Hi all, not long ago I made the (potentially stupid) choice of buying a 2003 RX8 231ps grand touring from a scrapyard for £400. The thing started ok and ran fine, and of course I thought being of top spec, it was worth a shot for sure.

Originally all I knew is it had an oil leak and rust issues, I sent it in for an MOT to get a concept of the list of problems... It wasn't pretty to say the least. Exhaust leak, compromised structural rigidity from rust all round, oil leak is worse than I thought, suspension arms and brake discs are rusted all round too. The MOT must have over 20 ISH failures near all due to rust.

I've welded the oil leak in the lines now and resprayed it all, working on the subframe and sills too now. New brakes all round with a caliper rebuild. Only one problem I've been having trouble with though. When the engine is hot, it really struggles to start, throttling it helps a bit, but not enough. It also failed due to the O2 sensor being outside specified limits at the fast idle, and I noticed the vdi actuator doesn't move when revved high above 7k rpms. It does have a new starter in it and battery is good so that's not the issue, and it starts fine when cold (sparks are good too) so I can't figure out what to do with it. It just won't start when hot and I can't figure out why.

Help would be greatly appreciated as I'm out of my comfort zone on this rotary stuff lol

 

Clasic sign of low compression unfortunately. You can search this site, plenty of similar cases.

 

Yeah that's what concerns me, might be worth the rebuild seeing as all the rest of the car is being rebuilt, but genuinely concerns me to drop more money on it

 

Yeah that's a fork in the road for sure. You can buy another car for the cost of a proper rebuild. Can always get a compression test to confirm but I think chances of good compression in 20 year old rotary with hot start issues are slim

My only advice is if you do it, do it right or do it twice.

 

Chances are you can find a good body and a running car for far less the cost of all of your fixes. One literally just got listed on this site. You can find them all the time if you really keep looking and wait. Use this car as a scrap parts.