I bought mine from the original owner who had come close to destroying it. *Leaking Oil lines low coolant all the worst stuff. Plus he had apparantly been drinking a Litre of Coke which he must have shook up and sprayed into ever crack of the interiour of the car. But thankfully never smoked soooo. I took apart a lot of the components under the hood and cleaned up the crud that had collected and repainted everything that was showing any rust. I took apart the inside of the car and ended up steam cleaning everything that I could remove then steam cleaned (And worked out the petrified Cola with a Fuxing tooth brush until nothing anywhere was sticky) I replaced the coils, plugs, wires, battery, oil lines (THAT was fun) and made my ex wife think I had gone mad. I brought the finished product into the dealership to have the retrofit air bags and was told "The BOSS wants to see you!" which turned out to be a Japanese gent who said he wanted to shake my hand and tell me my car was beautiful. Awwww... That was pretty cool but then how many people paint all the bolts and thinks like the oil pan so they don't rust? ha ha... Anyway I got everything squared away and during Covid it seemed like everytime I was on the road some ******* would pull up to rev his engine and **** me off so I would (with one exception) blow his doors off. No, two exceptions. One was some dipshit in some sort of German car that blasted off the line (The stop light) flipping me off and giving me this "I AM SO COOL" look except I pulled up along side him without a strain and smiled and waved, giving this jerk the thumbs up! and he went nuts. He was beating his steering wheel like that would make his crapmobile go faster. Well there was zero traffic or I wouldn't have let it get this crazy but we were going "close" to as fast as an RX8 can go (Like 10mph slower) and I see that we are headed to the entrance ramp of a major highway that often had a speed trap so I slowed down and let him scream onto the highway at around 140mph. I had slowed down so much so fast that when I caught up to him he was getting pulled out of his car by a cop to no doubt loose his license. SIGH... Idiotic I know to let this get to me but... FUNNY. So today after not driving a lot and not really washing and waxing my baby I went to visit a friend all at nice speed limit speeds (Which is 99% the norm now) and I get to this part of the road out of town that goes from 2 to 1 lane and some guy in a mirror finished black truck?!? (A TRUCK?!?) tried to pass me on the right??? Are you kidding me? I've chillaxed a bit but... That wasn't happening. So... I owe my car a real hand wash and wax and whoever posted the pix of their dirty red RX8? Dude you motivated me!!! Oh and the clearing the Haze off the headlights. SIGH how did I let her get dirty and still count on her to speed me ahead of the endless ******** on the road who think their crapmobiles are hot stuff?

 

MANIACman, it sounds like you've put a lot of work into your car and have also had a lot of fun with it. These cars are deceptively quick and will surprise many other drivers. My kids tell me the car feels fast when I get on it a little. I like the way it accelerates and the ride is just superb given its handling capabilities. I've been driving my car on the weekends when I have time off of work. Its been great to get to drive the car again!

 

On Friday, I hopped in the RX-8 to go and visit my daughter at her house and I noticed the low coolant light was on....again.. But the worst thing was my power steering light was on as well. Never have I had issues with the power steering in this car. I parked it and drove another car. Yesterday I got up and decided it was time to replace the coolant expansion tank and dive into the power steering fault. My middle son wanted to help and I gladly accepted his help. I replaced the tank and pulled the power steering harness. I cleaned all of the pins and added some dielectric grease to the female pins. Some very minor corrosion was found on one pin on the torque angle sensor. I cleaned that and cleaned the threads on my upper ground bolt. I then cleaned the ground terminals on the harness as some minor corrosion was present on the terminals as well. Then everything went back together, coolant was topped off and bled and all is perfect again. Took some pictures of the car while I was doing the job.

 

As the day came to a close, my son Max said I should parked two of my RX-8's next to each other and see how they look. So I parked this car next to my Nordic Green GT. Both were running at the time, though the Nordic Green cars still needs an engine. But it does run and drive(ish). At any rate, the cars looked great together and I wanted to share. I don't share many pictures of the cars together and I realize I should do that more often.

 

Is that a 3rd one hiding in the background?
.

 

Yes... The one hiding is my first Nordic Green RX-8. I have two nearly identical 04 Nordic Green cars. One is clean and came from Virginia and the other is super rusty and came from Pennsylvania. The rusty one I am tinkering with and teaching my 12 year old son how to diagnose and repair things on the RX-8. He and I installed a good used power harness on the car two weekends ago. The harness that has the positive cable, the alternator lead, and runs to the starter. He did the lion's share of the work with me watching and guiding.



My son Max was the little guy that helped me replace the engine on my good Nordic Green RX-8 a few years back. He did a great job helping and now that he's almost 13 and can drive my cars with a manual transmission up and down the driveway and wants to learn how to fix them.





And now he wants to learn to do more and more. This is Max helping me replace the brake master cylinder on an 84 RX-7 a couple weeks ago:



But back on topic (because I'm easily distracted), I got the rusty car in 2016 and I honestly haven't done much with it. It was rough then, rougher now, and is clean inside, but has a rusty body. We are battling immobilizer issues and no communication with my scanner. Thank you rodents, thank you. This is what my first Nordic Green RX-8 looked like when I brought it home and cleaned it up and got it running:

 

Ever since I bough this car, I have been collecting Mazda accessories and upgrading the car little by little. I first added the read spoiler, then the oem trunk mat, upgraded to an 05 key fob and had a new key programmed so that I can used a blade style key. I then I added the oem fog light kit, and then the side aero flares and mud guards, and then the accessory rotor center caps. I have the oem rear aero flares, new in bag cargo net, cargo net hardware, silver window switches, new oem license plate frame, all weather rotor floor mats, new in box door edge guards, and I have a set of new door bump pads that have RX-8 embossed in them. Needless to say, I have been collecting a bunch of oem accessories to spruce up this Base model. I will continue to search for oem accessories and collect them. The next one I am after is the cargo carrier that sits in the trunk.

Yesterday, I received my new in box exhaust finishers. I am excited to install them and may get that done today. Here are a couple of pictures of the exhaust finishers:

 

I enjoy every update!

 

it's awesome that you're still making updates to the car all these years later
wow! can't think of the last time I saw new exhaust finishers. Nicely done

 

I really appreciate that and appreciate you taking the time to view the new posts! Thank you!

 

Thank you for taking the time to look at my thread! The car has always been very special to me. I bought it in March of 2015 and the reason I bought this car is because I sold my original 05 RX-8 Sport model I bought from the dealer years before. That 05 was my first RX-8 and was the same color combination. That car came with a cargo net, rear spoiler, side aero flares, and trunk liner. I loved it.









I was forced to sell the car to put a down payment on the house I live in now. Our family was growing and I prioritized the house over my favorite car. But I never stopped thinking about the car. A carfax showed my car was sold and went to Wisconsin. Very hard to track down. I did later track it down and it was totaled in WI at 174k miles. No carfax report or a replacement engine. Either it did last or was replaced by the owner themselves.

So I saved some money and went looking for an identical car. I found this car a couple hours away and the owner was an enthusiast and was great to work with. The only downside was that this car was a 6spd Base model. Meaning no HID lights, no traction control with DSC, no fog lights, and zero aero parts. I bought it because it was a southern car with zero rust and was well taken care of. So, I began collecting and adding oem accessories and making the car look better and more to my personal liking. The exhaust finishers were something I loved the look of in the accessory catalog. I tracked some down and on Sunday, I installed the exhaust finishers, new cargo net, and replaced the VFAD actuator. By the time I was finished, it was dark and I didn't take any pictures. I will post more this weekend when I have time off. I did take one picture of the first exhaust finishers that I installed:




It's been a good car overall. It could use tires and it badly needs painted. I'll put tires on it in the spring and save for a paint. And again, thank you for taking the time to read my post. It really means a lot to me that people are supportive!

 

Got the car in the garage yesterday and the next step is to replace the engine mounts. I'm getting a lot of vibration at idle and the mounts are original. I bought new mounts and have them on hand. Hoping to get this done in the next few days.

 

Yesterday morning I went to the garage and decided to replace the passenger side airbag cover. My cover was original and was really showing its age. Over the summer, it deteriorated twice as bad as when summer started and I figured it was time. I had on the shelf, covered up and protected, a perfectly good cover. When I pulled it yesterday, a small crack started to appear across the cover. I know that its only a matter of time for this cover unfortunately. So, I removed my cover and swapped over my airbag and inflator and installed the replacement cover into the car. It turned out well despite the replacement cover already being cracked. Looks much better than the original.





My original cover:

 

I forget to get a picture of the rear of the car showing the exhaust finishers in the daylight. It rained all day yesterday and the car stayed in the garage. When the rain subsided a little, I opened the garage and grabbed this picture. Not the greatest, so I'll grab one in the daylight tomorrow.

 

I realized that I forgot to update with a couple pictures that I took last week. I should take a different picture with the car out on the road so that it shows more than one angle. I did snap this picture showing the finishers a little better along with the oem license plate frame. I didn't think about it until after it was running. The exhaust clouds up the finishers a bit unfortunately. The second picture is of the new oem cargo net that I installed. The next thing to be done this weekend is to Woolwax the underside of the car. I will shoot for this weekend to get it on the lift and do that. I want to do it before the weather completely turns to snow.

 

Took the car out of the garage to wash it yesterday and took make space for a little bit while my son and I worked on his John Deere 345. Took a couple of daylight pictures because I had been behind on doing so. As rhe evening came to a close, Red, our golden retriever was found to be blending in just enjoying his day.

A couple little better pictures of the exhaust finishers:





I liked the way the sun was somehow blending into the car:

 

Red was out with us all day and he seemed to have a really good time:

Red with Max:





Red just being himself and loving being outside with us: