RX-8 Reliability - Engine Data Survey
12-09-2010, 07:10 PM
#176
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Engine removed while healthy = 57,000 miles. ????????
I must be suffering a brainfart again.
Will start spreading word wider.
I must be suffering a brainfart again.
Will start spreading word wider.
Last edited by Mazurfer; 12-09-2010 at 07:12 PM.
12-09-2010, 07:37 PM
#177
Just filled out the survey. My local friend with an RX8, (within 10 miles of driving) achieved over 150k on his original engine. I believe it failed due to a failed radiator cap, causing the vehicle to overheat and possibly rupturing an inner coolant gasket.
Due to New Englands mild summers and arctic winters, i do strongly believe this is the best climate for a rotary engine to see the longest expectancy of life.
I have been watching my water temps for 20k miles now, and so far it has never gone above 210F in the hottest of temps, (hottest being 95-98F), while currently cruising around in 20-30F the highest temperature i will see is 175-180 cruising. Idle it will go up to 205-206 before the mazmart fan relay kicks in the fans to overdrive.
I would be more than happy to log data of water temperature, EGT's, fuel mileage upon request.
I have a 2004 model, bought with 17k miles, original owner was an older man, had all the factory re-flashes done, second owner put approximately 5k miles on the vehicle, no re-flashes.
Upon purchase i immediately went ahead and got the MSP-16 re-flash.
So far i have 42k miles. Original fuel mileage was around 16-18 combined, 60/40 highway/city.
Currently my average fuel mileage is 22mpg average, 70/30.
I have seen and noted 25-26mpg average via the use of a Scangauge II, these figures were obtained on major routes, 40-50mph 4th 5th gear cruising.
I constantly keep the RPM right under 3750 for cruising, 3000-3300 highway.
I redline 4-10 times a day in my daily commute, i will bring first gear up to 9000RPM (tach), while the rest i shift at 8500 RPM (no use revving past 8500 tach, no power, extra wear) whenever i redline.
Always let the engine warm up to about 60F water temps, than start moving. Usually 2-3 minutes. Never bring the revs above 4k until water temp hits 130-155.
I have more info if needed.
Due to New Englands mild summers and arctic winters, i do strongly believe this is the best climate for a rotary engine to see the longest expectancy of life.
I have been watching my water temps for 20k miles now, and so far it has never gone above 210F in the hottest of temps, (hottest being 95-98F), while currently cruising around in 20-30F the highest temperature i will see is 175-180 cruising. Idle it will go up to 205-206 before the mazmart fan relay kicks in the fans to overdrive.
I would be more than happy to log data of water temperature, EGT's, fuel mileage upon request.
I have a 2004 model, bought with 17k miles, original owner was an older man, had all the factory re-flashes done, second owner put approximately 5k miles on the vehicle, no re-flashes.
Upon purchase i immediately went ahead and got the MSP-16 re-flash.
So far i have 42k miles. Original fuel mileage was around 16-18 combined, 60/40 highway/city.
Currently my average fuel mileage is 22mpg average, 70/30.
I have seen and noted 25-26mpg average via the use of a Scangauge II, these figures were obtained on major routes, 40-50mph 4th 5th gear cruising.
I constantly keep the RPM right under 3750 for cruising, 3000-3300 highway.
I redline 4-10 times a day in my daily commute, i will bring first gear up to 9000RPM (tach), while the rest i shift at 8500 RPM (no use revving past 8500 tach, no power, extra wear) whenever i redline.
Always let the engine warm up to about 60F water temps, than start moving. Usually 2-3 minutes. Never bring the revs above 4k until water temp hits 130-155.
I have more info if needed.
12-09-2010, 08:14 PM
#179
Power!!
It seems to me you should only collect data on failed engines to look for engine life data. We don't know the life expectancy of a currently running engine only how long it has lived so far.
12-09-2010, 08:22 PM
#180
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+1. add to that the general idea that its likely more folks who wouldnt normally come here, do so due to vehicle troubles rather than to come to talk about their lack of trouble
12-09-2010, 08:25 PM
#181
We know these engines don't like hot weather, but none of us can really physically prove it without the correlation between failed hot weather climate engines, versus running mild-weather-year round engines.
Then we can say an engine has a greater chance at survival in said conditions versus these conditions.
Then we can modify said oil/cooling systems appropriately to account for the lower probability of a healthy engine in a more dangerous climate/driving conditions.
Mazda did the best they could, but they are one company working on one design. We have to fill in the R&D that they lack from not having 30+ other car manufacturers NOT implementing the rotary engine.
Any data is good data.
12-09-2010, 08:35 PM
#182
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You got time on your hands. (Sorry, it was there, thought I'd take advantage of it............no matter how cruel and obnoxious) get well soon!
I'm too tired tonight to explain why.
12-09-2010, 08:47 PM
#183
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accurate data is good data. collecting as much and detailed info is possible is great. but you have to be carefull not to interpret too much. we may gather a lot of data(as in the OP whose doing all the work), but look at it objectively.
Cannot forget that though what is collected is good reference, it isnt necessarily scientific. to do it truly objectively you'd have to consider distribution of sales, statistics of owners who visit this site/poll, along with all sorts of other factors.
Cannot forget that though what is collected is good reference, it isnt necessarily scientific. to do it truly objectively you'd have to consider distribution of sales, statistics of owners who visit this site/poll, along with all sorts of other factors.
12-09-2010, 08:47 PM
#184
Just filled out the survey. My local friend with an RX8, (within 10 miles of driving) achieved over 150k on his original engine. I believe it failed due to a failed radiator cap, causing the vehicle to overheat and possibly rupturing an inner coolant gasket.
Due to New Englands mild summers and arctic winters, i do strongly believe this is the best climate for a rotary engine to see the longest expectancy of life.
I have been watching my water temps for 20k miles now, and so far it has never gone above 210F in the hottest of temps, (hottest being 95-98F), while currently cruising around in 20-30F the highest temperature i will see is 175-180 cruising. Idle it will go up to 205-206 before the mazmart fan relay kicks in the fans to overdrive.
I would be more than happy to log data of water temperature, EGT's, fuel mileage upon request.
I have a 2004 model, bought with 17k miles, original owner was an older man, had all the factory re-flashes done, second owner put approximately 5k miles on the vehicle, no re-flashes.
Upon purchase i immediately went ahead and got the MSP-16 re-flash.
So far i have 42k miles. Original fuel mileage was around 16-18 combined, 60/40 highway/city.
Currently my average fuel mileage is 22mpg average, 70/30.
I have seen and noted 25-26mpg average via the use of a Scangauge II, these figures were obtained on major routes, 40-50mph 4th 5th gear cruising.
I constantly keep the RPM right under 3750 for cruising, 3000-3300 highway.
I redline 4-10 times a day in my daily commute, i will bring first gear up to 9000RPM (tach), while the rest i shift at 8500 RPM (no use revving past 8500 tach, no power, extra wear) whenever i redline.
Always let the engine warm up to about 60F water temps, than start moving. Usually 2-3 minutes. Never bring the revs above 4k until water temp hits 130-155.
I have more info if needed.
Due to New Englands mild summers and arctic winters, i do strongly believe this is the best climate for a rotary engine to see the longest expectancy of life.
I have been watching my water temps for 20k miles now, and so far it has never gone above 210F in the hottest of temps, (hottest being 95-98F), while currently cruising around in 20-30F the highest temperature i will see is 175-180 cruising. Idle it will go up to 205-206 before the mazmart fan relay kicks in the fans to overdrive.
I would be more than happy to log data of water temperature, EGT's, fuel mileage upon request.
I have a 2004 model, bought with 17k miles, original owner was an older man, had all the factory re-flashes done, second owner put approximately 5k miles on the vehicle, no re-flashes.
Upon purchase i immediately went ahead and got the MSP-16 re-flash.
So far i have 42k miles. Original fuel mileage was around 16-18 combined, 60/40 highway/city.
Currently my average fuel mileage is 22mpg average, 70/30.
I have seen and noted 25-26mpg average via the use of a Scangauge II, these figures were obtained on major routes, 40-50mph 4th 5th gear cruising.
I constantly keep the RPM right under 3750 for cruising, 3000-3300 highway.
I redline 4-10 times a day in my daily commute, i will bring first gear up to 9000RPM (tach), while the rest i shift at 8500 RPM (no use revving past 8500 tach, no power, extra wear) whenever i redline.
Always let the engine warm up to about 60F water temps, than start moving. Usually 2-3 minutes. Never bring the revs above 4k until water temp hits 130-155.
I have more info if needed.
He said there are 2 issues.
1. the material used for the springs is less flexible under high temp. When the engine is shut off it stays in that position and the corner seal is damaged under restart-up as a result. Bascially, it is really tramatizing for the springs to shut off a very hot engine and let it cool down on its own ... vey hot as in more than 200 F. This happens quite often to me in the summer.
2. Coolant seals are of lower quality than in the past - if you do a pressure test on the coolant system overnight coolant with seep into the chambers.
I think colder climates help both of these issues. The guy is from here http://www.goopyperformance.com/
12-10-2010, 06:59 AM
#185
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Two sides of the same coin that are VERY similar, but yet have completely different values.
After all, people want to know how to improve engine life, not just what kills engines faster.
And then we can get into the other points of "hot weather kills engines faster, but only if you don't do <this> because doing <this> seems to mitigate the affects of hot weather.
For example.
No, we need all data.
accurate data is good data. collecting as much and detailed info is possible is great. but you have to be carefull not to interpret too much. we may gather a lot of data(as in the OP whose doing all the work), but look at it objectively.
Cannot forget that though what is collected is good reference, it isnt necessarily scientific. to do it truly objectively you'd have to consider distribution of sales, statistics of owners who visit this site/poll, along with all sorts of other factors.
Cannot forget that though what is collected is good reference, it isnt necessarily scientific. to do it truly objectively you'd have to consider distribution of sales, statistics of owners who visit this site/poll, along with all sorts of other factors.
There was a discussion around bias of the selective survey, not being completely random, etc... earlier in the thread as well. It's something that we recognize as having to address, or at least acknowledge as coloring the results because it will never be a true random sample.
12-10-2010, 07:04 AM
#186
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I would like to give a big thanks of appreciation to dmpriso for advertising this survey on the German forums!
Collected an additional 11 responses overnight, and a few this morning. We are currently at 54 responses!
Mazsurfer, do you have a Google account that I can link the raw data over to you for some help on the analysis, see what points of data might have a large enough sample size to publish?
Collected an additional 11 responses overnight, and a few this morning. We are currently at 54 responses!
Mazsurfer, do you have a Google account that I can link the raw data over to you for some help on the analysis, see what points of data might have a large enough sample size to publish?
12-10-2010, 07:56 AM
#188
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Hrm. Interesting question actually. Worth discussion.
Shouldn't count it as an engine removal, since it assumes that it is being replaced with a 0 mileage engine.
Well, 2 possibilities come to mind:
1) Just send in an update for the N/A portion when you go FI (actually, do this either way ), and never send in an update again. I suspect that we won't get enough FI responses to make any reasonable impact on the data, and people would like to exclude them anyway. (in which case I should probably remove the FI references and make it clear that this should be for NA only)
2) Add a 'end of life' option for 'Going FI'.
Though 1 engine response I have is for 1,100 miles of NA life that the owner was aware of. That's as far as they got after buying before the engine blew. That particular response isn't very useful. Sending in an FI response after going FI will be too soon anyway. Only really a point after a statistically significant period of time.
So I guess just send in an update for the NA portion of it's life once you go FI, and we can discuss if we should even look for FI data.
Shouldn't count it as an engine removal, since it assumes that it is being replaced with a 0 mileage engine.
Well, 2 possibilities come to mind:
1) Just send in an update for the N/A portion when you go FI (actually, do this either way
), and never send in an update again. I suspect that we won't get enough FI responses to make any reasonable impact on the data, and people would like to exclude them anyway. (in which case I should probably remove the FI references and make it clear that this should be for NA only)2) Add a 'end of life' option for 'Going FI'.
Though 1 engine response I have is for 1,100 miles of NA life that the owner was aware of. That's as far as they got after buying before the engine blew. That particular response isn't very useful. Sending in an FI response after going FI will be too soon anyway. Only really a point after a statistically significant period of time.
So I guess just send in an update for the NA portion of it's life once you go FI, and we can discuss if we should even look for FI data.
12-11-2010, 01:01 PM
#193
Huge hole is huge
Finally got mine in. I've only had 3 or 4 fill ups with Pre-Mix so far, so I just answered "No Premix" on those questions.
*EDIT* Lol, actually, I think I might have been 5% off on my math...I guess we'll see :P
*EDIT* Lol, actually, I think I might have been 5% off on my math...I guess we'll see :P
12-12-2010, 06:48 PM
#194
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73 responses! 
A few confusing though. And at least 1 fake one it looks like. Our German family measures economy differently, and the difference in interpretation changes the answer's meaning. They measure L / 100 KM. So a low number is better, a high number is worse. But my question asks for the "highest mileage", so I have quite a few posting ~18-20 mpg average, but ~12-14 mpg "highest", because it is the biggest L/100km number.
I also identified 4 responses that have the exact same starting mileage as ending mileage for a given engine. So 0 mileage responses aren't useful. I suspect they are actually not Zero mileage responses of course.
I identified 1 response that appears to be a fake entry, as many of the numbers manually entered and selected don't make a lick of sense. 8,000mpg average and 9,000mpg highest, for example.
I also identified several users which appear to have only submitted data on their most recent engine, but not on prior engines. I can't force this on anyone of course, but the guy that submitted for "Engine 4", but not 1, 2, or 3 makes me curious of their history.
I will be sending out emails to the submitters that have questions around the answers to hopefully get these cleared up.
A few confusing though. And at least 1 fake one it looks like. Our German family measures economy differently, and the difference in interpretation changes the answer's meaning. They measure L / 100 KM. So a low number is better, a high number is worse. But my question asks for the "highest mileage", so I have quite a few posting ~18-20 mpg average, but ~12-14 mpg "highest", because it is the biggest L/100km number.
I also identified 4 responses that have the exact same starting mileage as ending mileage for a given engine. So 0 mileage responses aren't useful. I suspect they are actually not Zero mileage responses of course.
I identified 1 response that appears to be a fake entry, as many of the numbers manually entered and selected don't make a lick of sense. 8,000mpg average and 9,000mpg highest, for example.
I also identified several users which appear to have only submitted data on their most recent engine, but not on prior engines. I can't force this on anyone of course, but the guy that submitted for "Engine 4", but not 1, 2, or 3 makes me curious of their history.
I will be sending out emails to the submitters that have questions around the answers to hopefully get these cleared up.
01-03-2011, 04:35 PM
#196
Just filled out the survey. Couple of details:
129K original engine on 04 6MT.
Started Idemitsu PreMix around 50K, 4oz per fill up since. No mods except Racing Beat Ultima wires. On second set of Mazda coils and 4th set of plugs.
Oil changes every 3.5K +/- 500 miles (all by me, automotive pscychotherapy)
Flooded once early before they started replacing with upgraded starter, I am replacing soon as I have some slow starts.
Most persistent problem that I have had is on my 5th gas cap due to evap leak (using my Harrison CANScan), overall if that is the worst, not so bad.
129K original engine on 04 6MT.
Started Idemitsu PreMix around 50K, 4oz per fill up since. No mods except Racing Beat Ultima wires. On second set of Mazda coils and 4th set of plugs.
Oil changes every 3.5K +/- 500 miles (all by me, automotive pscychotherapy)
Flooded once early before they started replacing with upgraded starter, I am replacing soon as I have some slow starts.
Most persistent problem that I have had is on my 5th gas cap due to evap leak (using my Harrison CANScan), overall if that is the worst, not so bad.
01-03-2011, 05:19 PM
#197
^ Now that's more like it! It's refreshing to see the kind of results that most RX-8 owners experience. You know… the owners who have no reason whatsoever to find their way to this website. Good for you!
