Freaking hot seat rails!? Passenger only - need a couple answers.
 

As in touch them and you'll get some sort of degree burn. NO LIE. Open the hood and the heat wafts out. My aluminum Greddy strut bar is PIPING hot. Engine temp gauge stays around 40% from the left - not quite middle.
I just had my engine replaced 600 miles ago and I can't remember this problem before. It must be the cat. Clogged? Going into the dealer tomorrow, couple questions:
-should I have it towed?
-will this kind of heat affect the tranny at all?
-will it have harmed my engine?
-anything else I should bring up?

jeeze, if the heat really is as bad as you have illustated then some damage may happen, not out of experience but just logic that those heats can not be good. the dealer sounds like the right place to take it, as for getting it towed, how long does it take for your engine to produce such heats and how far is your dealer? other then that good luck.

what do you mean by degree burn?

As in I touched the metal seat rail and had to immediately put my finger under cold water. I don't know my first from my eleventh degree burns.

The dealer is about a 25 min drive. I'm guessing tow is the proper way - although by the time I drove there it would be piping hot for them!

well for demonstrations sake you might want to drive it to them and show them what you are talking about so you dont get one of those "we cant find the problem" calls. on the other hand you might take it there and they will tell you there "tech." is not there at the moment and call you with the same BS later. and your left there with the car hot and possably damaged.
for infomations sake the highest degree of a burn is a three, im guessing yours was a one, but that is still far too hot for the interior of any car. good luck

i just finished a 30 minute drive and i checked my passenger side seat rail and it's not even warm at all. so the heat from the rail is not normal based on another rx8. my strut tower bar however is super hot as it always is. it might be a good idea to just drive your car to the dealer so everything is heated already. good luck and let us know what the problem is.

I experienced the 'Burn' before, as if i'm touching radiator..

Dealer may have failed to replace the heat shield(s) between the exhaust and body floor when replacing engine. The engine compartment is always going to be extremely hot after a long run, but not the seat rails.

Mike, thanks for checking. Much appreciated.

I'll call the dealer and let them decide what to do.

Ha! I did drive it there and still got one of those calls. They said they pulled the cat and it flowed fine. They're keeping it again tomorrow since I also asked them to install the updated motor mounts and those won't be in til Wed. I sure hope they don't go another day with "no issues". Maybe I'll just buy an RP Supercat.

well im checking back.

WHAT!?!?! the dealership couldn't find the problem, dear lord who would explect that?!

sorrry to hear about that, must be pretty fustrating, did you get a chance to show them your burning sear rails, or were they able to reprduce it themselves? i hope they're not going to just dismiss the problem, i sure wouldn't let them dismiss me that easily.

don't make us wait to long for an update here, thanks and good luck

how hot was the day that you took it out?

on the last hot day that I drove it hard it was 101 i believe, i parked it at work for 9 hours and when I came back the engine water and oil temp were still 150 degrees. I dont know what that would equate to on the stock gauge as I dont even look at those anymore.

maybe it was just a hot day or something. The cat is very close to the left passanger seat rail

Sorry for the delay as we're still waiting on the fix. I ruled out the hot day scenario as it was 60 outside when I picked it up and it did the same thing. So here's the story...
I picked it up and had to rush off to work. Get there, wait in the lot for 10min and yep - hot rails. So I look at the paper work and it says new motor mounts installed (wonderful BTW) and regarding my issue, "Customer claims about excessive heat inside the cabin and dangerously hot passenger seat rails. Took on numerous road tests, no problem found". I looked at my odometer to see how many miles they racked up in total... (wait for it).... ONE!!! My odometer was one f'n mile over when I dropped it off! I am/was livid. I called the manager and relayed the whole thing (politely). He remembered the car going in but said that maybe the mechanic just let it idle for 20 minutes at a time, he wasn't sure and he'd call me back. Five hours later I called him back. He asks me what I think it would be and I said the cat. Explained I'm on engine #2 as of June and when the first one when I had white crap in my exhaust pipes. Guess where else that went? I told him that I mentioned to the service guy when I dropped it off it was the cat. I asked did you even drop it and look at it? to which he replied, no and then said they have no problem ordering me a cat they just can't promise it will be the fix. I asked him to order it anyway. Should be here this week.

I know on my 07' RX8 it gets pretty damn warm over there.. Can def. feel the heat through the carpet and all..

well, it does sound like a new cat should fix the problem, let us know how it turns out. ohh and nice job on getting the stealership to do what you want. good luck

idling is pretty rough on the car, heatwise. There is no rushing air to cool down the cat or anything else for that matter. That is until the engine starts overheating and turning on its own radiator fans.

I couldn't agree with your statement more and yet disagree with it in my application. If the issue is a catalytic converter, letting the engine idle at 900rpms will put zero strain on it whatsoever. When you're forcing air through it at 4000rpms on a highway is an entirely different type of scenario.

My bolt / rails get very hot in that area (above the cat) as well. So this is not normal? Even with a performance cat which my friend thinks it may be. Let me know as i dont want to do any damage to my car. What could be the negative effects of my.hot / not working cat. Thanks.

a clogged cat can destroy your engine. the passenger side gets much hotter than the drv side because of the exhaust mani and cat. iirc there was a tsb on a healt shield in the tranny tunnel area

Well this is a little old I guess but after putting in a high flow cat if the car sits in stop and go traffic or idles for a while especially during the summer I get this same problem. Trans is cool but the trans tunnel and passenger seat rails gets progressively hotter. As soon as I get on the highway the temps drop some but clearly the lack of shielding as found on a factory cat is not good. Looking to install some insulation and a heat shield to the cat has anyone else done this??

hey, sorry to bump an old thread.

Was this issue resolved? I'm currently getting super hot seat rails & the engine bay feels warmer than usual but nothing shows on temp gauge.

Not sure if its my Cat - had an MOT done a month ago and emissions rating was perfect.
Issue began after using a bottle of cata-clean. Was also stuck in traffic and the gearbox started to jam. Once the car cools down the gearbox loosens up again.

What was the final outcome?

Sounds a lot like your catalytic converter is clogged. Take it down and have a look inside. If it is clogged, it could kill your engine in short order, so don't wait.

Keep in mind the factory engine temp gauge is hardly more than a dummy gauge. It will always stay in that position once it's at general operating temp. It won't even move to a hotter position til about 230 degrees, which is entering critical territory, so do not rely completely on that.