L & M Flashes, What do they fix? Flat Out
 

Before you say it I serached and searched and I haven't found a single post that flat out explains what the L & M Flashes fix. So what do they fix, flat out? I have had problems with the car rough idleing and even when I cut the DSC off stalling out in a rough idle, I also ran at 102 in 4th gear at about 8,000 RPMs and the engine just cut off as I was beginning to slow down also with the DSC off, should I get reflashed and which one? How long does the reflash take and what are the effects positive and negative, if any? Just flat out put it on one post for those of us confused and wondering in a search.

Re: L & M Flashes, What do they fix? Flat Out
 

Remove the K&N Typhoon Intake... The RX 8 has not been around long enough for an SR Intake to be designed and thoroughly tested

To make a long story short, Mazda hosed up the air/fuel ratios on the "first" generation of ECU "flash" programming for about the first 6 months worth of vehicles sold here. Because the a/f ratios were either way too rich or way too lean, horsepower was down from what it could have been, fuel economy was much worse than it needs to be, and the engine was more prone to flooding than it should be.

The "L" flash is Mazda's first major crack at fixing these issues, and the "M" flash is basically the "L" with more fixes to prevent flooding. If you want to learn more, spend some time reading the threads on the development of the CanZoomer unit, which basically augments the stock ECU on the car, intercepting A/F info and sending out it's own info instead of the ECU.

As for your rough idling, I agree that the K&N intake is part of the problem... people who have them consistantly complain of it. The other thing is that the Renesis does seem to kind of "lope" a bit at idle. I consider it normal.

"Lope", that's the word I was looking for. Excellent description.

yeah but this problem didn't not occur for about a month after I installed the K&N Intake, and many people experience rough idle without the K&N Intake and get the M flash to solve it, plus besides rough idle no one has experienced the 8,000 RPMs cutoff I experienced and only a few experience rough idle. I don't mean to be argumentitive but I love my K&N and it sounds great and don't want to take it out if your just guessing, no offense. It has been suggested to me that I use gas cleaner next tiem I fill up to stop the rough idle? So would getting the M flash hurt anything if I didn't need it and the problems are truely from the K&N Intake.

m flash won't hurt anything. but it's not necesarily a problem with the k+n. it could be the installation of said product. the PCM is very sensitive to disruption of the airflow over the MAF. mis-placement of the MAF, misplacement of the screeens before and after or oil/grease/dirt on the MAF could all cause a rough idle.

now the 8k rpm thing. remember that the car lowers the redline until the car is properly warmed so that could be what you ran into. others have had similar experiences at 6k to 8k. another thing is if you did not complewtly disable the dsc. are you sure you held the button down for 10 seconds. did the little car with the squiggly lines light up on the center dash cluster and stay lit? if not then it was not fully disable and what you felt was the dsc waking up and correcting some wheel slip or other problem.

oh and who installed the neon? are you sure they are installed correctly?

a customs shop installed them for me, but I don't see how that could effect it plus. I was just now driving down the road and I was braking and gearing down to stop at a stop sign when the engine cut off and I wasn't doing more than 25 mph so I know it's not the intake. What is happening to my eight?

why don't you have the dealer check it out???

The only way you can eliminate the intake as a potential cause of your problems is to eliminate the intake. Take it off, put the stock airbox/filter back on, then drive and see if you still have the problem. So far, I've seen nothing you've posted that eliminates the intake as a possible source of your problems.

Regards,
Gordon

the neon could be grounded incorrectly or otherwise installed improperly that would drain the battery or overload something causing the comp to freak out.

so you were doing 25mph and decelerating. then you went to downshift from gear a to gear b when the car just sputtered and died? that's what your saying just happened?

You need to get it back to "stock"

If you have neons/intake AND a system. lots of variables there

I don't suppose you spent a little $$ on a scanner?

could a loose battery cable cause the car to stall?

sure it could^^

Sounds to me like you want to keep the intake unless someone can demonstrate to your satisfaction that it's the problem. If you're not willing to take it off and drive with the stock intake for a while to eliminate that variable, then the only way you're going to figure it out is to get some real time monitoring capability so you can see exactly what is going on. I'd suggest you buy one of these CAN-OBDII scanners: http://www.ghg.net/dharrison/ and start logging. Good luck!

The car has a "generator" ILO an "alternator" it gets the trickle voltage as a direct feed from the PCM.

We all know this car is "torque challenged" anyway so with the added load it may cause the car to stall.

I am also impressed with Omicron's use of the word "augment." Excellent word choices.

I concur

Ok I was thinking about what you said about my neons and infact the rough idle started the week after I got the neons and had never happened before, So lets run through that scenario and see what I need to do to check and see if that is the problem and how to fix it.

Edit- Oh yeah the check battery light came on when it stalled so if that helps, but the car was still on just the engine was off. and yes the scenario that I'm gearing down from gear a to gear b and the engine stalled at 25 mph is correct. I have an appointment to get the M flash tomorrow so will see what happens. Should I get the service techs to check out my neon set up. Later I will post some pics of the neon wiring set up, but the lights were not on when any of this happened could it still be the source of the problem?

I thought I sated that I had the K&N for as month before this problem ever started to happen. Correct me if I'm wrong but wouldn't these problems occur as soon as I installed the intake.

Not necessarilly. If the filter element has slipped a bit (as they sometimes do) and "raw" air was getting into the intake tube it would cause enough turbulence to upset the MAF. The other thing is that the RX-8's PCM "learns" as time goes on and adjusts things like A/F to adapt to the driver and conditions the car is subjected to. The PCM may have been trying to adjust to the new intake until it finally reached it's limit of adaptability, which is now causing a rough idle.

So again, if you take the intake off and put the stock unit back on, it gives the PCM a change to readapt back to life before your K&N. If the idle smoothes out with the stock intake - even if immediately after you put the K&N on again and it seems fine - then the problem is likely the K&N.

Aw shucks. :D

Reset the cars computer, so it restarts the learning curve all over again. If the car behaves normaly for a while and then regresses, then you know the K&N has something to do with it! unless you have done other mods to your car before the problems started, then their are to many variables involved.

What is the easiest way to reset the computer?

Disconnect the battery then step on the brake pedal a few times to discharge any stray capacitance. Wait a few minutes and reconnct the battery.