anotherrx8fan

Hi all. I left my rx-8 parked too long in the garage and I can't start it. So I tried recharging with another car, but it still won't start. I switched to one of those slow rechargers now, but I don't know how long it will take to recharge the car. All lights are working and the engine tries to start, but can't seem to make it. Is the engine flooded? How do you tell? I don't want to waste the recharge time if the engine is flooded. And it's a 2004 RX-8 so I think it's out of warranty. I brought the extended warranty. Thanks for any help.

HiTMaNN

It seems like it may have flooded. How long did you leave it without starting it? Search "De Flooding" and you will see so many ways on how to De-Flood your RX-8

staticlag

if you tried to start it that many times, your battery is probably dead and jumpstarting won't really help a heavily flooded rotary that much.

Do you have a multimeter? If so, measure the battery's resting voltage. It should be around 12.7-12.9 volts for a full charge. And somewhere around 11.9-12.6 for a depleted battery.

If its weak the best thing to do is go to walmart and buy a battery trickle charger. Let it charge for like 2-4 hours.

Now while it is charging, you need to pull the spark plugs and see if they are wet. If they are wet then your problem is flooding.

take out the leading plugs, try and spray them with some compressed air to get them dry. Chances are they will still be usable.

Now get some windshield washer fluid (the blue kind), squirt maybe 2 ounces of in each rotor sparkplug hole (its ok if you leave the trailings in), now go into the engine bay fusebox and pull the small fuel pump fuse. Crank the engine without the spark plugs in, make sure that you route the spark plug wires out of the way of the junk that is going to come out of the open sparkplug holes.

At first white smoke is going to come out of the engine, keep running it in 10-20 second bursts until the smoke dies down noticibly. Doesn't have to stop smoking completely but you will see when only slight puffs come out.

Now put the leadings back in, sparkplug wires on, fuel pump fuse in. And most importantly make sure your battery is fully charged! It doesn't hurt to also hook up another car/truck to your car just to help crank it this first time.

Now, crank it without touching the gas pedal. It should catch, as soon as it catches rev it to 3-4K and hold it there until most of the smoke dies down 1-3 minutes, it will try and die on you, just make sure you keep the revs up or you will have to pull the plugs again.

Try and put it back together(wheel on, off jacks, etc) and drive it a few miles immediately after doing this, avoid long stops, interstate is best.

anotherrx8fan

Okay. Thanks. I think the battery is very low and the engine is flooded. But I'll try your method. Thanks. Does anyone also know if the extended warranty will cover this? I brought mine in December 2003 when the car just came out. Flooded two times since then because I started it, and then stopped. Now I don't do that anymore. And I parked it 2-3 weeks in the garage in California. Shouldn't be a problem, but don't know why it's flooded this time.

HiTMaNN

It won't be covered....

Razz1

If its the orginal battery you need a new one.

A 2amp charge over 24hrs will charge a battery.

invasion08

iTrader: (7)

If the battery is dead the slow charger will not charge the battery it is designed to keep a charged battery charged

Huey52

iTrader: (2)

Although the 2 amp trickle charge setting is typically to keep a battery 'topped off', given a 24 hour period it will replenish a dead battery.

The 10 amp setting will of course be much quicker and the 50 amp 'start' setting will do just that.