Just purchased a 2004 RX8, mt grand touring from original owner. Car has 16,300 original miles. Seller had car about 6 months from new and had a turbo installed along with new exhaust and struts, lowered car about 1 inch. Gave me all original parts (air box & exhaust) except struts. Has two gauges for psi & temp. located in glove box along with some sort of control unit. Had work done by Acosta Motorsports in NJ. They no longer exist. He did not have any paper work or manuals on turbo. Did not know what make turbo is or how to use control unit. Said he never touched control unit since install. Check engine light is on. Said it has been on since install. Goes off if disconnect battery but then goes back on once get on engine. Car seems to drive real well and you can feel the turbo kick in. Car is quick. What I am trying to figure out is if this thing is set up properly and if not, can it do real damage to engine. Should I return car to stock? I am also having a hard time finding someone in New Jersey who can sort this thing out.

 

i would suggest you start reading up in the major horsepower section. it's pretty easy to grenade your engine if you go FI and don't know anything about it.

read up, take some time, drive the car very gently while you're doing this. Then you can ask some specific questions about your set up.

I would also suggest taking lots of pictures of everything you have so people can help you figure out what it is.

 

the light is probibly missfire or from rear o2 if cat is gone.
pictures of the kit (enginebay and others will help us help you)
if you can see some sort of ecu unit pictures of that would be nice.
some people hide it in the oem ecu box (located passenger side cover)

stay out of boost if you can untill you get an airfuel ratio monitoring tool or you can kiss the engine good bye.

 

This is an interesting situation, and one I think might become more prevalent. It makes me wonder if there should be some sort of algorithm to help neophytes such as yourself determine exactly what kind of ticking time bomb you are driving and perhaps determine if, indeed, the fuse is lit.

There is a great number of permutations as to exactly what you have on your car.

This unit in your glovebox, does it have any designations? Is it blue?

Where is the turbo located? Can you see it easily when you open your hood?

Do you have a catalytic converter installed? Even better, what code is the engine throwing?

I am going to assume that you do not have an accessible wideband.

To bad for you it is August 3rd. Three days late.

 

If you are not interested in the inner workings of your engine bay and have no intention of learning anything about them ........... take off the turbo .

 

I'm going to agree with you there Carbon... as the platform gets older there will be more turbo'd 8's changing hands. Sounds like the original owner had little to zero clue and passed his thimble of knowledge onto the new buyer.

With any luck it's an undersized turbo with minimal boost... that doesn't change the fact that the OP has a long road ahead of him getting everything straightened out.

 

I grabbed my Cobb on the 20th!

 

i think you need to read more...LOL.....

https://www.rx8club.com/ne-rx-8-forum-29/ne-nj-local-meets-tuesday-nights-121615/

come to the meet in NJ, you will find out who have turbo in their 8...adn soon to be turbo too.....i can help you to see the kit, so if you can make it on tuesday, try to come by...

steven

 

I think you should be safe a put it back to stock then send me the turbo kit.

 

In addition to the above if this is your only car, get rid of the turbo.
If its not your only car, find a good rotary shop( there are plenty up there; IRP comes to mind)

 

Just install an AFR gauge and make sure it stays around 11.5 at WOT, or hunt down a used Cobb Accessport and get a tune from Jeff and use that as on AFR gauge.... but an aftermarket WBO2 sensor is recommended. If the car is already running strong with no issues why not monitor it to make sure there are no problems in the future and keep the turbo, it must already be tuned but we need more info to exactly what engine management it is running