New to driving my RX8
 

Hello everyone! I just graduated high school on the 8th and since I'm going to college I thought it was time I bought my first car. Ever since I was a little kid, I had always wanted an RX7 (Not going to lie, that one fast and the furious movie made me want one a little more). But anyway, I was looking around a couple of years ago and to my surprise Mazda had made an Rx8! So after searching for a couple of months I found the exact one I wanted; a 2004 black GT RX8 with red and black interior. Well, with the money I had saved up throughout the years, I finalized the paperwork and bought it Thursday and my mom's friend was very happy to drive it back home for me. The problem is, as good as I am with driving automatic cars, I bought the manual (because of the added horsepower). My mom paid for lessons that will start soon but I'm impatient to drive it. But, every time I try to take it slowly out of the driveway, I always stall it. Do you guys have any tips for driving RX8's? Or manual cars in general? I know it sounds completely stupid that I bought a car I don't know how to drive, but I have plenty of time seeing as my dad is allowing me to drive one of his cars until I can drive a manual well enough on my own.

Congrats on your purchase! Do you have any pics?

As for driving tips, it's very hard to instruct over the internet. The best thing to do is take the car to an empty parking lot, and practice, practice, practice.

Also, don't get any ideas from the F&F movies. They were (for the most part) garbage and gave a bad rep for some very honest cars. If you want the "bling bling" factor, just don't post here about it :)

Read the sticky threads (located at the top of each sub-forum) and acquaint yourself with the car and site! Welcome to the addiction

Get a feel for the clutch. Rx-8's have one of the easiest and smoothest clutch and transmissions.
To get a feel for where the clutch engages, get on a flat surface, gently and slowly release off the clutch without giving it gas until the car moves, then you can find a balance to give gas and slowly let off the clutch.

I learned how to drive a manual on an 8, stalled once got it on second try, never looked back since. It's that easy.

Pics or it didn't happen...lol

Anyway, welcome to the club and enjoy the ride.

Congrats on the purchase.

As has been said, practice, practice, practice. Any Mazda manual I have driven has been easy. Don't be afraid of the gas pedal or rpms. It is not intuative for people that have only driven non-rotary cars to rev the car to 2 or 3000 rpms to start off from a stop.

www.rx8club.com/showthread.php?t=232558&

www.rx8club.com/showthread.php?t=114527&

These threads might help...

Congratz on the car and passing high school.

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haha, true!!!

Let me be the first one to warn you....do not keep stalling the car especially if the engine is cold. You could flood the engine.

And follow the links posted above. You must real all the stickies to get important info about the car you just got.

Welcome to the club. I'm fairly new myself, I'm very happy with my 05.
It's not stupid that you bought a manual before learning. My first manual was a Jeep Wrangler when I was 20. My grandfather took it for a test drive and said it was a good buy. I got dropped off at the dealership the next by myself and jumped behind the wheel of a manual for the first time, I learned to drive stick that day when I drove it off the lot.
I wouldn't recommend doing that with your 8, pistonhater is right you could flood the engine.
Congrats and be safe!

keep your left heel on the floor. do not "stomp" on it

I think this is great advice. Practice getting the car to move (slowly) with just the clutch, no accelerator. You can control the speed with how far you let out the clutch.

Just remember to get the car warmed up fully before you do something that's likely to stall it (like learning how to use the clutch). If you stall the engine when it's cold, it can result in flooding, which can require a tow truck trip to the Mazda dealer.

This is how I taught my wife to drive a manual:

We went to a mall parking lot which had a slight downward slope, just enough so that car will slowly roll by itself. She would let it start rolling on its own and then slowly release the clutch, without gas, until it was engaged. Then she's stop and repeat the process. She only stalled it once using this method. Once at the bottom of the slope, she'd just drive back to the top and start again. Eventually she learned the point of engagement and started adding gas. Once she was comfortable, we moved to a flat portion of the lot and she took off from a stand still. She stalled it a couple times, but then got the hang of it. After a while of that, we went back to the slope and ran it uphill this time. Had a few more stalls and bucks, but not many. While she's not the greatest at it, now she's at least comfortable enough with the manual to drive if she had to in an emergency.

Now that I think about it, the RX8 was the first manual car I drove, and stalled like a 100 times lol.. Can't believe it didn't flood...

Anyways. The key is to get a feel for the clutch as mentioned above. just slowly let go of the clutch without giving it gas and when it starts shaking and dropping the rpms, that's when you know it needs gas, simply get used to giving it a little gas right before that moment and you can take off easily.

Actually, I think it sounds pretty smart. You'll have a great experience learning, and it could easily turn out to be something that you value for the rest of your life. Seriously, the RX-8 transmission is relatively easy to learn, and a joy to operate. Just keep that in mind as you go through the (short-term) difficulty of learning it, and you'll be fine. :-)

Very clever, I like it! I've taught several people to drive manual tranny cars, but all were low rpm torquey. The downhill slope will help beginners to "rpm engines" a lot.