melon

Hey, everyone, I have been visiting this awesome website for a long time before I finally decided to buy my baby five days ago. Now it has just 150 miles. The first day, the gear shifted great. On the second day, when I was about to go on a green light after shifting from neutral to 1st gear, the shifter suddenly popped out with the grinding sound when I let go of the clutch. Since then, whenever I shift between 1st and 2nd gear, fast or slow, I can hear low noise like something spinning or a ball rolling, even when the tranny is all warmed up.

My friend was telling me it's the synchro working and waiting for me to shift the gear, and thus make this normal noise, and that I don't shift fast enough. It sound a little BS to me...or is he right? But his rx-8 with 38K miles has no noise at all!

Yes, I am getting REALLY paranoid now especially after reading all the infamous problem with our fragile tranny. Am I heading to the tranny club? What is the noise? Should I wait and let the tranny broken in first, or should I bring to the dealer now because it may be the early sign of failing tranny given all the horror tranny stories?

I am thinking of bringing it in now so the dealer CANNOT blame anything to me abusing the car, and refusing to fix it later on.

Thank you for helping me with this situation.

p.s. I shift with clutch all the way down and above 4k rpm...if this info is helpful.

truemagellen

your friend is kind of right...also you may be putting pressure on the stick towards the drivers side as you shift...this makes for an unclean shift

really you have to think of this shifter as a pencil you can flick back and forth...I drove a ford ZX2 stick POS car and my arm, leg, everything sore from driving five miles...this car is soo smooth

but can't hurt to get it checked now...first few hundred miles dealerships don't even blink for fixing stuff

army_rx8

^good point..take it in...even if they find nothing wrong...at least it'll be down on your record..so when it craps out you can say "see i told you it was going" that way they will be more inclined to fix it , if htye find nothing they'll just treat it as a problem they couldn't duplicate...but no worried......even if it goes out after warrenty is up..you still get it fixed for free....not your fault they couldn't duplicate the probelm after all

truemagellen

Abbid and I think this logic is brilliant

army_rx8

^and it works (well as long as there isn't a big turbo stickign out of your engine bay..lol)...but keep it on the down low...hehe can't give away all the trade secrets

melon

I just test-drove another new RX-8, and it did not have any of the transmisison noise that my new car has when I changed from 1st to 2nd gear....I am very concerned now. Any idea what the noise is?

Thank you!

khtm

Why haven't you followed (any) break-in procedure? Shifting above 4k RPM with only 150 miles??

melon

Thanks for all the replies. As far as 4000 rpm when I shift, I was actually told by a tech that because it is rx-8, and it's supposed to shift at higher rpm instead of lower. Is he right? Or do all of you shift at like 2k rpm?

BTW, I am shifting 1 to 2nd at about 4k rpm at 18 miles, and I shift straight down c clutch fully pressed down.

Any reply much appreciated

khtm

^ read the break-in procedures I posted above...

Yeah, what the tech says is correct, if you've PASSED THE BREAK-IN PERIOD, which you haven't.

I have no idea what this means....18 miles?

Blue87Sport

...per hour

Sendo

i actually have the same problem .. i am considering taking it to get it serviced.. upshifting from 1st to 2nd is a big problem for me at normal accelleration or fast accelleratioin. it doesnt feel like its grinding it just seems very difficult to get into 2nd gear resulting in a less than smooth shift.

astro

I had a gearbox once where I blew or worn out the synchros. Hey, I was young and had no mechanical sympathy to how I treated the drivetrain . After that, I learnt how to double clutch just in case I lost my synchros due to my abuse or the thing just going by itself. I guess for me when I am cruising about I normally just double clutch in each gear change from 1-4. Although slightly slower, however, the gearbox in the RX8 is so slick and light that you hardly notice any delays while shifting up or down. Give it a shot... double clutch your gear changes. It's fun! I only do the quickshifts when I am driving the car in a spirited way. A little bit of mechanical sympathy goes along way.

Also, the RX8 will also improve in feel if you upgrade to a steel braided clutchline. You can feel the gears click in from the vibrations on the clutch pedal. Sponginess also goes away and best of all, the engagement point is very consistent. It doesn't cost much as well. It is one of the best upgrades you can do to your RX8.

And as a final note, from what I hear - double clutching saves the synchros.

(Correct me if I am wrong!)

yiksing

Ask your friend to drive the car and see if he feels different about the shifting

Budweiser8Jr

Double-clutching? I am guessing that is another name for powershifting (redlining and shifting without the clutch) I have never heard of it saving syncros...would like to know this. I always heard it destroys them,

max5roadster

The noise you described sounds like synchros to me, but just take it in to be sure. Oh, and switch to a synth tranny fluid with a S.S. clutch hose. This will cure all your tranny woes... I think..

alnielsen

iTrader: (4)

Double-Clutching, my young jedi, is the art of matching the rpms of the engine to the speed of the spinning transmission durning downshifting.
When downshifting, you push in the clutch to place the trans in neutral. Then you release the clutch and rev the engine. Push in the clutch and select the lower gear. Rev the engine again to match engine rpm to the ground speed. Then release the clutch and you are now at a higher engine rpm in a lower gear. This is not used to slow a car. For that you combine Double-Clutching with Heal & Toe Breaking.

astro

Double clutching also applies when shifting up. It is all about matching the revs of the engine and the next gear. Instead of blipping the throttle, you simply let the revs die down to match the next gear. It's all about rythm,ie clutch to neutral clutch to gear. Try it... you'll get rid of the notchy feel when going from gear to gear.

In the days before synchros... people had to double clutch. It doesn't hurt to learn... just in case you wreck one or two synchros in your MT box. Double clutching as explained by alnielsen is totally different to powershifting.

Double clutching is an art. As an example, perhaps some of you have seen:

Tiff Niddle (??? I think this is the way to spell his surname) double clutch a Porsche 911 in one of his reviews. It was a joy to watch an ex race car driver do a double clutch in a 911. I can still recall how quickly he performed the downshifts/upshifts - it was heavenly!!!! In that review, he was just loving the driving experience. At the time, I can also recall he was still with Top Gear.

astro

FYI
http://www.elecdesign.com/Articles/A...6137/6137.html

spectre26

Don't know specifically what the cause of your troubles is but, have u tried dropping out your tranny oil? Quite a few of the guys i personally know in the UK with rx8s have found that the transmission oil that mazda puts in from the factory is pretty sub-standard stuff. Basically it degrades, turns watery and can seperate. I've personally experianced this. And i only had 1300 miles on the clock when i dropped my oil.

You could try this as a course of action and see if it makes any difference. Oil i used was a 75w90 oil. It is a mazda approved alternate oil. So there should be no warentey issues.

I mean at best it solves your problem b4 it gets any worse, at worst you got a better grade of oil in your box. Some of the guys i know have had issues with the gear box, but after the oil change the problems seemed to stop. So fingers crossed for ya.

Hope it helps