Just bought the car this week, 05 6MT, noticed the oil pressure gauge stays between 2 and 3 ticks past the center and never moves even when the engine is warm. I was reading in the owners manual and it says normal it should be in the center. car has plenty of oil... it also has a lot of cream colored foam on the dipstick(but I see this is normal for these motors).

 

It's a dummy gauge dummy Its just an on off switch, you either have pressure or don't.

 

The oil & water gauge on these cars are just dummy gauges, nothing more. They will never move unless you almost lose all your oil or water which by then would be too late.

If you're finicky over it like some of us are, I would look into getting a gauge kit to install in the car. Many including myself have done this with Racing Beat gauge pod kit you can buy and install on your own, it includes instructions. Race Roots (vendor here on the forum) sells it as do a few other vendors. It would take a good day to get it done properly but it's worth it IMO being able to have accurate readings of oil temp, oil pressure and water temp.

 

lol thats good to know, I was pretty confused there. I will probably look into that later on. thanks guys

 

A story on the oil pressure gauge....My BF insisted that the pressure gauge was in fact a temperature gauge so you could see the temp of the oil. He wouldn't budge so we had to settle it by looking it up in the owners manual.

 

the temp gauge is not a simple "on/off" guage. it does actually react to temp- it will rise slowly with the temp until it reaches operating temp. but then there is a "window" of temp which it won't show as it gets hotter. if it does get to an "over temp" situation it will rise again. Dramatically and Quickly. If you see it start to move up past "normal" you need to act immediately to get the temp down

 

I was noticing the same thing. On a related note, it's seems like my car's appetite for oil has grown quite a bit. Over the winter, I got the oil changed once and never had to top up the oil. In the last few weeks, my Low Oil Light has come on a few times. I know people say the RX8 consumes oil while driving, I just never thought it would be ~1L every other fill-up.

 

Not quite true but nearly, it will move in the middle just only by a fraction, now I don't know for sure but assuming the usual offset by 40 degrees applies then the scale reads approximately:

First Bar: 50 degrees C
Second Bar: 52 degrees C
Centre:112 degrees C
Last Bar: 125 degrees C
Red Bar: 130 degrees C

ie a whopping 62 degrees between 'Cold' and the centre yet only another 18 to hit danger hot.

The oil pressure gauge otoh is just on/off, the PCM just sends it a signal, on (just past centre) or off. Personally I was hoping that it would be a restriction in the PCM but it seems to be a restriction of PCM and instruments.

Druid

 

this is good to know, mine is reading a few clicks past the middle of the gauge towards the higher side

 

That is perfectly normal.

 

when I bought the car 2 years ago mine used to sit perfectly in the middle and as of lately it has shifted to the right about 2 ticks, is that normal? it never used to read there before that's why im asking

 

they don't call it a dummy gauge for nothing

 

Perfect thanks

 

It was too tempting to pass up