something fell off?
 

so last night I went roaring up the mountain road near my house. this road is great, chock full of back to back 15mph curves. it's the first time I've taken my rx-8 on it.

so I'm flying through the first curve, it's a left hand turn. I have the stereo off, the sunroof open, and the driver's side window down. I'm doing at least 35mph

suddenly I hear a 'ting ting' noise from the passenger side. sounds just like something light & metal hitting the pavement.

hopefully my tire just kicked something up off the road.

you don't think anything fell off my car??

it still drives fine and I don't seem to be missing anything obvious. it was a bit unnerving though.

but the curves were awesome!

Does you car qualify for the transmission damper recall. Look at the tech bulletins on the Rosenthal Mazda site. Recall was issued because the damper may come loose.

My ESP is not working today :D

Seriously though, it may be a good idea to take it to the dealer, mention the problem and ask them to check if anything is missing. I don't know if they'd be receptive to this. You could check it yourself but if you don't know what was there in the first place, you probably wouldn't know if something is missing.

Lug nut or rotary emblem?

What about the tire weights? (i could be way off, just a thought)

why didn't you stop? could be the damper prob. run it to the dealer for that recall and see if your car qualifies.

my car didn't fall in the VIN range for the damper problem, but that was a good idea.

Could it have been the variable intake opening up as the revs rise?
 

I spent a half day bombing thru some mountain twisties the second day I had the car. I kept the engine in the 5 to 7k range, mostly in 2nd gear. I kept hearing something metallic like a "ting" as I ran up the revs. I finally figured out it must have been the variable intake cycling open (and possibly shut) as I connected the curves to each other.