thrustn

Anybody else having problems shifting into second at high rpms? I've had this car for about a year with no problems then a couple of weeks ago it started.

grapes

Is this something you do on a regular basis ????

thrustn

Maybe once a day before it started missing.

army_rx8

um...why would you want to put it in second gear when it is going 9k? wouldn't it be at red-line already? and doesn't power start to fall off at 8750 rpm or something like that?

or did you mean shift into second when you are at 9k rpms in 1st gear? i hope that is what you meant.

G8rboy

I'm sure he meant the latter... nothing wrong with that. I think I've read about a potential bent shift-fork causing that a difficult 1-2 shift... do a search and you'll find some threads on it.


Edit - found this from Tommy at Rosenthall:
https://www.rx8club.com/showthread.p...ork#post806770

army_rx8

^yea that'd be my guess as well. easy fix just have to drop the car off at the dealership... haha and hope they don't f up anything else while they are fixing your fork :p

thrustn

Yes, I am sometimes having a problem shifting into 2nd when I am at 9k rpm in 1st gear. It doesn't engage and makes this really bad grinding noise.

thrustn

Thanks for your help guys. I'll contact my dealer and see what happens.

thrustn

I'm not sure, I bought it new in 3/04. I called my service advisor and he told me to bring it so they can check it out. He said it sounds like im having a problem with my preasure plate, but wont know until they look at it.

Gambit

avoid doing it. It's not nearly as fun redlining in first as it is in second adn third.

shocar

When shifting to the next gear at or near engine redline, accelerated wear on the transmission is occuring. So think of a red line shift as being the equivalent of 500 shifts at 4000 RPM. Just my guess, but a red line shift cannot be the same as a 4000 RPM shift wearwise. When I bought my Taurus SHO years ago the salesman said that all high performance cars are viewed on trade-in as having probably been "beat", even with low miles. When Mazda says that cars have been abused and are not warranted, they are effectively saying that operation at red line is abuse in their eyes.

kuleto

maybe i'm just clueless on this but does shifting at a higher rpm really cause that much extra wear on the transmission?

shocar

The amount of energy that the syncros have to handle is speed dependent. No shift is ever perfect so shaft acceleration or deceleration almost always occurs. Any racing car wears everything out faster than a normal car.
When Mazda qualified the engine/transmission for warranty coverage, they did a certain amount of life testing. You can be sure that the qualified life test was conducted nowhere near the maximum performance limits of the running gear. However, they did do that 24 hour high speed run last year, but that was at less than maximum RPM and under steady state running for the most part.

G8rboy

Not necessarily... a lot depends on the driver. You can feel when your high RPM shift is right, and when it's not... a well timed (RPM matched) shift will cause little wear to the transmission. If Mazda felt that any activity at redline would be damaging to the engine or transmission, they would have lowered the rev limiter and red line accordingly. If you do it all the time, and poorly, that might be considered abuse, but if you know how to handle an MT there's no abuse going on. A much bigger abuse issue with an engine with such a high RPM is people trying to do clutch drops at near redline... the kind of shock to the tranny and diff that won't last long.

Mazda does know how to build components to handle stress- I autocrossed my Miata for 5 years and was bouncing off the rev-limiter (7250rpm) constantly, shifting at redline, etc. I've also driven a 2nd gen RX7 the same way and both cars never had an issue with their drivetrain. At 100,000 miles my Miata ran stronger than the day I bought it. I wouldn't dare try that with a domestic, but Mazda and most of the imports can handle it.