Over the past couple days I have noticed that my car sputters and shakes a little whenever I try and get on the throttle. There is not a huge power loss, but it does seem to get worse by the day... Anyway, today on my way home I noticed a little bit of smoke coming from the engine and a rough idle. The idle is not rough all the time, more like every 15-20 secs. Also when I inspected the engine, I noticed that there was old oil around the top of the engine (in the black plastic squares) which is strange bc I always try and keep my engine clean...I'm pretty sure that I know what's coming, but does anyone have an idea of what it might be?


Thanks in advance for your help!

Matt

 

if its comming from the engine, sounds like you need a new one.

if its comming from the back its your cat.

check your cat.

 

I don't have a Cat. I'm running Catless at the moment. When I check the oil there is a "white milky substance" which Mazda addressed for me last time with the dip stick fix, but since that has been fixed... I'm assuming this is bad news. Drove great this morning...Just a few stutters at mid RPM. No smoke, but still getting the smell...It seems like it only smokes when I run it really hard. It's definitely coming somewhere from the top of the engine, but I can see the source...Ideas?

MD

 

oil being sucked in through the intake? leak of death? bad coil/spark? no idea XD...

 

not trying to thread jack, but i have a very similar problem.. i experienced some engine sputtering at ~2000rpms a few days ago, then started to get flashing CEL... went to downshfit the car, but when i pressed down on the clutch, the engine died. wouldnt start for a while.. thought flooded engine... used the techniques here on this site (luckily i had a laptop handy) removed the fuel relay in the fuse box, cranked the car, then replaced the fuse and it started up with an EXTREMELY rough idle... i limped the car home... the car has no get up at all, esp. when its stopped (i.e. red light/stop sign) sounds awful, engine vibrations, steady CEL at idle, flashing CEL when driving.. no codes yet, as i dont have any software or way to get the car to dealership for a few days. ther are no oil leak anywhere... well, that i can see, cat or top of engine look okay.. so i, myslef am quite baffled by this... any suggestions that i can take to the dealership, other than bring my checkbook.

 

Same thing happened to me. You need new coils.
HELP
Right now my RX8 SOMETIMES smokes blue in the cold mornings. Sometimes it's a little sometimes it's THICK CLOUDS like Snoop Dogg hitting a blunt. Right now it won't stop smoking because I don't want to let it burn the rest of the oil in the chamber because it will bother my neighbors.

Noticed symptoms:
Rough idle

 

So is your engine compression healthy? Have you checked with a rotary compression tester recently?

There is no "seems". It's healthy or it isn't.

 

"Ran fine with the code before"
yeah you probably had a bad cat and kept driving the car (horrible idea) and now your motor is toast. Congrats

 

The code was for low efficiency from the catalytic converter. The code wasnt from a clogged cat.

 

no I used a regular piston compression tester and did the mathematical conversion.

Here's the craziest part of all. After all the blue smoke burns up and the car goes back to normal. The car WILL NOT smoke again on morning starts if the weather doesnt reach below 30°F.
So like...wtf...


Could this be a faulty or stuck OMP position switch or maybe even thethe Nozzles leaking whenever it feels like making life miserable?

 

im pretty sure theres no code for a clogged cat. you need to remove it and inspect it

 

A clogged cat will throw the P0420 "cat low efficiency" code.

Especially with the amount of blue smoke you have, I would highly recommend checking it out, or like Xero said, you will destroy your engine with all the back pressure.

 

P0420 makes a nice pun for this situation 😂
il take out the cat inspect it see what I get.

 

be sure to check both the front and rear of the cat ive seen them plugged from either end, sometimes both like a pronstar. you may want to have new gaskets handy when ya drop the cat. if its clogged get a rotary specific comp test