Rotary newb in Texas desert
 

http://images2.snapfish.com/23232323...9%3C9346nu0mrj
First off, I'm glad to be on this forum, and appreciate any and all help I receive in the future concerning this beauty!

My fiance bought her Sparkling Black Mica baby brand new in 2010 before we got together, and has pretty much babied it throughout her ownership of it. As of right now, she only has about 29k miles, and she has done a phenomenal job on keeping up with the oil changes. That being said, I'm glad she and I ended up together, as she had no idea what she was getting into maintenance wise (and to be totally honest, until the past couple of days, nor did I)!

A little background on me, I'll be 26 this coming March, work in the oilfield as an electronics technician, and have a fair to decent knowledge base when it comes to automotive mechanics (piston engines). I have always loved the rotary, just never had the opportunity (or rather was scared) to own one... until now!

I love the car to death and drive it every chance I get (1. because I'm a speed freak.. 2. Because it's a nice change from the LS torque monsters I normally drive 3. A high-rev a day keeps the carbon at bay!) and have pretty much fallen in love with it AND accepted the known risks associated with ownership of such a fine machine! I have done lots of reading (and searching haha) thus far before my first post and have eliminated several questions that appear to be monotonous.

Plans:
1) Keep the car running, unmolested, and wreck-free!
2) Made an appointment earlier this morning with our local dealer to get the plugs, wires, coil packs changed, flush/fill the coolant system, and get a compression test. (Recently started idling rough, figured out where the issue lies upon reading the "new/future owner" thread.)
3) Learn everything I possibly can about the mechanical simplicity and beauty of this 6 port work of art!
4) HID upgrade
5) Fog upgrade
6) Fix haze on headlamps

Welcome~! Its a fun car to drive that is for sure. Sounds like you are on track with the idling issues but if you are already changing out the plugs, wires and coil packs I would wait till that is done before moving forward on the compression test.

Make sure you clean the CAS and MAF. Also there is some screens prior to the MAF if they are messed up or out of place it can cause those issues.

Right on! Thanks for the input, I will look into them later today when the fiance brings it home. As far as the compression testing goes, I really don't have any reason to question the compression on the engine... was more looking to see what they look like for a reference point in the future life of it. Out of curiosity, what would be gained from waiting to do the compression test until AFTER changing the ignition components?

The idling issues being fixed, if you thought maybe low compression was an issue. If you are just doing the compression test for referance its a really cool idea and something you should hold onto.

Welcome!

Oh okay I gotcha! Yeah I don't really suspect a compression issue in her car as of now. (I got in the car last night and it actually only has about 21,500 miles on it... in three and a half years of ownership!!) So yeah, it's just going to be for something to file away and keep for future referencing/comparison.

Thanks for the welcome monchie!

Save yourself alot of money and do coils, plugs, wires yourself. 300-400 bucks compared to 1200 for a dealer.

Will look into that... the only thing about diy projects for me is time constraints. I am 24/7 on call and they have some sort of sensor that tells them when I'm in the middle of a project to call me out. Our local dealer quoted me 700 to do the ignition components, but I'm all for saving a few bucks haha!

700 -1200 is a big price difference though. I wouldn't think the labor cost would be that much different from TX to NY, so where did you come up with that figure?

Its up to the dealer, but we have seen ignition jobs over the 1000 dollar mark before.

...scary. Lol thanks for the heads up, I'm going to be looking more deeply into that quote now.

Example: https://www.rx8club.com/new-member-f...dealer-250464/
$1,800 quote to replace ignition.

Its not hard. The housings are labled for the plugs and as long as you mark everything or do one coil and wire at a time you should be fine.

Thanks for pointing me to that thread, I hadn't searched yet. Seems as though I'll be doing them myself this weekend after browsing through it.

Y'all talked me into it haha. Appreciate it guys!

Looks like I'm gonna be ordering the entire ignition setup from BHR, as well as a mid-pipe with the catalyst in it, just for the future's sake.

And I was wrong about the mileage... this thing just broke over 21k haha.

A step in the right direction. You will be super happy with the BHR midpipe cat combo. Should give you a bit deeper of an exhaust note as well. Let me know if you run into any issues.

Can you give me an idea as to how much of a deeper tone? My fiance daily drives the car and she's going to complain if it's too loud. Guaranteed.

As long as you are keeping the rear section exhaust it should not get much louder at all. At crusing speeds and around town you should not notice a huge differance other then the tone being lower. Of course when you get on gas hard its gonna be louder. The re-sale on the BHR setup is also fairly good if you dont like it.