VahlKano

dealership recomendations for kitsap/pierce think i might need a new motor soon . only had the 8 for a couple of weeks but have been reading the forums a lot and from what ive read i may need a new motor soon. bought it with 74,000 on it, it has a lot of mods. am i gonna get a lot of crap from the dealer for the mods(intake, throttle body spacers, diff plug wires, n such ) . love the car, been riding a bike for the last 10 years. this car is a hoot figures i bought something so high mait.

VahlKano

ok so not an overwhelming response...anybody have any exp. with the local dealerships looks like i have 3 choices. paar, milam, or south tacoma mazda. any thoughts.

RawrX8

iTrader: (1)

You could only need a new motor soon if your compression drops below the threshold.

shin

And I think your compression is just fine

VahlKano

thanx for saving me the time of testing it myself....u have any idea what gender my next kid will be or when its going to be comming . this is truley a multi-faceted forum with members that can guess stuff like that from a distance. it was an easy question...dealers any advice. no,, then thanx gg go away.

dondo

iTrader: (7)

who'd you buy it from? the only decent dealers are lee johnson and umazda. the south end ones are terrible

pdxhak

iTrader: (2)

I would think a throttle body spacer would cause issues. No reason to use it on the 8 unless you are spraying for FI or nitrous. What other mods do you have? No CAT and or PCM tuning will cause problems.

dondo

iTrader: (7)

^ true. intake and plug wires are no prob.

shin

Then go waste your $200 at umazda like I did with my 95000mi engine

LCheung

All due respect VahlKano, shin simply stated what was probably on a lot of our minds because you stated ZERO symptoms of a blown engine except your dealer which we believe to be clueless about these engines say it's blown. It doesn't sound to be heavily modded at all and as the other members have said, it's probably not going to be an issue unless you got a turbo or supercharger on it.

I would say you need a compression test to be sure. Is the car doing anything odd?

You're going to have a baby girl in 2 years.

I've only had one experience with University Mazda since I've only had one issue with my car. I also bought my car there. Wonderful dealership in general.

I refused to buy my car from any of the south end Mazda dealers. The one in Auburn had a brand new GT that didn't even start, can't imagine how they treat their used cars or customer cars if they can't even take care of their new car lot.

VahlKano

oh good another girl just made it thru 18 years with the last one..anywhooo. thanx for the input. got the car from a friend that picked it up at auction. neither one of us know much about rotary motors. the tb spacer had me kind of perplexed to thought it might be some kind of mazda thing. im not totaly sure what is what at this point it was a decent car at a good price so i jumped on it. seemed a little tired but the body is in good shape. ive worked around cars for 25 years just never had any real mazda exp cept for the fact that the paint is a bitch to match. im going to be puttin her up on a rack this week to look up her skirt an see whassup. kind of paniced a little when i started reading the older posts and thought crap im gonna need a motor. il compresion test it this week to see how strong it is. Dual-Outlet Greedy Exhaust
Short Air Intake
Drilled & Slotted Rotors
Tein Lowering Springs
Mazdatrix Spark Plug Wires
Agency Power Crank Pulley
Throttle Body Spacer
Mazdaspeed Upper Strut Bar..thats a list of the mods i know about. soo jhats the purpose of a tb spacer, if any. and thanx again in advance for any input u guys have. i really do love the car so whatever work it needs is fine by me. so any advice on dealers a little closer to me. in case i do need dealer work down the road.

dondo

iTrader: (7)

send a pic of the tb spacer. normally they're used as an injection point for alky or nos.

VahlKano

il do that soon as i can find the kids camera..never even thought of nos il have to take a closer look and see if i can find some clues.

patrick_andraste

+1 for University Mazda.

So far the rest have been idiots that I have been to.

LCheung

Since you've been working on cars for 25 years, you might have the wrong kind of compression tester. You need a special one that can separate the compression of the three apex seals as it goes around. The adapter I think is made to be shorter too to make sure it doesn't protrude into the housing and hit the apex seal.

This thought just came into my head. You might already know this, but I thought I bring it up just in case. I would feel really bad if something bad happened if I kept my mouth shut.

VahlKano

working around cars...not the best mechanic in the world but i get the basics. i owned a detail shop for years and do body work. thank u L i was wondering if it would be a different kind of compression test. im smart enough to know when im in over my head thats about it. i do know enough good mechanics to get some help. ive got someone whos going to let me put her up on a rack and to give me some advice, but his knowledge of rotarys is limited also. so any help is much appreciated.

LCheung

Cool. Either way it sounds like the car is fine and drives great. Maybe you feel like you should have had it inspected since you found out afterwards how quirky the car could be? I think you're pretty safe if the car seems to be fine and you get it compression tested. Outside of that if the car's been in the NW all it's life, I really doubt it's got any structural issues. This car has one of the strongest chassis around and a lot of that has to do with the fact that they didn't have to compromise any space for the engine.

It sounds like you might be too far away for any of the Dick's meets, but maybe you can meet someone from the board at an autocross out at Bremerton Motorsports Park? Even if you're not racing, you just sign a waiver and you can just park and hang out.

I'm not the most familiar with the car either since I keep mine stock and let the dealer work on it. I think the only things I do with my car is check the oil about every 500 miles and top it off, change the oil every 3-5k (other guys are going to kill me, but manual says 7500), and never shut it off cold. I can make you a copy of the DVD that the car came with if you don't have yours, but I think the only other thing it really tells you is how to start the car if it's flooded and I don't think anyone here has had that happen yet in the NW.

dondo

iTrader: (7)

i've flooded mine. and i change oil every 2-3k. hehe

Bignatex

oh i have had my car flood about 17 times... lol once when my alternator took a crap and my GF at the time left the lights on aka dead battery dead alternator and flooded engine. lol not a good way to come back from a 3 month semi deployment to cali. all your mods seem fine and the dealrship shouldnt say much except as they have said the throttle body spacer. but as they said Umazda, if you can id make the drive i went to 4 different dealerships, 2 in everett are one in bermerton i believe and one in olympia where i bought the car. they were all very very bad expriences. One in everett i had them do a full compression test and check EVERYthign on my car before i left for the vegas meet. on my way home the engine was SHOT way beyond their new engine requirements, my cat was fried, faulty engine coolant sensor/lines, and some clogged fuellines.. it was pretty bad. from what i have heard it go to UMazda, never heard anything bad about it

VahlKano

the car has done some traveling...it came from florida...2 owners there then to auction .someone at one time loved this car very much...then it looks like somebody rode it hard and put her away wet.i intend on showing her some love and giving it a new life. it idles a little rough but seems to have plenty of zip when i get on it. i am going to go thru all the stuff listed in the new owners thread and theres one about a lot of the diy noob stuff like for the maf n all. il do that before i head to the dealership . having worked at a few dealers around the sound i try to avoid going to one until i have to...thats prob the reason i owned a bike until now i hate dealers. of course motorcycle dealers are no different they suck too. im looking forward to working on the car and getting to know its quiks. i owned a buell for many years so i know quirky rides. keeps things interesting :D .

VahlKano

ok so after driving the 8 for a little over 2 weeks now...what exactly is a hard start ? it takes about 3 to 4 seconds for it to light off, i never really thought much of it. my bike (CBR1000RR) takes about the same time to start and most cars ive driven take about the same. is that hard start for the 8. the coolant light keeps comming on even though its full. i check it all the time. she idles a little rough, to me it seems rough. around 8 to 900 up n down. clutch is a little mushy. all in all it seems ok. which is what i expected for 74000 now 75000 miles on any car. it needs an oil change for sure oil is dirty.havnet checked the compression yet gettin to that one i guess thats a the biggie. i dont see a cat underneath...its really low so i might be missing it could it be waaay up front. no header but exhaust goes all the way to the front from what i see with no cat to speak of that i can see yet. sorry still no pics of the mystery tb spacers im gettin to that.

dondo

iTrader: (7)

Sen pics and we can tell if you have a midpipe abs which one. For clutch pedal feel you need to bleed the slave cylinder and likely the rest of the brakes. Might be a good idea to replace the spark plugs and maybe ignition coils too as both go bad in the car faster than others. The idle will be rougher because of the intake. It's not a problem though.

LCheung

The sensor in the coolant reservoir could be bad. If you look up coolant light, you might find something about it. I remember reading that in hot places the sensor drops out pretty often. A lot of those people disconnect the sensor and just monitor it on their own. The only way to get a new sensor is to buy the whole coolant reservoir. I don't think it's a horrendously expensive part so it might be worth swapping out.

VahlKano

cool..great info..thanx guys..i look forward to seein all of u in one place sometime. it would be really cool to have some people that know what their looking at to check out my car sometime.

dondo

iTrader: (7)

^ yeah it's a lot harder to give good info over the interwebz