Throwing codes
P0300-Random/Multiple misfire
P0301 cylinder 1 misfire
P0410-Secondary air injection circuit fail

 

Swap the coils from rotor 1 to rotor 2 and see if the P0301 becomes P0302. Silly problem, but sometimes people get the plug wires mixed up and connect trailing coil to leading plug or rotor 1 to rotor 2.
Does the secondary air pump spin up at all?

 

My only concern is that when i sent the car in the only code was a cat code and now it has all these random ones...
would swapping coils just check to see if they're bad?

 

Yes. Swapping them around will narrow it down to the pair of coils that are currently on rotor 1. If swapping them still causes misfires on rotor 1, then the problem is not the coils. See where I'm going with this?

I wouldn't assume anything about the way the car was before

 

s can some explain where and what this secondary air pump is? and which part of it is actually failing cause it looks like theres the pump, the valve, and the solinoid

also if it's not the coils should i check spark next or could it be something else?
What's this talk i read about the ESS?
PS i just did the brake flash

Another update: I'm pretty sure i heard the pump come on. my computer hasn't had a full cycle so i have no code's yet.

 

The secondary air pump is on the left side of the engine, it's pretty much bolted to the shock tower IIRC. With that said, I'd ignore it for now. It's purely an emissions component. You can remove the entire assembly and it wouldn't affect your engine.
Plug wires can go bad too, so checking for an actual spark wouldn't be a terrible idea.

ESS is a small sensor mounted to the front of the engine near the bottom. It's magnetic, and gets covered in crap. Just wipe it off.

 

So resetting the ESS fixed the misfires
And the codes for the cat, which I had before, and the code for the air pump are the only codes now

My only concern left is the power steering. The steering cuts out randomly sometimes but while I'm going around corners I can feel it almost twitching off for a millisecond in the middle
Also the steering column sounds da kind of loud and almost grindy

 

So back at the beginning of this whoooole mess, was me spilling washer fluid on my pcm. Which also happens to be where my power steering pcm is as well����
I will try spraying the connectors to that, which some people have said to fix the issue along with dielectric grease and hope this fixes the final problem����

 

On your PCM? Or on the PCM Cover? The enclosure is pretty well sealed off from the environment. Washer fluid is quite a bit more corrosive than water or coolant though too. There's multiple 20+ threads about the power steering issue though. 90% of the time it's the harness, 10% of the time it's the rack. Every once in a while it's the EPS module itself, or the filter.

 

Keep guessing man, you might be getting close.

 

WOW!! That all definitely sux... Glad you got it going but does sound like the other issues are going to keep you busy a few more hours. Reading all the issues is certainly motivating me to go through my '04 from front to back better and see if anything needs maintenance above and beyond what has been done recently.

 

Might be a silly question but can a car survive without the battery being plugged in?
my question being that my positive terminal clamp might be a little loose which is where the PS fuse is connected too.
i cleaned the connections and used the dielectric grease around the plugs and even opened up the box and cleaned the connections to the EPS module.

BTW when this started the cover was off to the area where my PCM and EPS modules were and washer fluid got on the PCM which was what originally fried it. However i dont think that is the problem because i feel like it would of shorted the whole thing out completely if it was because of the liquid.
The current symptoms of the EPS is it works fine when i start the car but it will slowly twitch as i drive it and sometimes it will go out completely.

 

When I sold my first RX8 the person buying it removed the battery out of their car and used it to start mine. Then removed it and put it back in his. Seemed to work fine.

 

From what experience I have the biggest problem having your battery disconnected for a short or long period of time is often having your car's 'brain' needing to relearn each sensor and enact adjustments. This can sometimes take up to 100 starts or more.

If you have a loose (or intermittent) connection at the battery those can often be hard to notice while driving if you have a good working alternator. Hard starts, no starts, fades in electrical if drawing a high wattage for accessories can make it noticeable sooner.

My PCM experience is average, so not an expert, but possibly what you have working now just needs to relearn the systems??

Good luck at it. Hope you get it straightened out soon so you can enjoy it for the summer!!