Bad Apex or Bad Rotor?
 

Hey all, this is my first post on the site - though I've been following it for a few weeks since I got my first rx8. I'm new to rotors in general and my motor has me worried quite a bit..

Mine is all stock at the moment. It's an '06 manual with a 13b renesis side port, 115k miles old. Weirdest placement for a dipstick I've ever seen too lol.

So basically when I keep it out of gear / the throttle disengaged to let it warm up, I hear this rattling noise which seems to be coming from deep in the motor. The only thing I could think of is either that the 2mm Apex seals are loose and need to be replaced, or there's an issue with one of the rotors and I need to do an engine swap/ rebuild. :crying:

Also, the oil pressure seems to read that it's two notches past mid, which could either be a symptom of a bad rotor or that the pressure gauge just sucks.. again I'm not too well versed in rotaries so I may have sounded like I have no idea what I'm talking about. Anyway I hope someone here has some insight into the situation.. I'm lost at this point. Thanks

Edit: it just occurred to me that one of the motor mounts could be broken, which I'll go take a look at in the morning.. I've been freaking out about this all night

I took a video of the problem and uploaded it, please take a look and let me know if it clarifies the situation at all. With the clutch out there's an additional whirring noise that adds to the rattling, its not too evident in the video though. I power washed under the hood and cleaned off the years of caked up oil dust and grime since the video was made, previous owners must not have cleaned it even once.

could just be a mount. maybe

and the oil pressure gauge is just a dummy gauge so dont pay any attention to it

ok thanks, not the first thing to take care of on my list, happy that it isnt a problem. video coming in a sec, uploading now.

1 Mississippi

lol its done uploading, embedded to OP

Try pressing on the vacuum actuator arm on the actuator for the SSV (search) and I bet the sound will go away. Common issue.

I'll go try right now, I didn't even think of that. Don't know exactly where the actuator is on the renesis but I'll look it up to find it. I'll let you know what happens, thanks

Good. I would tell you but I want you to learn :)

This is 9krpm being nice to you

You are very lucky

okay so it didn't seem to be the actuator, but I'm gonna go clean up the car a little bit with a power wash and compressed air for the electronics. I'll be back in about an hour. thanks for the help so far guys I appreciate it

Yeah so its cleaned up now.. still rattling though. it looks like the previous owners never properly cleaned any part of this car - aside from the exterior. It was caked with what I would imagine is years of grime and oil dust that took quite an effort to get off. Also they only got one wheel alignment ever in it's lifespan and that was about 40k miles ago - it's really bad. It makes me wonder how well they maintained this car and what else is wrong with it. Regardless I'm going to keep looking through the forums to see what else might be the problem, I don't think its a broken mount. Actually the 'new owners' thread written by RIWWP is full of quite a bit of info, it might be MIAC. I'll see if thats the problem tomorrow. Gonna head to bed soon though. Looks like I know how my 3 day weekend is gonna go

+1 with RIWWP's thread

I also was going to go with the SSV actuator as previously mentioned by 9krpm.
That's where I would start diagnosing ...

That noise is defiantly not MIAC

Yeah I looked up some videos of MIAC and that happens when the rpm's get between 5-6k, not idle.

It turns out it was the SSV! There's still a whirring noise, but the knocking is gone. The SSV was loose so I pressed it back in and the knocking went away.

The whirring is probably from transmission or a bad cat, I can't tell. That's next on my list, but does anyone have tips on keeping the SSV from coming loose again? I feel like it's just going to start up again in a day or so.

I knew it was that but what do you mean by the SSV was loose? The arm to the actuator or the actual SSV bolts were lose?

I just used the term loose improperly, my apologies. I wasn't sure exactly how to describe it. It wasn't loose - I pressed on the actuator SSV and then I felt almost like a spring compression then it snapped back into place and the noise ceased to exist.

Gotcha. You got lucky then and likely the actuator itself is ok, it might have just had gunk restricting the movement. A lot of times when you get this noise it is because the actuator itself has failed internally and needs to be replaced. It is not sold separately so if you need to buy a new one you have to replace the whole SSV.

Good job fixing your problem.

That whirr is probably just the throwout bearing. Very common thing with these cars and can hardly be chalked up as a problem. I got a new clutch and throwout bearing installed by a very competent dealer and the noise was there from day one. It stops when you clutch in, right?

Thank you. It probably would have taken me much much longer to try and figure it out myself, I really appreciate that you could help me out. Lets just hope the SSV doesn't need to be replaced lol.

Yes that's what I figured it was, I couldn't really think of any other reason it would only make the noise when my clutch is engaged and out of gear. As long as it isn't causing any damage by leaving it I can definitely live with the noise until I do a motor swap/ rebuild at some point. I was just worried it was my cat starting to show problems.