Hey guys, I have a terrible problem with my R3. On Saturday out of nowhere, my car started making a horrible grinding noise from the clutch (I believe) after driving 30 miles for work, parking for 20 minutes, and then getting back in the car and starting up to a horrible grinding noise. Nothing out of the ordinary happened on the trip there, it just did it suddenly without warning.
Here is a short video I made talking about the noise and showing how bad the noise is: I did add some gear oil as I noticed that it looked a bit leaky underneath, but that did not cure the grinding at all. Please let me know if ya'll have had this issue/heard this noise before in the past and what ya'lls solution was. I'm pretty sure its the clutch, but id like to make sure before I spend the money on a new one.

 

Sounds like throw-out bearing. You'll need to get the clutch off to replace it, so may as well change the clutch while you're in there if it's anywhere near changing age.

 

How safe do you think it would be to drive it for a few days until I get the parts needed?

 

I mean. If it lets go entirely the car becomes immobile and potentially damages your flywheel, input shaft, etc. It's not a great idea?

 

Another vote for throwout bearing.

It'll typically do that for a while before seizing. You should have some time, but no reason to sit on it.

There are two failure modes from here, either it seizes, or it grenades. If it seizes, it'll chew/be chewed on/by the clutch pressure plate. Both the throwout bearing and the pressure plate are consumables, so no big deal. The primary seizing failure mode would be that it fuses internally, and then when you press the clutch it goes from a grinding gear noise to a scraping metal noise. Another seizing failure mode that will follow immediately after that is that it can fuse to the pressure plate, and then it's sorta like the clutch won't fully disengage. It'll just keep grinding and get worse and worse until it grenades. It could also just grenade, and there would be little bearing bits all in your bell housing, and then you would have a different sort of metal scraping noise that might actually cause meaningful damage. The next part in line upon the sudden disappearance of the throwout bearing is the fork, and it's not a consumable.

Order a throwout bearing, clutch, and alignment tool (assuming you don't already have one) ASAP, don't worry about it too much, but don't put any undue stress on it either. Drive when you have to, don't when you don't, that sort of thing. If you're one of those people that stands on the clutch through stop lights, put it in neutral and let it go. Shift somewhat quickly, minimize the wear time, etc. Make sure you set aside the time/space to do the job as soon as practical once the parts arrive. Organize a work day for you local RX8 fan club! Maybe check out other associated parts and systems that will be touched as part of the job, and see if there's anything else worth maintaining while you're in there! Proactive maintenance is always a win!