MikeSlagle47

Hey Everyone!
About 2 months ago, i bought my first RX-8. I have always wanted one, but never could afford it. Luckily for me, there are always 2 or 3 out there for sale for super cheap these days because they don't run. I came across my 2004 RX-8 6-speed on Facebook Marketplace. The guy i bought it from ran a garage, and the car was his cousins. He supposedly drove it as a daily, but had problems with the clutch. While troubleshooting the clutch, the pedal broke the welds and he basically let the car sit for a year or two and gave up. Enter me stage left. So thats the story i was given. I gave $1200 for the car, since everything was there and in pretty good shape with some cool aftermarket rims and good tires. i towed it home and started the discovery. I have rebuilt/restored several cars including corvettes, camaros, VW golf GTIs, but this was my very first rotary engine. I didnt do a compression test, so i guess i like to live dangerously.

First, i couldnt get the engine to turn over. Checked and it wasnt locked up. The starter was bad, so i replaced that and a new battery. Then i re-welded the pedal together, and had to readjust the clutch start switch to get it to make contact and turn the starter. I put about 100ml of oil in the gas tank with some fresh gas before i even tried to turn it over. The good news was that it fired right up and did idle but it ran super rough and was wanting to stall out. i noticed that pushing in the clutch pedal pretty much did nothing. No real pressure, and i couldnt get it into gear. I checked the clutch fork and it was barely moving, so i suspected a bad slave cylinder. I replaced both the slave and master cylinders on principle, and it didnt help at all. I tried everything and the clutch wouldnt release. So i started the process of dropping the transmission to see whats going on in there. Once i got the transmission off, I could see that the clutch had grenaded itself. The pressure plate side was split in half and there was clutch material all over the place in the bell housing. The throwout bearing was shot, and eventually i found out the pilot bearing was toast. I replaced everything with the exedy OEM replacement kit, new clutch, pressure plate, pilot bearing, and throwout bearing. The rough idle i felt was the fact that only half the clutch disk had material on it, so it was way out of balance. I got it all back together and was proud so far.

I started it and it ran and idled smooth but had a check engine light and still the stalling issue. I did my research on the codes, which came up as engine lean, misfire on 2, AIR secondary and CVV solenoids failed. The lean condition was due to a vacuum line on the intake popping off at some point. I found out that the misfire and rough idle were related to needing to do the eccentric shaft calibration. I also replace the two solenoids. Fired it up and smooth as butter at idle and zero check engine codes. I babied her for the first 300 miles of the new clutch, but today I took it out and redlined it for the first time. Im still not beating on it hard, supposedly exedy recommends 750 miles for break in. Im granny shifting and being easy to match RPMs on the shift to take it easy on the clutch disk. The engine feels super strong for only having ~240 hp. It has a smooth pull all the way through idle to 9k rpm. Now let's talk about some of what i found during the clutch replacement.

The back of the engine is painted lime green. I feel like that means reman engine. Also, the front of the engine has paint pen on it, which tells me salvage yard engine. The car is coded to be a black car, but has been painted red (very badly) at some point probably within 5 years. I dont see any indications of major collision damage. No bent tabs on body panels or frame injury anywhere. The passenger side fender has a huge gap between it and the hood that i cant get closed. It looks like the hood is tweaked a little, so i'm thinking possibly a front end collision that maybe just messed up the bumper and hood. There are no indications of damage to radiator or oil coolers at all. The clutch i took out is a $50 clutch with pressure plate on ebay. They changed the clutch at some point, without doing any bearings, and used a $50 ebay clutch. The body has a few dings, but nothing bad. No leaks that i can find anywhere. One thing that puzzled me. When i took the exhaust off, the inside was spotless. No soot at all, not even on the front end of the catalytic converter. I would expect something with the oil injection. I am using valvoline 2-stroke low ash oil, until i can get that oil designed for rotary engine premix shipped to me.

I have some flickering LED lights behind the gauges, had to fix the solder joints on the A/C temp control ****, replaced all the paper cone speakers in there, and recharged the AC. Everything in the car is functional and works great. It rides smooth and the tank of gas i just put through it indicates 21-22 mpg with me driving a mix of easy and mild playing around due to the new clutch. Everyone , i mean everyone says to redline it once in a day of driving, so i did that today. It did appear to be a little smoother at idle after the redline. Thats pretty much everything up to this point. I need to fix the passenger side dash, fix the not working LEDs in the cluster, and thats about it.

If you have any advice, or thoughts on my findings i welcome it. I havnt done the coolant flush yet. It looks clean and green, so i'm not in a hurry. Temp gauge is solid at about 1/3 way from the bottom of the gauge. Oil pressure needle stays on top of the P in the gauge, so about 1/4 inch past the halfway point on the gauge and is solid. I am pre-mixing every tank, i'll redline once a day as this will be my daily driver, except on fridays i'll drive my truck. More to follow as I enjoy this car more and more.

Shylock1908

Seems like you got yourself a decent enough car, and $1200 is a fine price for not getting a compression test. Shame about the cheap clutch, Exedy or better is really the only way to go. Power numbers are deceiving... Don't get it dyno'd if you don't want to be disappointed lol. Get ready to clean your SSV, it'll clog eventually and its halfway a pain to get to. The temp gauge wont tell you anything useful except that the thermostat is open, I would recommend getting an OBD reader so you can monitor that; or better yet gauges. I own 2 and one was my daily for 30,000 very reliable miles (except for the SSV) and is now being turned into a track car, and the new one is my daily.

Sounds like you'll be able to maintain the engine properly enough to keep it reliable! good luck