2009 rx8 r3 died in middle of highway
05-07-2011, 03:05 PM
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2009 rx8 r3 died in middle of highway
Anyone have any idea what would cause this ? Only 9k miles.....just driving on highway and dies, wouldn't start back up. Was thinking maybe engine flooded, which I heard is common, but didn't think it would happen after driving 20 minutes. Mostly just suspension mods so far, agency power exhaust /midpipe and a cold air intake. Any thoughts ?
05-07-2011, 03:54 PM
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A number of things could cause it, but none of your mods, and it wasn't flooding. Flooding (fuel overload) is inherently impossible while the engine is running. Flooding occurs when you try to start the engine and there is too weak of a spark to ignite the fuel and fuel just gets build up and pools in there keeping a spark from occurring.
My first bet is that one of your battery cables came loose of the terminal. It's happened to me before on more than 1 car, and one of the only things that causes just sudden and instant shut-down.
If it studdered and coughed before shutting down, then I'd bet a fuel problem, either no fuel, fuel starvation, fuel pump failure, overheating fuel pump, fuel filter clog, or water in the gas tank that filled the line enough to be non-combustable.
If you have lots of rain or water puddles, you could have ingested water, causing shut-down, but that should have been fairly obvious.
That's the main list. Any ignition problem after the alternator would generally be specific to 1 of the 4 ignition chains, and it would still be running, not shut down. Running rough, but still running. A number of other things can put it into limp, such as severe temp/overheating, ECU issues, etc..., but it won't shut the car down.
My first bet is that one of your battery cables came loose of the terminal. It's happened to me before on more than 1 car, and one of the only things that causes just sudden and instant shut-down.
If it studdered and coughed before shutting down, then I'd bet a fuel problem, either no fuel, fuel starvation, fuel pump failure, overheating fuel pump, fuel filter clog, or water in the gas tank that filled the line enough to be non-combustable.
If you have lots of rain or water puddles, you could have ingested water, causing shut-down, but that should have been fairly obvious.
That's the main list. Any ignition problem after the alternator would generally be specific to 1 of the 4 ignition chains, and it would still be running, not shut down. Running rough, but still running. A number of other things can put it into limp, such as severe temp/overheating, ECU issues, etc..., but it won't shut the car down.
05-07-2011, 05:03 PM
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A number of things could cause it, but none of your mods, and it wasn't flooding. Flooding (fuel overload) is inherently impossible while the engine is running. Flooding occurs when you try to start the engine and there is too weak of a spark to ignite the fuel and fuel just gets build up and pools in there keeping a spark from occurring.
My first bet is that one of your battery cables came loose of the terminal. It's happened to me before on more than 1 car, and one of the only things that causes just sudden and instant shut-down.
If it studdered and coughed before shutting down, then I'd bet a fuel problem, either no fuel, fuel starvation, fuel pump failure, overheating fuel pump, fuel filter clog, or water in the gas tank that filled the line enough to be non-combustable.
If you have lots of rain or water puddles, you could have ingested water, causing shut-down, but that should have been fairly obvious.
That's the main list. Any ignition problem after the alternator would generally be specific to 1 of the 4 ignition chains, and it would still be running, not shut down. Running rough, but still running. A number of other things can put it into limp, such as severe temp/overheating, ECU issues, etc..., but it won't shut the car down.
My first bet is that one of your battery cables came loose of the terminal. It's happened to me before on more than 1 car, and one of the only things that causes just sudden and instant shut-down.
If it studdered and coughed before shutting down, then I'd bet a fuel problem, either no fuel, fuel starvation, fuel pump failure, overheating fuel pump, fuel filter clog, or water in the gas tank that filled the line enough to be non-combustable.
If you have lots of rain or water puddles, you could have ingested water, causing shut-down, but that should have been fairly obvious.
That's the main list. Any ignition problem after the alternator would generally be specific to 1 of the 4 ignition chains, and it would still be running, not shut down. Running rough, but still running. A number of other things can put it into limp, such as severe temp/overheating, ECU issues, etc..., but it won't shut the car down.
Question .... Is fuel pump a good idea to upgrade on the series 2's if the engine doesn't have a turbo on it yet ? I know the water pump was upgrades on the series 2 but wasn't sure about the fuel pump.
... specially, if it's an 09 with 9k miles on it.
05-07-2011, 05:41 PM
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Series 1 fuel pumps often don't last outside of about 60,000 miles. OFTEN is the key word. Often they do. At 9,000 miles, yours SHOULD be fine, but there are exceptions to every rule, and you could have one that was built bad.
Yeah, attempting to restart and it just turning over without firing, after sudden shut-off, sounds to me like it's fuel quality related.
Yeah, attempting to restart and it just turning over without firing, after sudden shut-off, sounds to me like it's fuel quality related.
05-07-2011, 06:27 PM
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So its been in storage for how long then, 7+ months right? Did you add some fuel stabilizer to it before putting it in storage? Fuel does go bad and you cant expect to be on the same tank for that long. There are many problems that can lead to most of which I think were already covered.
05-07-2011, 06:28 PM
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Oh, I missed that it was in storage for that long.
Yeah, I'd definitely say it's fuel quality problems. Might want to give the dealer a heads up to try adding a bunch of clean 93 octane before they start tearing stuff apart.
Yeah, I'd definitely say it's fuel quality problems. Might want to give the dealer a heads up to try adding a bunch of clean 93 octane before they start tearing stuff apart.
05-09-2011, 02:28 AM
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It was already running fine, so it wasn't the fuel. I collect vintage cars, some in storage for years at a time, and I've found that fuel is good up to about a year, then the denaturing starts becoming apparent. Even then, cars will run on it, not ideally , but will still run. 7 month old fuel should have no problem, especially something spontaneous like this.
Something else is going on here. I'm betting it's related to the installation of the intake mod (not necessarily the mod itself).
Something else is going on here. I'm betting it's related to the installation of the intake mod (not necessarily the mod itself).
05-09-2011, 02:45 AM
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It was already running fine, so it wasn't the fuel. I collect vintage cars, some in storage for years at a time, and I've found that fuel is good up to about a year, then the denaturing starts becoming apparent. Even then, cars will run on it, not ideally , but will still run. 7 month old fuel should have no problem, especially something spontaneous like this.
Something else is going on here. I'm betting it's related to the installation of the intake mod (not necessarily the mod itself).
Something else is going on here. I'm betting it's related to the installation of the intake mod (not necessarily the mod itself).
05-09-2011, 03:36 AM
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05-09-2011, 06:43 AM
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He did. You missed his reference.
Ok , that's what i figured about the flooding but wanted to be sure. I never drive the car in rain or snow, has pretty much been stored all winter and only had it out a couple times this year. However, it is running on the same tank of gas from the fall, but it's at a half tank of premium 93. Seemed to be running fine, happpened all of a sudden. When it did die and i tried to start back up, it turned over and the stereo , etc was all coming on so couldn't be the battery cable. I guess that leaves some type of fuel clog or something in the gas line. Brought it to the dealership so if that's the case i'm sure they'll have it running quickly.
05-09-2011, 09:59 PM
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Thanks for all the input ,
As I stated earlier, yes i contacted the dealer, it's not the battery because there's no power issues , and as far as the AI I didn't install, I had someone install locally. Very reputable place so I would THINK they would have used the air straightener but will find out.
At any rate, after the dealership checked it out they don't seem to think it has anything to do with the mods .... they said they noticed i had been using synthetic oil, which i have, and they claim this is a big NO NO. Interesting that they never mentioned it when i bought the car and somehow i missed that in the manual, but after reading the thread on here seems there's much speculation as to whether it's actually bad or good to use synthetic. It seems the spark plugs are all gummed up and need to be replaced so they think this is the cause but won't know until they get the new ones in on wed. They did say it would be covered under warranty so they're not giving me any crap about that, yet , but we'll see if the plugs fixes the problem.
Would using the synthetic cause the gummed up plugs ? can't imagine why the plugs would be bad after 2 years / 9 k miles. As far as the storage, I last drove the car in oct / nov at the latest , then it sat until last month sometime so about 5 months approx. Of course I started up periodically, but I don't drive it in the winter / snow being the I live in cleveland, ohio .
Any thoughts with the new info ?
As I stated earlier, yes i contacted the dealer, it's not the battery because there's no power issues , and as far as the AI I didn't install, I had someone install locally. Very reputable place so I would THINK they would have used the air straightener but will find out.
At any rate, after the dealership checked it out they don't seem to think it has anything to do with the mods .... they said they noticed i had been using synthetic oil, which i have, and they claim this is a big NO NO. Interesting that they never mentioned it when i bought the car and somehow i missed that in the manual, but after reading the thread on here seems there's much speculation as to whether it's actually bad or good to use synthetic. It seems the spark plugs are all gummed up and need to be replaced so they think this is the cause but won't know until they get the new ones in on wed. They did say it would be covered under warranty so they're not giving me any crap about that, yet , but we'll see if the plugs fixes the problem.
Would using the synthetic cause the gummed up plugs ? can't imagine why the plugs would be bad after 2 years / 9 k miles. As far as the storage, I last drove the car in oct / nov at the latest , then it sat until last month sometime so about 5 months approx. Of course I started up periodically, but I don't drive it in the winter / snow being the I live in cleveland, ohio .
Any thoughts with the new info ?
05-10-2011, 04:31 AM
#17
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Synthetic oil will not foul the plugs. Even if the plugs were fouled, the failure mode would not be instantaneous at speed - starting & running quality would gradually deteriorate.
I think the root cause is something other than the plugs...
I think the root cause is something other than the plugs...
05-10-2011, 05:02 AM
#18
Thanks for all the input ,
As I stated earlier, yes i contacted the dealer, it's not the battery because there's no power issues , and as far as the AI I didn't install, I had someone install locally. Very reputable place so I would THINK they would have used the air straightener but will find out.
At any rate, after the dealership checked it out they don't seem to think it has anything to do with the mods .... they said they noticed i had been using synthetic oil, which i have, and they claim this is a big NO NO. Interesting that they never mentioned it when i bought the car and somehow i missed that in the manual, but after reading the thread on here seems there's much speculation as to whether it's actually bad or good to use synthetic. It seems the spark plugs are all gummed up and need to be replaced so they think this is the cause but won't know until they get the new ones in on wed. They did say it would be covered under warranty so they're not giving me any crap about that, yet , but we'll see if the plugs fixes the problem.
Would using the synthetic cause the gummed up plugs ? can't imagine why the plugs would be bad after 2 years / 9 k miles. As far as the storage, I last drove the car in oct / nov at the latest , then it sat until last month sometime so about 5 months approx. Of course I started up periodically, but I don't drive it in the winter / snow being the I live in cleveland, ohio .
Any thoughts with the new info ?
As I stated earlier, yes i contacted the dealer, it's not the battery because there's no power issues , and as far as the AI I didn't install, I had someone install locally. Very reputable place so I would THINK they would have used the air straightener but will find out.
At any rate, after the dealership checked it out they don't seem to think it has anything to do with the mods .... they said they noticed i had been using synthetic oil, which i have, and they claim this is a big NO NO. Interesting that they never mentioned it when i bought the car and somehow i missed that in the manual, but after reading the thread on here seems there's much speculation as to whether it's actually bad or good to use synthetic. It seems the spark plugs are all gummed up and need to be replaced so they think this is the cause but won't know until they get the new ones in on wed. They did say it would be covered under warranty so they're not giving me any crap about that, yet , but we'll see if the plugs fixes the problem.
Would using the synthetic cause the gummed up plugs ? can't imagine why the plugs would be bad after 2 years / 9 k miles. As far as the storage, I last drove the car in oct / nov at the latest , then it sat until last month sometime so about 5 months approx. Of course I started up periodically, but I don't drive it in the winter / snow being the I live in cleveland, ohio .
Any thoughts with the new info ?
Cuz you can try to ask them "why would Synthetic oil cause this? could you explain it to me in a scientific way?"
they will not be able to just keep repeating oh Synthetic oil is not good for Rotary, and at the end of the day, he will just tell you that I heard my neighbor's dog said it and yes I'm a ******* moron I am god damn wrench monkey.
if he won't admit he doesn't know ****/he fucked up. print this out and throw it at his face, oh yeah he can stfu now
http://www.mazda.co.jp/service/parts...e_renesis.html
as for "why plugs look bad at 9K miles", ALL plugs look kinda bad at that mile, especially if you are using stock head range plug and does a lot of city driving.
05-10-2011, 05:33 AM
#19
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either way if they already said its covered by warranty then no worries.
05-11-2011, 09:34 PM
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Oh trust me .... my biggest fear was getting **** about that or that i have a few mods on the car. I didn't think plugs would really cause what happened, but I guess they just came in late today and their going to get the plugs on tommorow and then finish the diagnosis. Hopefully, should know more tommorow.
05-11-2011, 10:00 PM
#22
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Not sure something from japan will sway them when it clearly states "do not use synthetic as engine starting performance could worsen" in the US manual. I am not trying to get into an argument over synthetic being ok in the engine, just stating what the manual says for us anyway.
either way if they already said its covered by warranty then no worries.
either way if they already said its covered by warranty then no worries.
OP, there is something going on and I highly doubt it's plugs if it just shut off. The 09' + fuel pump is upgraded from the 03-08' units and I have never heard of any issues.
However, I had a situation similar to your years ago when I was at 25,000 miles or so. Turns out it was the saddle pump (our tanks goes over the transmission tunnel) in the fuel tank and they ended up replacing the whole tank. Parts do randomly fail.
Oh, and never offer up any info that the dealer could use to deny services.
Last edited by 9krpmrx8; 05-11-2011 at 10:02 PM.
05-12-2011, 09:48 AM
#23
any cels or codes?
Sudden die with no warning.
It would be very strange for this to be fuel.
My bet is something electrical---not the sparkplugs. Thats crap from someone that doesnt know what the heck they are talking about. "just throw parts at it until it works" mentality.
Sudden die with no warning.
It would be very strange for this to be fuel.
My bet is something electrical---not the sparkplugs. Thats crap from someone that doesnt know what the heck they are talking about. "just throw parts at it until it works" mentality.
