Yesterday I sold my nonturbo FC of nearly 10 years to a young guy in Mattoon, IL who I'm sure will enjoy it. It has been a great car, and I had lots of fun working on it, learning about it, and driving it.

I have moved on to a used RX-8 with 20k miles on a new engine and some nice modifications (thanks to savedsol). It sings the nonturbo rotary song beautifully, and my daughter's car seat fits nicely in the back seat. I suppose I'm having my cake and eating it too!

I've been reading on here for some time, and from what I gather, I should follow the "first $100" to spend thread. I'm not sure if the ignition coils were replaced - have to check the receipts, so any tips in that area are welcome: warning signs for them going bad, go with stock replacement or some kind of aftermarket?, etc. I saw the Cobb Access Ports are discontinued, but there is some activity on here about them. Looks like the best way to tune the stock ECU.

 

congrats on the purchase, that was a great looking rx7 by the way. im kinda new here but i can pitch in what i have been picking up on.

signs that your coils/plugs/wires are going bad would be loss of power, bad fuel economy, misfires, trouble starting etc. going with oem ones could never hurt because in no way will they effect your warrenty, while on the other hand the stock ignition system is one of the weaker components on the car so it could never hurt to upgrade it. with the upgraded coils/plugs/wires you will most likely see a gain in performance because of a more powerful spark, and better fuel economy. so far is seems like the most popular is the BHR kit (blackhaloracing.com) they are a very reputable brand and make a lot of stuff for our cars.

and as for the cobb, they have been discontinued but they are poping up for sale every now and then. getting one of those will allow you tune your stock ECU with out the help of a shop. and if one day you decide to go force induction then having one of those will be your best friend.

hope i was of some help, if i was wrong on any of this please somebody correct me!!

matt

 

Not sure why, but this thread makes me happy.

 

Congrats and welcome.

 

Welcome! Now go join the Central Illinois Car Enthusiast Network as well.

 

Hey man welcome enjoy the new toy! By the way the access port is not discontinued, however, it is now only exclusively offered through a member of the forums here... Mazdamaniac (mazdamaniac.com), I'd do some serious research into it and the people you can have tune it before you make your purchase though...

Anyways again welcome hope she treats you right!

 

So far, you've got the basics covered! Have you read the "New and Potential Owners Start Here" thread? Very good info there.
I'm a former FC N/A and turbo guy. All in all though, I get much more appreciation from the 8!
Long Live ROTARY!

 

congrats!! nice fc but the 8 looks great! the 3 is nice too...we had one in the same color that we sold recently.

 

Gotta tell you, something about hte FC gives you this nice warm fuzzy feeling inside unlike any other RX7 I have seen. I really am not sure why, maybe its that unique smell that its cloth interior had, or the burning smell that would resonate from that exhaust...

Anyway, welcome to your new addiction!! make yourself at home

 

lol at the characteristic FC smell! My car certainly did smell of oil and exhaust when I bought it, but I fixed that quickly with a lot of maintenance and new interior carpets! Of course, it always had a little exhaust smell going on, but I loved that car anyway.

Thanks for the welcome, too. I hope to enjoy the RX-8 for quite a while. Thankfully it came with a set of Bridgestone RE-01Rs that will be fun for autocross.

 

Welcome,

Nice FC you had, there's something very pure about the FC's that makes me want one soon.

 

Thanks. Yeah, the FC is definitely a more pure sports car design than the 8, and I loved the strong lines in the body and 80s style gauges inside. Mine was fairly modified for a nonturbo street car (light duty track setup) with intake, exhaust, CDI ignition, 4.3:1 LSD, SS brake lines, and street/track brake pads among many other tweaks like radiused inserts in the 6PI sleeves that the 8 already has.

I didn't originally intend to sell the FC, but the 8 is just so much more usable for me with the back seats. Good luck finding an FC. It is hard to find one that is not a rust bucket, and it's even harder if you want a turbo (TII).

 

welcome

 

welcome, Im about to follow you and sell my fc for an 8 although im not sure just yet its a clean TII, I just need room for my son.

I would deff get the upgrade coils b/c they are so much better.

 

I've loved the FC since I watched Initial D a few years ago, it looks like a lot of fun to drive. Hope the switch works out for you! ^^

 

Welcome.
The back seat is great (I used to own an fd)
Put a midpipe and premix and the smell will live on!

 

There really isnt a simple easy way to diagnose coils with certainty. The service manual procedure with multimeter is bogus. There used to be a crowd who believed white spots on the bottom of the coil were the sign for replacement/failure, but that appears to have been mostly cleared up. The obvious symptoms have already been pointed out, but the best thing you can do is ensure you keep fresh coils in it, or better yet upgrade them. You can fab everything up yourself, or preferably IMO just get whats offered by BHR. Keep good OEM plugs in it to.

As mentioned, the AP is availible through mazdamaniac. Before you take that step read up, be sure you know what your getting into, what is expected of you to ensure you recieve calibrations/tunes, and ensure you understand the logistics of the process and are OK with that.

That said, the BHR coils, the AP, and getting rid of the cat are the three best things you can do IMO outside of good maintenance.

Other popular and well recieved stuff includes;
Axial Flow Engineering's(Richard Paul) Short Throw Shifter - hands down the most direct, positive, tactile change you can make on the car for the money. Its acclaimed to give the shifter a rifle bolt feel, and I concurr
Premixing and/or Sohn 2-stroke adapter - lots of talk/debate on these and anything else oil related in general
Mazmart's oil pressure modification
etc/et al

 

Welcome!
get cobb from MM

go for BHR ignition solution for ignition coils, but make sure you change the dwell using COBB

with COBB you are stuck with using MAF based tunning, which is not ideal for high power FI, if you decide on going that route.... You may want to get a piggyback/ stand alone with MAP capability, interceptor X is a popular choice

Anyway, you will find plenty of good info here!

Welcome to the rx8!

 

I dont want to debate it here, just make a statement that you(OP) can take to follow up on and make your own decisions:

MAF based systems are good out to 400-450hp before you may have to start scaling things and potentially run into granularity issues. That kind of power has extremely rarely been exceeded here.

Many would reccomend forking out for proper standalone over the Int-X(microtech) if you were to ever pursue such goals. Something to do about granularity as above....

not debating, just offering ideas which you would need to research, learn, and decide yourself if you choose such a path

 

true ... I wasn't specific, thanks paul!

 

Thanks for the tips everyone. I'm interested in the Cobb AP for its function as a gauge and to fine tune the car for the mods it has. I'm not looking to go way up in power level via FI - just to make it run as smoothly and well as it should. (Car has Odula intake, RP high flow cat, and Mazdaspeed v1 exhaust.)

I haven't seen any major signs that the ignition coils are going out. My main concern is that there seems to be more of an occasional, light pop of backfire than I had on my FC upon startup and sometimes at idle. It could be a slight misfire or the car running a bit too rich - or just the nature of the car with these mods and no ECU tuning. That being said, the BHR ignition looks like a meaningful upgrade that I should seriously consider in the future for longevity if nothing else.

 

pops at startup are normal with the car and nothing to worry about

 

Any other device to change the dwell?
Doe the AP has to be MM tuned? I know it would be better, just want to know if it's necessary.

Non FI speaking, fyi.

 

sure, the microtech units and greddy units may be able to, i'm not sure and the general concensus is they suck anyway.

any decent standalone will, but thats big money.

the Hymee software should also, but I dont know if you can even get it anymore, i'm pretty sure if you CAN that support is nonexistant.

the EFIdude flash stuff that Pettit uses should also be able to, with the aparent limitation that you cant do any tuning yourself.

depending on your location in the world(JDM/USDM/EUDM) the AP can be tuned by yourself with the freely availible software, or you may be required to have MM do it or pay the $1500 for the PRO tuner software.

 

ShinkaEVO and fc2se, since you are in the US, you can def tune it yourself using AccessTUNER Race. You need to request a download link from the COBB website when you get your accessport.