At an autocross and I’m getting an oil light after each of my runs.

should I:
a) go home now?
b) dump more oil in the gas and keep going?
c) do B but call a tow truck?

any thoughts on what it might be?

 

The oil level sensor can be tripped when you are doing high G corners. Check your oil to make sure you have enough.... it will eat oil pretty fast at high load levels when the metering oil pump is maxing out.

If the oil level is OK you are fine.

If its low oil presuure it will come on at idle first..

 

It turned out okay. I borrowed some oil from another rx8’er and topped it off. Anything to do about this before the next event? Or do I just bring a quart of oil with me

 

Always take oil with you.

I have gone through more than a litre in a day when i was running the stock engine and MOP

 

So the system dumps a lot more oil in at high rpm/load. Makes sense
. I added more than the normal amount of premix oil before the event.

 

The sensor on early 8s can also get flaky from heat. I've had it where the light would come on on the way home from the track (with the oil level being fine). As long as you top it up after each run it'll be fine. Don't overfill it though, you don't want it to bubble up into the intake.

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—-> d) open hood, pull oil dipstick, check actual oil level.

just making sure you recognize that b) on your list has no applicable value to addressing oil sump level.
.

 

i did check the oil and it “looked fine”, but getting a good reading that I’m comfortable with, is really difficult on this dipstick for some reason. I just ordered a new one to see if that helps in that regard. The old stick is burnt. Thinking about it. Maybe I should just go wheel brush this stick and see if I can get it to brighten up some. It’s been a long day.

FWIW, I finished 2nd in STX only 4 seconds off of what I think the car was capable of doing. It’s been a good 14yrs since I’ve last autocrossed. My 16 yr old son who has never autocrossed finished 3rd in Novice. Neither of us got to finish our second set of runs. I think I could’ve gotten down another two seconds by trusting the car a bit more and being less late on several elements. Not sure I could find the other 1-2 seconds in my current state but damn this car is a lot of fun to autocross.

 

This is coming from a more general perspective, but I don't know off the top of my head if the oil light you're referencing is pressure (how it sounds) or level (how it's being treated). If it's pressure, it could be that your oil got hot from running hard. A sign that bearing tolerances and/or oil pump are at the top end of acceptable/bottom end of fail. A heavier oil might buy you a bit of time. You don't say what weight you're running. US spec differs from ROW spec, and is lighter without any mechanical differences. Might be worth bumping up to ROW spec regardless.

 

Pressure is a flashing light (and pressure gauge goes to 0). Steady light is level. This is for a Series 1.

 

It was the level light. I am currently running 5w-20.

 

You may want to run something thicker for track duty.

 

I would gladly do that, as it’s difficult to find 5w-20 in Dino oil these days. Is 10w-30 good, or do you have a better suggestion?

 

I run 10w40 synthetic. For track duty, I think the benefits of synth outweigh the potential downsides - if those downsides even exist with modern oil.

 

I also run synthetic, 5w50 amsoil. Works for all my track day duty cars.

 

20w-50 in my old FB, and in (2) S1 RX-8s, which adds up to almost 300k miles combined, in all climates, btw. (NY, including upstate, FL, WA, AZ. Went to 5w30 only in MT during winter, with sub-zero morning starts.) Fear not viscosity, it is your friend. Use the Aussie Mazda viscosity chart for the RX8 if you like, for a guide.