So my friend has an rx8. he was driving and heard this noise. says it was almost like a misfire or something like that. in any case, his car wont idle now, it bogs and dies when it should be idling and he needs to give it gas to keep it running
there are a few things that i've established could be wrong with it from other people telling me,
blown rotary, MAP sensor malfunction, or its flooded
i highly doubt its flooded though. can anyone shed some light?
thanks

 

It wouldn't be running at all if it were flooded!
Sounds more like either bad spark plugs, or the plug wire boot came loose (which is known to happen).
Blown rotor would be a stretch and you tend to know its coming.... a compression test from the dealer can answer that.
But if he hears a "ticking" noise, I would say that one of the plug wires came loose.

 

Also... did a CEL come on?

 

yeah thats why i kind of ruled out flooding
yeah i heard a ticking
loose from the plug, or the map sensor, or whichever is on the other end?

 

+1 check his plugs and plug wires.

Take at look at his coils too. if its old (more than 30K miles), might want to replace them all (4 of them, about 100 bux if u do it urself)

 

yeah the CEL came on

 

If you heard a ticking, that's probably an arch from the spark plug wire to the spark plug itself. Check the boots by twisting them back and forth while pushing in. You'll feel it "snap" back on the spark plug if it were loose

 

okay, thanks, ill go check and let you know

 

MAP sensor???

 

http://youtube.com/watch?v=wiI7-iXQj48

is what loose wire/not bolted down spark plug sounds like.

MAF sensor won't cause "noise"

go to autozone and have the CEL read.

 

see it probably would sound like that if it got that far and actually ran. when you take your foot off the gas, it dies. theres mad backfiring of some sort coming from the engine, i dunno what it would be

 

Getting the CEL read would help more... go to Autozone and get it read for free.
I would still check the coils, plug wires, and plugs... but get the CEL read.

 

we dont have autozone here. what would be the equivalent in canada? part source?

 

Any mechanic you know would do it for free. Was the check engine light flashing or is it solid and staying on? If it is flashing, then it is misfiring.

 

my car ticked when my wires went bad, if its plugs, the CEL will blink letting you know its misfiring.

 

theres some red light that stays on. something with a bunch of lines through it i think, and then the yellow light that shows a picture of the tranny blinks

 

That could be the coolant and check engine light, could be bad.

 

omg.. stop firing the car up... you are going to destroy ur car.

 

Vaccum leak will cause an idle problem.