I competed in AutoX for the first time yesterday. I came in first in the Novice Division and 8th overall. I'm very impressed and the car held up amazingly. I can't wait for the next event!


I put in the Sylfex unit/ chip/ motherboard thing. It works awesome and besides the stupid wiring harnesses it was very easy.

 

Drove it in 107 degree weather in Phoenix area. A/C Worked surprisingly well. Tinted windows recently done helped immensely.

 

I regularly have to turn mine down to 1 or 2 once it has managed to cool the whole cabin down at Max, since my AC actually gets too cold.

 

I put a new parking permit beside the window.

 

Today I had the baseball sized hole in my Exoticspeed midpipe welded over. Drove over one of those steel plates on the highway and it ripped my exhaust hanger clean off.

 

Today, I changed the oil to 0w40 over from 10w40 and finally drove it since it's been about a month since last time I drove it. Got a scratch on my passenger side, front fender due to a chair that I didn't see when backing up from my garage. I really need to drive it more, sometimes I feel I should sell it to someone who will use it more often than I do.

 

Installed RX8 Performance cooling fan control kit. Works as advertised.

 

Damn that looks good grace!

 

Thanks, I just finished installing the rear RS*R springs. That multi-link suspension is such a pain in the ***! Took me four hours to do just one side and another one and a half on the other. I certainly was burning the midnight oil. But before I hit the rack, I took some pictures. I probably would have to park the car outside now that it sits so low...















Added bonus. To Dump or To Donk

 

Painted the rims black...Well, coated them in Flexidip. Pretty cool stuff. I'll keep everyone updated on how well it holds up. It is rust oleum brand plastidip basically. Looks nice. All I have are pics from last night post remounting the tires. Up next...Painting the calipers red.

 

How does it look compared to Plasti? Does it have the same textured look?

 

I'm not sure how it looks compared to Plasti. I haven't seen Plasti in person. This basically looks like a flat black matte finish. I'll get a daylight picture today and post.

 

I cut about 3/4" of new threads into the shift lever. my shift **** sits about 3/4" lower. i also modded my shift boot is flush against the ****.

 

Filled up. Last tank I avg 20.9mpg. That was doing less than the limit just to see what I could get, just very conscious driving. This tank was a fair number of springs and just generally faster driving, and 20.1 mpg. Solves that I will drive so I enjoy it.

 

Me too. Traded it in on a BMW M235i. But that was 2 months ago :D

 

Hope to god that i fixed my power steering issue for good or it might be getting sold in hopes of an FD! Pulled the harness and cleaned every ground to bare metal, re did the ground connectors, bent the tabs on the plugs for tighter contact and removed the torque sensor plug and soldered it all together. There shouldn't be anything in the harness to fail now!

 

Posting this late, but on Friday I checked the tire pressures and oil level, filled it with gas, then drive to Williams Grove to watch the 26th running of the Mitch Smith Memorial sprint car race. Won by the same driver who won the first one 25 years ago. It gives me hope when I see old guys who haven't lost it.

Nice drive through the Pennsylvania countryside. Especially the little piece on the back roads that form my secret way out of the track.

Ken

 

Washed it...Automatic car wash...Flexidip stuff held up perfectly. Looks awesome!!!

 

This was yesterday (Sunday), but drove the family out to Sedona, Arizona and watched the monsoon action amongst the red rocks of the area.
Curious thing happened when we were backing out of the parking spot. Wheel was turned full right to back out, then full left to go forward. There was a feeling like the front wheel(s) were going to fall off and a noticeable feeling in the steering wheel for the first 10 feet until the car straightened out. I checked the car but didn't see anything out of the ordinary. Then I did a left-hand u-turn and it did the same thing again, but much less pronounced. It eventually went away completely.
I read in an older post that this was somehow normal.

 

Connected my Kiwi WiFi OBDII and downloaded DashCommand for my iPhone for the drive home from work. Just need to figure out where to mount my phone now . . .

 

I got my new radiator on (the original was leaking), new coolant, and changed the oil to 20w50 and a new oil filter!

No idea what the last owner was using, but I'm guessing it was synthetic and likely 5w20 since it had a Royal Purple oil filter on it.

 

@Legot How many miles do you have on your RX-8? Also, I use top end filters with dino-oil. Not sure how well the rotary does with synthetics...

 

Finally (hopefully) figured out the ever shorting out horn fuse. Bought the car in 2012 and the whole time I didn't have the use of horn. Since I'm not much of a honker it wasn't too much of an inconvenience, but definitely a safety issue.

The dealer told me that it was probably a problem with alarm system, so contact them. The alarm company told me that it's it isn't connected to the horn. Since electrical work can be costly, I went without it for the most part. I'd swap the fuse and hold out as long as possible.

Every time I swapped the burned out fuse with new, I would get maybe 2 short honks at the most before the fuse short out. So this time, rather than use the 15amp fuse that the manual specifies, I used 20amp fuse and it seems to be working so far.

 

I just replaced the spark plugs a week ago and yesterday the car bogged down and threw a flashing CEL. P0302 came up. I guess the car knows that the ordered set of new ignition coils are coming
Besides that, played with the rear-wheel's alignment and dialed it to about 4mm, car was steering to the left after I installed the rear drop springs. Now it's driving straight.

 

Bought it a few weeks ago so I don't know how long it's been running synthetic, but it's got 113k on the original engine.

I changed it to mineral oil, but I may consider going to synthetic once I get an OMP adapter installed.