Another Power Steering Problem
 

Well, let me start by introducing myself and give a little bit of a back story on the problem because I have been trying to fix this for a very long time. So let's rewind to March 2013. I was 20 years old and my dad was taking me to the used car lot to pick out a car. And guess what cool car, parked right up in front was. Yep it was a red 2005 Mazda RX8. Now looking back, I realize I was an idiot. I knew nothing of the car, didn't even understand the fact that its rotary (I know a lot more about this car now that I found rx8club btw).

All is good with the car. There were seemingly no problems, ran perfectly fine, but then again I had no clue what was done to this car. After a couple months of owning the car, I get the typical pulling to the left, and intermittent power steering failure.
So I found the post about cleaning the connectors and rerouting the coolant overflow hose, did that and Viola! It worked. But to no avail not for long. When I would disconnect the connectors, clean them and reconnect it would work. I started to get annoyed with constantly having to clean them, so I got curious and tried to figure out which one was the problem. Cleaned the connectors, got power steering. While the car was running, I disconnected the connector leading to the EPS motor, and I lost power, but the light didn't come on. Then I disconnected the connector to the torque sensor and I haven't been able to get the power steering working since.

Since then, I have tried replacing the lower harness (the one that goes to the rack), cutting and soldering the wires together, and even putting in new, higher grade connectors. Still nothing has worked.

Well, it was warm on Monday and I was able to pull out the EPS PCM to start testing the connectors voltage and continuity to figure out if there is a possible short in the connections. Unfortunately I didn't have enough time to finish them all but here are some of the issues I have found, which I plan on addressing when it warms up (went from 60F to 30F in one day).

I found that I do not have continuity between the EPS motor power supply wire (1A) and the positive terminal, but I do have continuity between 1A and the ground. I did find out that I have continuity between the three torque sensor terminals and their connections to the EPS PCM, which makes me believe that it is not the problem (anymore).

I didn't get a chance to check all the grounds to ensure good connections or inspect the wires for obvious shorts, so that is my next step along with more testing.

Update
 

Well, finally got my 8 into the garage so I can work in the heat and not freezing temperatures. I checked EVERY wire involved in the eps and determined that there is no fault at all in the wiring. So that's good, but the fact that I didn't have power steering isn't. I purchased a VCMII controller and a cracked version of the IDS back in December and finally decided to mess with it again, luckily I got it working. Got the code B1342, which means my EPS CM has failed (must have fried it with a voltage overload). Found one off a member doing an engine swap and it is on its way. Will update again once I install new EPS CM and do the neutral position setting.

Well, installed the new power steering module and it was a success!