer.

Sorry this is such a wall of text.. but back to the problem at hand...

So I'm really tempted to go and get an upstream O2 sensor and replace to see if this takes care of my idol issues (and my misfires).

Looking for opinions and things I haven't thought of (or read yet) before I drop $200 on a O2 sensor...

Thank you in advance for any help offered.

ShinkaEvo

iTrader: (3)

I'm afraid it could be coolant leak, which means new motor, but don't quote me on it.

farinj

Thanks for the reply... No offence but I hope your wrong.... I'll do some reading on symptoms of coolant leaks.. On the bright side it doesn't appear that I am loosing coolant and when I take the cap off pressure is released.. I happened to check that this weekend.

farinj

Update... drove the car as usual today... the idol still isn't perfect but no misfire so the CEL actually cleared.. I'm going to change the spark plug wires .. and see if ican figure out a way to clean the O2 sensor (I'm hung up on the O2 sensor for some reason) but since the CEL cleared I don't think its a coolant leak or a CAT issue.

The issue with the idol is not as bad as it was last week no more smell and since the ESS cleaning and 20 break stomp much less sever. Still stumbles between 750 and 900 while at stop lights...

Could it be the weather? We had 95+ temps when this was acting up its been 80-85 this week.