Blown Engine? Main Seal? Opinions?
 

So, my RX8's got about 80,000 KM on it. 2004 GT w/ Manual tranmission and no mods aside from a K/N air filter. About a year ago, I had the entire wiring harness + brake cylinder + engine blanket replaced when a rat/rodent got into the engine compartment and made a nest during a day at work. We replaced the starter ourselves when it blew a couple months before that.

Driving home in the rain tonight, I was at about 4K RPM in 6th when I noticed a very brief drop in power.

About 15 seconds later, another brief blip in power.

About 60 seconds after that, CEL blinked a couple of times, then went off with a corresponding dip in power. In addition, the engine took on a different tone, and there was an almost complete power loss. At this point it felt like I'd lost a cylinder (if I was driving a normal car). Because of the car's history and the wet, I thought *maybe* it was a wiring glitch. The car felt normal aside from the power loss, engine temp was normal, no smells or odd sounds aside from the changed exhaust note.

The CEL continued to blip on and off when I took power off and then accelerated again. It would occasionaly blip once or twice and at one point blinked 20 times in a row. It would stay off if I kept power at the same level.

At this point, I didn't suspect a serious mechanical problem, and kept driving. I had about 10KM to go until I was home. The car behaved the same until I got off the highway and dropped in speed. Approaching a light, it felt like the engine was dead, and the CEL and battery warning light came on. However, applying power brought the car back alive. No restart required.

I eventually got around the corner to my house, and after going up a slight incline and turning into my neighborhood, the engine went out, and all indicator lights were on for the right hand panel. I did not attempt to restart, and let the car roll around the corner and onto my street. I managed to roll down the block and into my driveway.

As I came to a stop, I could smell the engine coolant that was hitting the exhaust and see the steam coming out of the engine compartment. At this point I pretty well knew this wasn't a minor problem like I hoped.

Opinions? Repair cost estimates? Going to have it towed to a dealership tomorrow for repair estimate. I'm hoping it's SOMEHOW related to the squirrel damage, because as my car's well within the engine KM warranty, I think the time has expired on it.

Update: Definately a gasket issue. There's coolant in the oil. Probably related to something like this https://www.rx8club.com/series-i-tech-garage-22/engine-3-my-rx-8-a-169492/

Sounds like new engine time :)

Yay, New Engine for You :)

Just hope Mazda Canada takes it under warranty. They are apparently getting quite picky about maintenance reports with the whole 'not selling cars' thing going on.

Apparently two of the coils went bad and the engine was running hot. This cases the two plugs to burn out, dumping unburned fuel into the exhaust where it ignighted on one (?) of the catalytic converters and melted it.

Happened to me yesterday, just got off the phone with the dealer......new engine time also. 45k miles everything should be under warranty, plus i popped $2500 for a extended 4 year 100K warranty on it last year.