Trust me.. nothing much there. High Performance Driving School for the driver is the best bang for the buck

 

Nitrous

 

And a lot of manifolds Ask Easy

 

The thing with pulleys is that they try to change the gear ratio that the alternator and water pump spin at. The theory is that you spin them slower and it takes less horsepower from the engine to spin them.

The problem is that you really don't want to risk heating problems from an undersized water pump pulley, and changing the alternator pulley never accomplishes anything. Why? Because the car STILL needs 13-14v, regardless of how fast the pulley is spinning the alternator. If there was no voltage regulation, even an undersized pulley will spike the voltage well above dangerous levels. So the voltage regulator loads/unloads the alternator to keep the voltage in the target range. Changing the spin speed doesn't affect this at all, as the regulator will still soak the exact same amount of power from the engine to achieve the same voltage. Energy isn't free.

So the only actual benefit to pulleys is the lower rotational weight, similar to a lightweight flywheel in concept, though with far far far less noticeable gain.


Cheap power doesn't exist on an 8. A tune and going catless are the only two "cheap" power gains, and that is still around $1k for 10whp (tops).

And pursuing ANY power mod is entirely worthless if your ignition is old. 30,000 miles on OEM coils, wires, and plugs is a 28whp DROP over brand new OEM coils, wires, plugs.
See the dyno proof: https://www.rx8club.com/series-i-tro...-plugs-234383/

 

We'll the ignition is MSD but not sure how many miles are on it because the modification was made by the previous owner so not sure what kind of difference it has or has not made..... If I do a turbo upgrade which is the safest?

 

Also is nitrous safe for the rotary engine ?

 

It can be, if it is setup right and the ecu has a proper tune. Contact Black Halo Racing for your nitrous questions. He has experimented extensively with it and has run it on his car. He'll sell you a complete setup.

 

None of them. Literally. You will need to read up on the newbie's guide to modding to see why.

 

Hey guys, I'm a regular from the 7club and Im trying to post a thread to help out a buddy with an 8, but I cant make a thread. I dont know a whole lot about 8's so I need the help of people more familiar.


I guess I'll ask here, but hopefully I can get access to thread posting so I can put my question somewhere more useful:




A few nights ago my buddys 8 started to overheat. It creeped to/went to "H". Instantly turned it off (He was thankfully a block from the house.)

Next morning it started fine and he started to drive to work when all of a sudden it died and he couldnt get it to start for 10 mins or so.
Limped it back home and found the top of his radiator exploded open. We replaced the radiator, and after a few clicks it started up and idled fine.
No smoke, no bad idles, it sounded fine.
(I will mention now that a weird ticking around the TB started to appear, which I believe is the SSV...)

So anyway, we let it idle, we drove it around, and then we took it on a fair drive, gave it some revs, no issues, the car felt fixed.


So now this morning it wont start again, he said it sounded like a "wir wir wir" and nothing.

So Im starting to wonder if its flooded, but why then? In the time that we replaced the rad, if seals were busted and leaking, it would have been flooded after replacing the rad... and we drove it around long enough to let it warm up AFTER replacing it, before letting the car sit overnight.


Thanks again

 

Pull the plugs. Look for coolant. When the temp gauge moves you are already in the danger zone. Overheat = coolant seals ruined. That's my hypothesis

 

See this announcement in big blue bold letters at the top of the new member subforum for why you can't create threads elsewhere: RX8Club.com - Announcements in Forum : New Member Forum

You can create them in this subforum without issue, just not elsewhere till the requirements are met (which is less prohibitive than 7club's I might add )




The only direct link between the radiator failure and a later no-cold-start would be if that radiator failure busted a coolant seal (can happen as low as 220F, needle won't even start moving from center till ~235F), and coolant slowly drained into the housing while it sat overnight. Pulling the plugs should identify if there is coolant on them, cranking it with plugs out (and gas pedal to the floor to prevent fuel / spark) should sweep out any coolant there for further confirmation, or fuel if it's an unrelated fuel flood.

If there isn't coolant pooling in the housing, then he got lucky, and the no-start condition is probably unrelated.

 

J8635621, do you ever come to the Houston meets? (it was last night. We left early to get the car running.)

I'm familiar with the thought that "any overheat is instant death" but how sensitive is the 8 gauge?
Im just familiar mostly with FCs. Its an on-off switch, so when it JUMPS to "H": true game over.


With that being said... Ive seen that if an overheat (while not good nevertheless) is caught soon enough, its not worst case scenario.

RIWWP, I already read that thread. it stated that you may have your access granted if you are a "known" poster? In the 7club, you can spam a few "post count threads" to gain access... here, Im stuck in this section until then... sounds more prohibitive, but I digress.

 

The 8's coolant temp sensor sends actual temp data to the ECU, which then reports that temp through the OBD2 network. It has direct control over the needle on the gauge however, I suspect through something like a 2d map of coolant temp to voltage output to the gauge. From about 165F to about 235F, the gauge won't move, the voltage on the gauge won't change. Under 165 and over 235F, the gauge responds normally, sweeping upward or downward based on coolant temp. Full H on the gauge is somewhere around 300F I believe (I could be wrong)

If the needle gets to H at all in an 8, it's game over. But that's mostly because you are only going to get lucky if you roll a 7 with a 6 sided die. Anything less than H but above 220F could be game over too, just depends on how lucky you are.

Yes, you can pop a coolant seal on your engine without the needle even moving.

 

Why did I think I went to another planet. "Oh hai, still triangles here!"

I appreciate the help. Basically its familiar war torn territory with 8's as well.... This is actually pissing me off now... Why is it that after all these years, mazda STILL wants to be a cheap *** and not have a major functioning temp sensor. That bitch should be "real time" and start to creep once it hits 190F...


ugh... alright, I'm starting to feel bad... Probably worst case now that I have some more 8 knowledge...

 

- Pressure test cooling system (assuming everything else is fine)
- Pull the plugs after sitting over night then a dry crank, check for coolant
- pull an oil sample to test for coolant
- test coolant for combustion gasses

A failure on any one of these points confirms a coolant seal failure, passing all of them means that he is probably fine. You can pass one and fail another with a coolant seal failure though, so don't assume one passing means everything is kosher.

 

Rarely. Med school is busy and I have a baby. I went a few months ago (at Barry's pizza). My buddy Stephen has a clean red fd he brings to those pretty regularly. I'll try to make a few more of the meets once I get my suspension all set like I want.

 

I just got a check engine light, went to mechanic he said that the code shows that it is electrical.
He took off the light but 2 days later it came back on. If it is electrical again, what can be thw cause of it?

 

There are 114 different CEL codes. "it's electrical" doesn't mean anything.

See this post in the new owner's thread: https://www.rx8club.com/new-member-f...4/#post4533723 (Link should jump straight to it)

 

I have a question that I didnt think needed a new thread. I bought a used short block off of a member on here. Its a 4 port and was recently rebuilt, and swapped for something else. My enginefinally took a dump. II'm planning on doing this swap by the new year. Is there any thing else I should do while it is out.

So far I am going to

Replace ALL ignition
Flush the entire oil system
Flush and change the coolant
Clean every single part that I can think of. Upper and lower intake Mani, throttle body, ssv ect


Thanks for the help in advanced.

 

if your cooling system is 4 years old or older, I'd seriously consider replacing the radiator ($150ish), thermostat ($75ish), coolant lines ($varies), coolant bottle and cap ($130) at the same time.

 

Ok I will definitely look into doing that. I'm not 100% sure that the engine I have is even good. I'm praying to god it is. Before I spend the extra few hundred on the above suggestions, would it kill me to run what I have for a few thousand miles until I can save for the above parts and labor? I've already been run broke so far lol. This is an expensive game. But it is fun. Also is there anyway to compression test the short block? Its without an oil pan at the moment and is in storage awaiting install.

 

I imagine that if you get a transmission (just need the bellhousing really) to mount a starter in, then apply 12v to the starter you can spin the motor to get the compression scores. You wouldn't need coolant, but should probably get some oil pushed through the e-shaft. This would assume that either A) you have access to a rotary compression tester or B) can talk a dealership into helping you with this type of test.

I can't estimate how much longer your engine has before it fails completely because you haven't told me anything about it

 

The one in the 8 now has failed. I'm pretty sure it spun a bearing or something similar. It had a bad oulley wobble and was ran that way for 40k miles + or -

I have an auto trans sitting on the floor but no rotary compression tester. The engine I acquired was rebuilt with some kind of special seals and then ran for a short time before being swapped with a more "powerful" engine. That's all I and the previous owner know about it. Fwiw he said he could see shiny apex seals tthrough the ports, and when he turned it over with a ratchet on the pulley boss it shot a lot of air out of the ports. This is all I know.

 

All apex seals are shiny when looked at through the plug holes:



So that doesn't tell us much.


A pulley wobble is one of the two things I wouldn't be willing to run the engine with (the other being a cooling system failure). I wouldn't want to guess at how long till it lets go.

 

It already let go. The car barely has enough compression to turn over. And idled rough and sounded like ***. I parked it and bought another engine. I'm just waiting to save up for labor money. Do all seals look shiny through the ports if one is broke?