New to RX-8 and the rotary engine
 

Hey guys, just wanted to introduce myself. My name is Brad and I am from Alabama. I purchased my RX-8 last week and am absolutely in LOVE with it! There's a great RX-7 community here in Birmingham that I am connected with, but don't know anyone with an 8, nor have I met anyone on here.

A little bit about my car: 05 SSM 6mt touring with 99k on the body and somewhere in the mid 40k's on the engine that was replaced in 2011. It's completely stock, but I'm looking forward to modding it of course. I am also getting married in October, so any advice on how to go about convincing her that I need to spend money on my car is greatly appreciated!

Thanks so much and I look forward to learning from the community here!

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It looks AWESOME.

By chance, have you done a compression test yet? And what mods are you planning on doing to your RX-8?

And I don't have a wife OR a gf, so I can't help you with the situation. :(
Although it doesn't hurt to ask! (And save up for the parts)

Imo a compression test would have helped prior to purchase, regardless you will love this amazing car for all that it is.

congratulations
when it's time to change the tires you can put 245mm all around
you probably won't need too many other mods other ignition and is your passenger side air bag dash board cracking yet?...

Blast from the past! I have since sold the 8 and now have an FD. Started off with BNR's, but am finishing a year long project this month where I now have a Borg Warner S472SXE. Just fired it up again 2 weeks ago and will be getting it tuned on March 2nd. Hope everyone is doing well!

Are you in the UK? There was a Prodrive version there, but otherwise the 06 Shinka special editions have the same suspension as other RX8s of that year.

Just to make sure it actually is a special edition, what colour is the car and the interior?

Hi: Ottawa Canada. The car does not say Shinka on it; its the copper red colour and has 18 inch Mazdaspeed rims. (I don't know if they were an add-on or not; the dealer said they were heavy bucks to buy). There is only 15000K on it or about 9600 miles. The car seems to ride a bit stiff, and I have no intention of using it as a "go-fast" car. I would prefer a strictly road suspension per GT standards with standard height.

The interior is a light brown camel colour

I also just bought a BlueDriver OBD2 sensor to give me some extra live data on the engine; it works ok with the iPhone but the car does not transmit oil temperature or pressure. intake temperature, rpm, coolant temperature and some other stuff is read. I went this route to preclude buying or installing separate analogue gauges.

Sounds like a great find. The colours match a Shinka, and it's normal to not have that written anywhere. If they had Mazdaspeed wheels, perhaps they also had the Mazdaspeed coilovers, but this is all dealer option stuff, not part of an edition..

I suppose get under there and take a look? If the shocks are silver, it's likely Mazdaspeed, if black regular Mazda stuff and if yellow then Bilstein.
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Thanks. Thats the plan. i don't know what type of shocks I want yet though.

If you want performance, Bilstein PSS kits are a great starting point, but if you are not interested in corner carving, stick with stock.

Correct, there is no oil temp or pressure sensor on the car. The oil pressure gauge on the dash isn't actually reading oil pressure.
1650 at cruise sounds right. It'll go up and down with load, but it's in the right ballpark. It shouldn't get to 1800.

Thanks for the info.

I don't undewrstand the comment re oil pressure. What is the guage on the car reading if not oil pressure? Surely there is some sort of oil pressure sender on the vehicle.

You would think so, but the sender is just a switch. Either there is pressure or there isn't. It will never show a different value from what it shows when you turn the car on.

Thanks again; I did some resarch after you last replied and am grateful you confirmed that information. I understand there is aftermarket sending units that can be installed which give appropriate readings athough I am unlikely to install them.

At least my Jag xj has a warning light which activates when the oil pressure drops below a certain threshold, but it doesn't necessarily mean there is zero oil pressure. There is probably many other warning indicators in that cluster of problems in the jag. My subaru had a low oil warning light as distinct from a low oil pressure indicator, but come to think of it for over 3-4 million kilometers driving I never had an oil pressure problem; nevertheless I am glad my tractors (when I had them) had oil pressure guages.

I suspect Mazda designed it to have a real gauge, but realized that most people don't understand oil pressure and would freak out when it moved, so they scaled back to a "don't worry about it" gauge. That, or they couldn't think of anything better to put in the cluster to balance it visually.

There is an oil level light that I think flashes if you have no pressure. But as you say, that almost never happens without more apparent problems like holes in the block.

The oil pressure gauge is insignificant enough for Mazda to just leave it out on the S2. It more of an idiot light. It's not a functional unit like the one in a Corvette.

Same deal with our water temp gauge. After it warms up, it will stay in the middle until overheating is pretty apparent. You want to shut your car off ASAP if the water temp gauge moves past middle.

Lastly, you will never want to see that oil pressure light come on when driving. If it lights up, damage is already being done. This applies to a lot of cars, not just the 8.

The (steady) oil light is for oil level, it's not tragic. It's supposed to remind you to fill the oil before it gets really low.

I mean, I never saw it when I was driving since I check my oil level every fill-up.

Could be useful if there is a puncture in the oil pan, though.

The blue driver sensor does give coolant temperature though which is satisfactory and also intake air temperature. I'm trying to find out if the RX8 MAF measures humidity in the intake air as part of the injector equation. I am looking into installing a passive, atmospheric pressure water injection thing using an ultrasonic air humidifier or pond humidifier; just piping the ultrasonic output adjacent to the air filter. I want to be able to control it with the iPhone, but not there yet.

IIRC the MAF sensor just measures the mass air flow(duh) and intake air temperature. I don't think it measures humidity.

Are you running a turbo?