Rx8mazda31

I have had this system on my 8 now for i would say a month or so. Last week I was pulling out of my drive way and whenever i got down to the bottom of the hill my car bogged down, then shut off. I fired it right back up w/ no problem. Continued to drive another 2 miles or so when it bogged down again and then i started to lose power. So i parked it and let it sit overnight. Started it the next day and drove it around the block and to get gas. When pulling out of the gas station it started bogging again and then gave be a splurg of power out of nowhere, then went back to the bogging stage. It has now since been stuck and when trying to ideal goes under 1k rpm and then shoots up about 2k rpm. When giving a little gas it sounds real poppy and laggy. The cat back system was put on by a exhuast shop and I'm not a 100% positive if they reset the ecu and tuned it up for me. Could this be a problem and if so how do I go about Fixing this problem????? It has been hooked up to a CEL scanner and its saying catalayic converter(which obviously cuz there is not on). Misfire came up on it as well. CAN ANYONE HELP ME???? PLEASE!!!!

Flashwing

Exhaust systems are simply a set of pipes so unless you've got a banana shoved in your tailpipe your car is not going to see any ill effects from the midpipe/cat back installation. If you were going to have any serious problems they would have manifested right away.

The check engine light for your catalyst is for cat efficiency because you have no catalyst due to the racepipe installation.

There is no "tuning" the exhaust shop could have done and any PCM resets would have resulted in fuel trims being set within the first 2 or 3 times you drove the car.

If you believe the installation was due to the exhaust system then take it back to the exhaust shop. Otherwise you have an unrelated issue to your exhaust system.

Rx8mazda31

ok thanks for reply. Do you have any idea of what is causing this problem? It pretty much just happend out of nowhere. Wasnt driving it hard or anything.

Flashwing

It is very hard to say.

What year of RX8? Mileage? Modifications?

Rx8mazda31

2004...81k

Rx8mazda31

just the turbo xs catback system w/ racepipe as of right now. had bigger plans in the future.

Flashwing

Well, there are three things needed for an engine to run.

Air, fuel and ignition.

If you can verify that your filter is clean and no obstructions in your intake then that eliminates that as a possibility. Next would be to verify that you have necessary fuel pressure which can be checked with a fuel pressure gauge and the factory service manual can aid in checking this. Finally, verifying that you have proper ignition spark by testing your wires with a timing light would go a long way to troubleshooting your issue.

In regards to the misfire...

Are you using premium fuel? 91 or 93 octane?

Have you performed an e-shaft position reset?

Have you ever replaced ignition coils, wires or spark plugs?

Original owner?

Rx8mazda31

okay thanks!!! would a compression test be needed, or sounding like something more minor by what the car is doing?

Rx8mazda31

91 octane, havent real done anything to it at the moment other than changing a coil that looked pretty rough (which didnt help anything.) And I am not the original owner, bought the car of a car dealerships lot with 60k on it. This is the first problem i have had with the car since purchased.

Flashwing

A compression test would certainly answer a lot of questions.

If you can't rule out the items I listed above then either you're going to need to get a hold of the factory service manual and go through it step by step or take it to the dealership and have them look into it.

Rx8mazda31

ok thanks a lot for the replies man appreciate it.