I recently put up a forum about my 2009 Manual Transmission RX8 R3 not starting.
I've done bunch research on it and I replaced the Ignition Coils that I thought was the cause today since it was a bit old.
So after the replacement, I've plugged a jump box to my battery and tried the: "Remove Fuel Pump, Press down on gas and crank for 8 seconds and repeat" method.
I got it to work once for like split 2 seconds, but then it would not start again after...
So is there other methods should I be trying or is there anything else I can do to solve this problem?
My car is manual transmission and I've always (at least most of the time) warmed up the engine enough before I shut it off and granny shifted the car around 2000-3000 until the engine was warm enough before I drove it.
Any advice would help at this point, I'm going to try and unplug the spark plugs tomorrow and crank to see if anything else changes or might replace the battery to see if that's the cause. (But I'm not sure since I had the battery plugged the whole time today when I was doing the cranking deflood method.)

Here is a video link to what my car sounds like and how it behaved during deflooding:
Once again, any help would be appreciated thank you so much!

 

I have the same problem, engine cranks over but the starter relay is clicking rapidly. It's noy the battery, replaced witha new one but still same.

 

The engine is turning AND the relay is clicking at the same time? Are you sure it's the starter relay that's clicking? Both of those happening doesn't super make sense.

 

Sounds like it's cranking at rate - so it's flooded or starved for fuel. Any codes being thrown?

 

Sorry to grave dig this old thread. But I haven't found what I need through search, and I'm not able to start a new thread.

I'm looking for advice on hard-starting when the fuel level is low. I couldn't get my S2 to start recently on a low, but not empty, tank (no low fuel light, needle on the mark 1/2 way between 1/4 and empty). It cranked normally but doesn't catch. Sprayed some starter fluid in the intake and it fired up and ran for a couple seconds (for as long as the starter fluid lasted). I did some diagnostics and determined the fuel pump is getting power and I can hear it run, though it sounds weak to my ear. So to eliminate lack of fuel as a (stupid) reason for not starting, I put 1.5 gallons in, then cranked the engine. Still would not start, though at least this time it sounded like it was getting something to burn, but it would never catch and run. So I hit it with more starter fluid and cranked it again. That worked and now it's alive! I let it warm up and drove it around the block a few times... everything seems normal except I feel like it was not pulling all that hard up a hill. So I shut it off and let it cool down for a few hours. Started it again and it started normally. So went to the gas station and put another 5 gallons in. Runs and starts as well as it did before I started having problems.

I feel confident that the main problem is fuel delivery, either pressure or volume. I read somewhere on here that the pump maybe could be weak and that in these low fuel level situations the low fuel is actually in the other saddle. Then perhaps the pump can't siphon it, leading to weak or no fuel pressure. I also understand that the car has two fuel pump relays, one runs when cranking and the curcuit for it runs through a resistor that reduces the voltage to the pump. WIth that one on I measured about 10-11V to the pump's connector. And after the car starts, the second relay is active and that allows full voltage to the pump. Maybe that explains why the car is hard to start with low fuel, but once it's running things are fine. So, I'm wondering if the fuel pump is weak and just can't pull enough to produce pressure when the tank is low. Or, perhaps the fuel level sensor is faulty, but that doesn't seem to explain the need to use starting fluid after I put that initial 1.5 gallons in the tank. Any thoughts?

 

Flooding and poor ignition are the typical causes of poor starting. Your description sounds like light flooding, but if the ignition isn't working that would do it, and cause lack of power. Think you need to confirm the state of air, spark and fuel delivery individually.

 

Thanks. I don't think it was flooded. I performed the flooding procedure and there was little to no raw gas smell in the exhaust when I did that. Same was true when I was cranking it while it didn't catch. And like I mentioned, a few squirts of starting fluid in the intake and it started up and ran. It really seems like lack of fuel. And once I put 5 gallons in, for a total of 6 over whatever had been in the tank (not much probably), I felt no loss of power actually. I drove the same hill under the same conditions, except just more fuel in the tank, and I didn't feel the flat spot I felt the first time around. I'm not sure what I can diagnose with the ignition other than to confirm there is spark and the plugs aren't fouled. I'll try that. In the meantime, any other thoughts about the fuel system?

 

If the ignition coils/plugs/wires are of unknown age or over 25k miles, replace them for a fresh start regardless of symptoms.

On the fuel system all I can think of is the transfer over the saddle isn't keeping up with demand. But that wouldn't give you power loss, it would just cut out randomly.

Any OBD codes? The flat spot you're talking about could be a sticky intake valve, depending on where in the rpm range it happens it'll be a different valve.

 

The coils are pretty new, within 10k miles or less. How does that transfer over the saddle work? I agree that if the fuel delivery wasn't keeping up with demand while driving, I'd experience random cutouts rather than just being down on power a little. I guess the power loss is a red herring. The main issue is the inability to start on a relatively empty (but not totally empty) tank of fuel. How about the pump itself? Can you imagine a situation where the pump is wheezy and not putting out the pressure required?

I had 2 OBD codes, but they were errors regarding throttle position. P0223 and P0123.

 

I replaced 3 fuel pumps in about 10 years on my '04, FYI

 

You might have water in the tank. Run a can of seafoam in the next tank. Not a bad idea anyway since the car is new to you.

It's always possible the pump is on it's way out, it's just that usually that manifests in shutting down at random (made worse with low gas not cooling down the pump). You don't need much to start the car, so my thoughts here are more on ignition/fuel quality/something else.

Thise throttle position codes are not a great sign, maybe related. Do they come back if reset? It's a drive by wire throttle, if it's not able to calibrate itself or know its position properly, it might have difficulty starting and idling. Is the correlation with low gas 100% or possibly a coincidence?

 

The car isn't new to me... owned it for more than 10 years now actually.

I didn't reset the codes but I'll plug it in and do that. Though I wonder if they may have already disappeared, since the CEL is no longer on. When this issue first happened was a couple months ago, and I let the car sit all that time until I got around to diagnosing it last week. In the meantime the battery discharged (yes, it's fully charged before I started diagnosing problems). So the codes could be an artifact of that. When I got the car running the other day I had a few unusual lights illuminated for a while (DSC OFF, CEL, and the SS-shaped skidding one). It will be easy enough to reset the codes if they are still there and check it again in a day or two. In the meantime, the car is now running fine... with several gallons of fuel (with premix). Put about 25 miles on it today in traffic, on freeway, and up hills and no real issues. Still seems a little weak when starting... meaning it doesn't catch as quickly as it should when cold.