andersonLi

I just pick up an black Rx8 last Friday, the salesman told me, in order to maintain the car, whenever I shut down the car, I should let it run for atleast 4 min, then push the engine to 3500 rpm to avoild flood. then I WTF, why didn't you tell me before I bought it? which disappointed me, anyway, I had turbo car before, I can install and set the car run for 4 mins before it shutdown, but the hard part is how to push the engine to 3500 rpm after I left? If I don't do this, what's the consequence to this gona happend?
if I drive from A to B, idle for 4 mins then push engine to 3500 rpm, then shut down for 5 mins, after that I drive from B to C for 10 mins, do I have to do the same before ? if so, it's pssed me off now.
thanks for all replies :p

staticlag

The procedure is, if you move the car a short distance, aka, from the garage into the driveway, you need to rev it to 3500 for about 10 seconds so it wont flood.

This is the only time you need to rev it.

Consequences: You will flood your engine, and it will foul your spark plugs, then you will need to get it towed to the dealership so they can replace your spark plugs, effectively wasting an entire day if your lucky.

Did he also tell you that this car drinks oil? 1liter per 1000 miles?

staticlag

Oh, and you shouldn't go above 4-5K rpm until the engine is warmed up, this is espically important with a rotary.

And, you should follow the new car break in procedure...

http://www.racingbeat.com/RX8%20Break%20in.htm

KYLiquid

^ as posted above. Its not 4 mins. It just till the car is warmed up then rev it for a few secs and shut it off.

Its really not a big deal, and its not much of an issue any more. As long as the car always has enough time to warm up when you drive before you shut it down its no problem.

280RX-8

What about when it's cold? I've read that it's a pain in the *** to get the rotary started when it's freezing-*** cold outside. It doesn't get THAT cold here, but it does hit the teens(Farenheit) some times. Thank the gods for heated seats.

andersonLi

in case it's flooded, can I buy a spare set of plugs, and change it at home, so I don't have to tow it to the dealer? my mechanical incline is timing job, clutch, and anything easier,
thanks :p

tuj

Plugs are pretty expensive. I'd suggest just following two things:

-always let the car warm up after its started. This means no driveway-juggling or very short trips without letting it idle and warm up.

-to turn off the car, rev it to 3k, hold it there, then turn the key. The extra few revolutions of the engine without fuel will blow out any excess.

Mine has never flooded following these two things.

alnielsen

iTrader: (4)

I live in the Chicago area. I've had the car for over a year and drive it in the winter. I have never had a starting problem, including "flooding". I also don't take any special precausions like reving or worrying about warming short movements of the car.
The resent revision to the ecu were made to take care of these problems. Historicaly there was a problem.

Nubo

With the newer flash versions, flooding seems to be largely a non-issue. I used to go through all that rigamarole but got tired of it, especially as there are times when I may need to move the car 3 or 4 times in an afternoon getting stuff in and out of the garage. Nowadays I just treat it like any other car as far as short moves are concerned and haven't had any starting problems. The only other thing I did was replace the stock battery. To me, I'd rather deal with a flood that may never come than constantly worry and waste my time.

Don't worry too much about what salespeople tell you about the car. They're often responding to old info or acting upon prejudices of the service department. When I got the car, I was repeatedly warned "Don't baby it! -- You gotta run it HARD!". Like you, I found it somewhat ridiculous to be getting dire warnings about a car that I had purchased only moments before -- where were those warnings when they were trying to SELL me the car? Lol. But I've learned to largely ignore salespeople. The run-hard warning was their way of trying to reduce the headache of all the flooded RX-8s they'd been getting. While there's a concensus that a decent amount of spirited driving is healthy for a rotary, the "fix" was for Mazda to improve the engine management firmware, not to zip around all day at 7,000 rpm

KYLiquid

you could do that. although changing the plugs isnt like changing a light bulb, its a tight fit to get in there. Also as its been said the plugs arnt cheap, i think somewhere around 120 for all 4 of them at the dealer, i think i saw someone say they got them as low as 80-100 for all 4 online somewhere. they are a pretty special plug so you cant just pick it up at pepboys.

The other thing is that the gasoline acts as a solvent and washes away the layer of oil that coats the sides of the rotor housing (the surface the apex seals contact) this layer helps to lubricate the seals and also helps them to hold in the compression....when the layer of oil is gone, some of the combustion gets around the seals and the motor wont start, or rull well.....so you could find you self with a stalled car, change the plugs and follow the "crank it dry" and it still wont run.

So its not hard, but its also not something you can fix in a few mins before you leave for work.

There are lots of threads posted about all kinds of ways to fix a flooded engine.

although this is all a mute point as the recent flashes to the cars ECU have made flooding virtualy impossible.

Also as it has been said before, not as many cars had flooding problems as you might think, of course anyone that has a car flood is gonna post about it, but nobody posts "i moved the car out of the garage to the driveway on a freezing morning and turned it off, then drove away...it didnt flood." :p