RX8CircuitHero

hey rx8club. i know many 8's have this problem but im having trouble finding a definitive answer. i have an 04 6 speed witha BHR ignition and just a racing beat midpipe and headers. its at 115,000 and my cold starts were never a problem. my warm starts would take longer (about 3-4 sec) but it would always start. tonight my car for the first time didnt want to start at all. i had pulled into a restaurant with my gf and after about an hr of eating we left and my car wouldnt start. i cranked for about 10-15 sec 6 or so times and nothing happened. it would just keep cranking. i got it to start by pop starting it.(i had help from onlookers) at first i thought the 8 was kaput but the thing drives perfectly fine. idle was a tad bumpy but nothing erratic or crazy. the power was perfectly fine. i wasnt sure if maybe it was flooded or not so i gave it a nice flogging a couple times before shutting it off at home. im gonna take it to mazda tomorrow to get a compression test done. obviously im out of warranty which is a huge kick in the sack if anything turns up bad but my question for u guys is, after watching some youtube videos on the subject and looking at comments, quite a few ppl say to get an upgraded starter. i changed it when i first got the car at 65000 with an autozone one. i doubt its the upgraded one but do unguys think this may help? again hopefully nothing bad comes up at mazda. any ideas?

VOODOO8

Get your compression test results and go from there. If you happen to have anyone near you with an RX8 that does have the Mazda upgraded starter you could always go side-by-side and compare how fast your starter turns over versus one that is known to be a good one from Mazda.

RX8CircuitHero

o0o0o0ok so i just got back from Mazda and i got exactly what i feared.

Rotor 1 : 5.6 // 5.4 // 5.6

Rotor 2 : 4.7 // 4.6 // 4.4

This was done when the motor was hot. based on these results doing the compression test while cold wasnt even necesssary.

My next question for u guys is, is there anybody in the upstate to NYC area or even northern NJ (Paramus, Mahwah, Ramsey) that could maybe help me with a motor swap?

Ill pay generously