RECALL & POWER LOSS UPDATE
 

I bought my car in August of 2003. Had Power Loss issue's for the last two years. I am pleased to announce that the problem has been resolved. My coils were bad. They have always been bad I think. It feels like I added about 100 HP. They were that bad. I feel like I have a new car. The marbles in a can have gone away. I had the recall done at the same time too. As a matter of fact, the car has never run this good. Better than the day I bought it. Seriously!

Happy for you dude !!!!

Good luck with your new coils Hahahahahaha

Do you think it may have been the plugs they changed in the recall that brought your power back and not the coils? I've got an early build 04 too and wonder if I'm also in need of some new coils. Was it noticable over the last 2 years that that power was decressing or did it just go bad over night?

good job

Let me see if I can get my dealership to replace my coils as well. Just in case :P

anyway good job :)

Get them to check your coils. It could be that. I know you can focus on: Coils(ignition), CAT, and Heater Core. My power loss got worse over time. If your power is lost during heavy loads, then I would say coils. When I say "load" that means when the engine can not rev quickly. Higher gears are more pronounced. I think the marbles in a can sound can develope from a number of problems. The marbles are a by product because the ECU is trying to correct the situation. It does not see a problem because no CEL is generated. The motor is working extra hard to overcome the problem(s). This car is loaded totally dependent on the information gathered from its many sensors. If a sensor is picking up incorrect readings, then all calculations downline are wrong too.
When I picked my car up for service, it did not want to run at all. It stalled and bucked 10 times on my mile ride home. I called the dealer and asked if they screwed up the flash or put plug wires on wrong. It ran bad. He said "It was running like that when we got it". SURE! I uplugged the battery for 10, and pressed brake pedal for a minute to depleat any power left. I hooked the battery up and then did the odometer and brake pedal thingy. Cranked the car up and let it idle until it got to normal temp. Like everytime I do this, the car will not idle until it learns how. I think its my flywheel. After two days it will learn how to idle. I called the dealer back and told him to do that to any more RX8's that come in for the recall. I told him that it ran better than it did when I bought it. Needless to say he was very suprised.
I feel like I have a new car now. I had to pay for the labor and Mazda paid for the parts. I thought it was bull but, Oh well. $345 for labor and clutch flush. I reported the issue a half a dozen time from 20k miles until now at 63k miles. Three dealerships too. At least it is fixed.

Turbine,

I recently had my coils replaced after a CEL and severe loss of power.
When I picked it up I found myself over reving it - it had so much more power!
I guess it had happened gradually so I didn't know it was so sluggish.

I also had some starting issues which have resolved now too.

I think they need to replace coils at the time of the spark plug replacement - every 30, 000 miles.

Are you listening Big Daddy Mazda??

Brenda

Why did you wait so long to get the recall done?

Life. I moved my business to a new building I built, and moved personally once in the past year.

I think you are correct Silver. The coils have an experation date on them. Maybe a grounding kit would add life? Don't know.

May I ask a somewhat relevant question to this thread???

My 8 only has 10k miles on it. But I get the feeling that under hard acceleration, the car doesn't rev "freely" up to red line. Rather, it wants to rev but kinda hits dead spots along the way. Simalarly, under hard accelaration and hard to document, in 3rd gear at approximately 5800 rpms, the car dies for just a moment before kicking back in. Like I said, it is very difficult to document. Last time it happened, someone else was in the car and I yelled "Did you feel that" and they admitted they did.........

Am I being paranoid or is something going on??

thanx

There are dead spots as aux intake ports open. Also, the a/f ratio richens as the revs climb, to try and protect the engine from idiots who dont understand why they're supposed to run 91+ octane. The only way to get rid of the dead spots that I know of it an ecu reflash from racing beat or cobb(not yet out). A piggy back like a greddy emanage or inteceptor x would do the same thing.

Thanx! Any links where I could research the advice you gave; aka Racing Beat or Greddy........??

rough idle
 

I own a 2005 model and it has a rough idle. It has been to the shop 2 times and the problem can't be found. one visit the computer showed a bad cell in the catalytic converter but changing that didnt fix the problem. when the vehicle is put in reverse it idles really rough and hesitates to go backwards. any suggestions?

:mdrmed: First time I've read such a statement about idling rough when putting the car in reverse.

Sorry, this made me laugh!!! :mdrmed:

my guess it you have a auto... and you also have bad motor mounts..

beers :beer:

It's freakin back! True the coils were bad, but did not fix the marbles. Oh well. Mixture or Core? Back to the drawing board.

Thank you for this post. Last week I stumped my local dealer with my marbles and they've been driving me crazy ever since (the marbles and the dealer). The technician actually told me NOT to rev it to 7k?!

Thanks to your post, I'm taking my car in on Friday and recommend that they change my coils too! ;)

I love warranty work!

Turns out to be two problems!
 

I found that I have two issues or had two issue's. One was affecting the bottom end and the other was affecting the upper RPM range. The coil packs were bad. That was my bottom end power issue. The Coolant system was the other. After my coil packs were replaced, my car ran excellent until the car got hot. Then the marbles came back.
Seems that there was a pocket of air in the system. To address all the problems and rule out a third possible issue, I ran a grounding kit and got rid of the air pocket.

I ran direct grounds from the coils, alternator, and throttle body to the negative. For the cooling system, I modded the lines. Where the coolant use to go to the throttle body, I inserted a spot to fill coolant. It has a nice little cap, that is threaded for a water hose. This spot is the top of the coolant system. I poured coolant into the system from here, until the resevore filled up. Before it filled up, a ton of air bubbles came through. But that is not going to get them all out. You have to pump the coolant from the resevore back to the top, until the air is all out. You can do this with a drill pump. It attaches to a drill. Looks like a turbo. It has hose threads on it. You will need three female hose adapters and two 3 foot hoses. Take one hose from coolant resevore to the pump, and then out to the top of the coolant system to the new fitting. Attach your drill to the pump, make sure the coolant flows out of the resevore to the top of the system. Pump as much as you can before starting the engine. This will clear your air pockets. Hope this helps!

Yep, that sounds right. Two different issues can cause the Marbles in the Can sounds.

The worst is detonation. If the leading coils don't fire or fire late, you get the detonation issue and marbles in the exhaust sounds. Note, that too much detonation or the trailings firing before the leadings will result in a blown motor.

But the other thing is by the coolant and cavitation of the water pump, where that creates bubbles in the coolant that clink through the heater core. Using a 50/50 mix of coolant to water seems to also help this, as higher water concentrations (such as 70/30- 70%water, 30% coolant) will often result in increased cavitation at higher RPMs. Avoiding High reving when the coolant/engine is cold will also decrease the issues of cavitation creating bubbles in the coolant.

I love threads that are chock full of bad information.
It seems like the bad info is clotting these days - more new threads are having higher concentrations of crap being contributed serially by the uninformed.

I wish the good stuff would accumulate so readily.

See the problem is all the people forgetting about that RX-7 owners have dealt with those same exact problems 20 years ago. Hell 90% of the problems people post here on their engines were first seen more than 20 years ago.

things like flooding or the popcorn or marbles in the can or even synthetic oil... all happened and were figured out long before there was a RX-8.

The heater core thing was first seen back on the 89 non-turbo RX-7 (with its 8K redline), and pinching the input line to the heater core slightly was the first cure, till it was discovered where the problem was coming from.

Dam you guys are brutal.

Ya know I had the marbles in a can almost a year ago...and when the recall came out I got new coils twice, new plugs/wires, and finally a new engine! I feel bad for you guys still having problems.

The new engine was your answer?