Sudden loss of power and half hearted acceleration
 

Today my check engine light came on at the same time my engine seemed to have lost a significant amount of power and felt like it only fired on a couple of the spark plugs every couple of revolutions. Limped car home as the power came back very intermittently. Once going, the engine did better but still experienced an intermittent sputtering. Whenever it was slowed or stopped prior to being turned off in the parking lot, the car had extremely bad idle and the sputter was terrible.


Pulled trailing plugs out and it was drenched in oil. It is also difficult to tell if this came from inside the engine, but there was a lot of muddy gunk around entrance of the plug. I pulled it out and I think the gunk was only on the outside, but the threads had some of it for sure, along with a lot of oil.


Generalized history of vehicle: I generally keep really good care of the car but bought used at 36k. Currently has 53k. Track it about 100 miles a year. Changed plugs 4 times since I've bought the car out of necessity as it has experienced a slight loss in power before and the check engine light comes on, but never this bad and never with oil all over the trailing plugs, before. I almost always rev the engine above 7k rpm after it has warmed up every time I drive it. I put fuel lubricant in there and Idemitsu oil. I know for a fact the people before me didn't take care of the car. Supposedly the car passed compression tests prior to me buying from a Toyota Dealership, however, I have had significant issues with that dealership, along with many discoveries of lies about my contract and the vehicle's condition (not getting into that). I wouldn't be surprised at this point if the engine was "going" from purchase and I was able to baby it for the `20k miles I put on it.


Is my engine blown?

What codes are the CEL for? Was it flashing?

I don't know what the CEL codes are. I didn't have a chance to take it to Mazda yet and I don't have an OBDII reader. It flashed at first, then stayed on, then started flashing again and continued this pattern till I made it home.

In that case, you are misfiring. There's a very good thread about it here.

Chances are it's your plugs/wires/coils failing, the fuel pump could also be an issue.

https://www.rx8club.com/series-i-tec...t-here-222280/

pics of the plugs? the firing end

Sorry, didn't take pics, however I ran codes and got a P0302. Says cylinder 2 is misfiring. Got it to Mazda this morning. $125 just to get the codes. Takes 3 minutes. Doesn't seem justified >:O Are the coils hard to replace? I'm about to read the link posted. I'd like to do it myself if this is something an amateur to intermediate can handle. I changed the plugs and wires about 8k miles ago. Coils are the only thing I didn't do since I've never done it before.

You paid to have the codes read? That's hilarious!

Is not at all hard to change the ignition.

For $125, I recommend buying 8 $15 OBD2 adapters from Amazon, pair one with your smartphone, purchase Torque app for the remaining $5, and be able to check every code on every 1996+ car you ever have for free after that.

No idea what you would want with the other 7 adapters, but maybe you find them cool or something. :)


Coils are easy. 10 minutes tops.

Awesome, thanks. And I'll check out BHR's coil's and plugs per the thread read. Thanks, everyone.

dang RIWWP you must have some tiny girly hands. It takes me 10 min just trying to put in the small bottom bolt by the AC.

It is a really easy job and shouldn't take long at all.

Bolts? There aren't any bolts?

1: Unplug the MAF
2: Loosen the front and rear accordion clamps
3: remove air box and accordion (can rotate it out of the way and leave all the vacuum lines connected if I remember right, maybe 1 to disconnect)
4: Remove 1 nut from each coil with a 10mm socket and extension
5: Disconnect each coil
6: remove each coil from it's peg

...reverse that with the new coils going on.

2 tools, 10 minutes.

ahh, I pulled the bracket that they are on and replaced them all out of the car.

:lol:

Yes, that would take longer :)

I'm bumping this thread because of a few issues. I just changed the spark plugs. Bad fowling in just 5000 miles in rotor housing 2. Code P0302. Still getting power loss only now it feels the entire rotor isn't working. But I'm no longer getting P0302. I'm now getting error code: P0171 (system too lean bank 1) and P0111 (Circuit range/performance problem).

I have not had a chance to order BHR's coils yet. Before I do, is this still a coil problem? I just got the car back from Mazda for a compression check they drove the car 30+ miles while this misfire was occurring and then left it idling for ~30 minutes on top of that... Car came back over heating and smoking to the point a person stopped me to say the car was on fire. My issues with Mazda's treatment to my vehicle aside, they claimed to have done a compression check and they said it passed although they refused to give me any paperwork on it. I honestly don't trust this dealership for other reasons on top of this so I want to cover my bases before I begin repairs. BHR's kit is $500. Not cheap if it ultimately isn't needed.

Car is idling very rough now, still "sounds" like it is misfiring, and engine is vibrating pretty bad.

Yeah, you didn't fix the coil problem before so of course it's still a coil problem.

The overheating is something else though (unless you still have a cat, then it's probably related), and if you still have said cat then it's been destroyed by now; by your coil problem.

Just wanted to make sure. No modifications have been done to the car. I haven't addressed the coils yet because of the issue I had with the dealership.


At this point, after the coils, what do I need to do to make sure the car runs properly again? Or should the coils fix all?

You may have destroyed your cat since you haven't replaced your coils.

First things first - REPLACE YOUR COILS. If you can't afford the BHR set, buy a set of the OEM ones. They're not that expensive.

Do not drive your car until the coils are replaced! You run the risk of completely ruining your engine. Given it has overheated now, the engine might be toast already.

It's probably fine, just don't drive it.