Engine power issues - but not the norm...?
 

Hi all,

I'm new to the rotary (but not automotive) world, and this site seems to offer some great advice. Hope you can help me out...

I have an 04 RX8 with 80k on the clock. It's the 231 version, but it certainly doesn't feel like it's putting out that kind of power.

It starts ok, hot or cold, so I'm struggling to find a post that sums up the same issue as mine. It idles a little lumpy, but not violent. It just seems to be way down on power. I've driven it hard (frequent red line) and it revs freely enough, it just feels like it has less than 150ish BHP, which is not really the idea! It's really jerky on/off the power too, although as I mentioned, it's my first rotary so no idea if this is standard.

Again, not sure if it's standard, but the footwell and transmission tunnel get VERY hot after a prolonged (100mile+) period of thrashing....

So, apologies for yet another engine problem, but I really hope you can help me out!

Oh, p.s. It had new plugs 4k ago, but not leads or coils...

Try new coils if still the same get a compression test from the Dealer

...and check the cat to see if your heat is coming from a there (rotaries run hot to start with so this could be normal - worth checking out though).

Did you get a compression test done?
How's your catalyzer?
The coils at 80k will probably be shot anyway but I would check the engine's compression and pcm flash plus the catalyzer before dropping money on parts.
You should also clean your Maf!

Hey guys,

The problem got quite a lot worse, with the car eventually struggling to even reach the red line.

I changed the coils, but there wasn't much wrong with the old ones (guess they'd been replaced before I bought the car), so....

I took the cat off and, after I finished cleaning up all the chunks that fell out of it, gutted the rest. The car runs perfectly now, and is back up to around full power. Obviously the CEL is on, but the car's not too noisy (in fact, it's barely any different), no excessive fumes and it seems to have fixed all my problems! It idles a lot better, revs freely and goes waaaaaay faster.

I'll get a cat back on it at some point... Thanks for the advice!