So... here I am leaving the house... engine temperature is still cold... I start giving it gas on 1st... at about 5000rpm, power dies (as if I had no gas going thru).... Shift in second, same thing at 5000rpm.... only occured while engine was cold though... didn't happen since... should I be worried?

 

I've neer experienced that.. but I think someone on the forum mentioned that before.. I think they said it was a lower RPM cutoff to prevent damage to the engine while not warmed up properly.

 

Mine has a big hesitation somewhere between 4500 and 5000 RPM when it's cold. Perfectly normal as the RX-8 utilizes completely different a/f maps for a cold engine versus a warm one.

 

Back when it was cold in Virginia, I did notice that hard acceleration just after a cold startup (within the first 2-3 minutes) ended in big time hesitation. Never noticed it after the first few minutes. It took 2 or 3 time for me to catch on to the cause/effect. I never pinned it down to a specific RPM range.

I dislike pushing a cold engine anyway and I figured if it hurts don't do it. Sounds like it is not a problem but simply part of the car's "character".

 

The engine is rev-limited when it's cold - I'm not sure to what rpm it's limited but I recall reading this in the manual and also in several other places. More than likely you were hitting the rev limiter since the engine was cold.

It's also not a good idea to work a cold engine too hard, you can accellerate wear etc.

 

THanks Guys... well, I found out this morning after speaking with the mechanic that this is in fact normal and part of the car... it's actually a safety precaution that they have in place when engine is running cold... so everything is ok... thank God!!

 

I have to agree, I was washing mine today and during the drying process it started to rain. I brought it into the garage to let it warm up before shutting it down. I revved it slightly (3K) a couple of times and when I backed off it was rough and didn't feel normal. After it was warmed up I revved it to 4K held it a few seconds and shut it down. It was much smoother after it reached normal operating temperature.