When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.
Hey all, last month I just got my first car, A 2005 Mazda RX-8 Shinka Edition.
Ever since ive got it ive been looking for advice, but everyone just tells me “terrible idea” “unreliable” or just complaining about the car rather than offering me advice. Truth is I love this car and have since I was younger, ive always been a fan of Japanese/JDM cars and this one always stuck out to me.
What should I know about driving an RX8? Ill give you some info on mine.
1 owner, 60k miles on it, manual. Was his favorite car and treated it like such, is only selling it because hes moving out of the country. Its completely stock other than a swap to a racing beat exhaust, leaving me some room to add my own twist to it.
Welcome to the forum and congratulations on your new RX-8!! I would love to see pictures of the car!!
My advice is to maintain the car property and don't get wild with modifications. These car run and drive the best when tbey are stock or mildly modified. I would personally only install a BHR ignition, a RB exhaust and the RB Rev-i inlet system as modifications and leave it be. That's me personally. I've had my BB 04 6spd for more than 10 years and it remains all stock with only a BHR ignition system, Misihmoto aluminum radiator, and oem accessories and its been an amazing car. My Nordic Green 8's are undergoing restoration. But the one I did put a RB cat back on it.
Maintenance is the biggest key to longevity in my opinion. Keep the oil changed. I replace my oil and filter every year or 3000 miles. I use 5W30 oil and a Mazda oil filter. I do not premix and its been fine for more than 10 years. I don't drive my 8's a ton, so once a year is good. I do coolant exchanges every 2 years. I rotate the tires every oil change. I check my air filter and cabin filters yearly. I have a BHR ignition system so I only downside visual inspection on the coils and plugs. I replace my spark plugs every 7k miles. Trans and diff oil are replaced every 3 years. I'm going with Amsoil this time around.
I let the engine warm up a little bit before I drive the car. I've always done that and its served me well. I always run premium gas in the car as well.
As for driving them, drive them with respect and enjoy them. Don't be afraid to redline the engine, but refrain from beating the dog snot out of it. That will not go over well. I do not redline my engine every time I drive it. I do on occasion when I'm getting on the highway or have a fun stretch of country road to play on. Again, driving with respect, not like a jack wagon.
Looking forward to seeing pictures of your 8! Here's a picture of mine over the late summer when we were renovating our rental property:
Welcome to the forum and congratulations on your new RX-8!! I would love to see pictures of the car!!
My advice is to maintain the car property and don't get wild with modifications. These car run and drive the best when tbey are stock or mildly modified. I would personally only install a BHR ignition, a RB exhaust and the RB Rev-i inlet system as modifications and leave it be. That's me personally. I've had my BB 04 6spd for more than 10 years and it remains all stock with only a BHR ignition system, Misihmoto aluminum radiator, and oem accessories and its been an amazing car. My Nordic Green 8's are undergoing restoration. But the one I did put a RB cat back on it.
Maintenance is the biggest key to longevity in my opinion. Keep the oil changed. I replace my oil and filter every year or 3000 miles. I use 5W30 oil and a Mazda oil filter. I do not premix and its been fine for more than 10 years. I don't drive my 8's a ton, so once a year is good. I do coolant exchanges every 2 years. I rotate the tires every oil change. I check my air filter and cabin filters yearly. I have a BHR ignition system so I only downside visual inspection on the coils and plugs. I replace my spark plugs every 7k miles. Trans and diff oil are replaced every 3 years. I'm going with Amsoil this time around.
I let the engine warm up a little bit before I drive the car. I've always done that and its served me well. I always run premium gas in the car as well.
As for driving them, drive them with respect and enjoy them. Don't be afraid to redline the engine, but refrain from beating the dog snot out of it. That will not go over well. I do not redline my engine every time I drive it. I do on occasion when I'm getting on the highway or have a fun stretch of country road to play on. Again, driving with respect, not like a jack wagon.
Looking forward to seeing pictures of your 8! Here's a picture of mine over the late summer when we were renovating our rental property:
Thanks for the warm welcome and advice! I loved the car as a kid and has been a joy to drive so far.
I don’t plan to make any crazy mods, as not only will I be dailying it for a few years, I don’t really feel a need to, at least with performance related things at the moment.
Learning about all the quirks of this car has been a journey in itself, between learning about premixing and stuff like that. Heres a photo of mine!
P.S. my previous owner did not premix, so I think for now I wont, and if what you said is true I may just stick to not premixing
the Bcm color is awesome. mazdaverx7 nailed it as did joey regarding the rotary specific compression test. as far as mods go ive done every bolt on including n02, tuning suspension etc and never had i problem. havent owned any turbo or s/c 8s but have worked on a few. i highly suggest swapping the cat out for a mid pipe (bhr comes to mind here), a short throw shifter is a very nice mod. if you do the shifter change the trans and diff fluid too
Thanks for the warm welcome and advice! I loved the car as a kid and has been a joy to drive so far.
I don’t plan to make any crazy mods, as not only will I be dailying it for a few years, I don’t really feel a need to, at least with performance related things at the moment.
Learning about all the quirks of this car has been a journey in itself, between learning about premixing and stuff like that. Heres a photo of mine!
P.S. my previous owner did not premix, so I think for now I wont, and if what you said is true I may just stick to not premixing
Your car looks beautiful and I think you have a great plan moving forward. Is the interior in as great of condition as the exterior? Did the original owner give the window sticker, all of the manuals or any purchase paperwork with the car?
Nice car. Hope it didn't set you back too much, but to not have it worn out, it's almost priceless.
I can relate to wanting to drive sports cars from the second I got my driver's license. I heard all the same things. My dad offered to lend me his old truck for free, but I HAD to have a turbo 300zx. The only question you really need to find out for yourself (and by yourself, in the car), is if you are truly an enthusiast who wants to drive for the thrill, or if you just want cool looking cars that can go even faster with less effort. Like I always use the example of the Audi TT. They make ones that do over 180mph, but a literal idiot could drive it that fast. There are tons of cars that look cool and go fast, but won't let you push yourself as a driver and get the thrill of feeling the body move at your direction. The ultimate example is a Tesla IMO. I've driven a model S at about 175 and it feels like being in a greased brick.
If the thrill of driving is what you want, this car is a fantastic entry point to what a true enthusiast car drives like. It has a near 50/50 weight balance, rear-wheel-drive and runs at high RPMs by nature, so perfect for practicing high-RPM shifts. Meanwhile as fun as it feels, it's honestly about as fast as a modern Corolla and weighs as much as a Subaru Outback. Combined with fantastic suspension and chassis design for the price, it's pretty hard to roll. So you can push yourself and the car, feel the risks of doing that and still not be going so fast before you can practice rev-matching that you die before you ever see a track.
Your car looks beautiful and I think you have a great plan moving forward. Is the interior in as great of condition as the exterior? Did the original owner give the window sticker, all of the manuals or any purchase paperwork with the car?
The interior is just as nice! I have all the paperwork and i got the window sticker myself so everything on that front is good haha
Congrats, here are my general suggestions after a decade of many Rx8s. For the most part there is the general stuff you should iron out on any new to you car.
Battery check
Belts.......... (don't overtighten or you will flex the E-shaft and wear out your stat gear engine bearings.)
Brakes ........ Go oem pads or hawk HP 5.0 pads for street, Do not go autozone or any cheapo pads.
Tires
Oil change.......Personally I suggest VR-1 conventional 10w30 unless you have looser race bearings in the engine, then go to the higher pressure and 20w50
MT fluid............use redline MT90 or if you want read up on the racing forum threads. Most off the shelf fluids will cause grinding even if they say they are "safe" for our syncros
Coolant Flush
Rx8 specific things to know
The original ignition coils tend to fail early and clog the catalytic converter, causing the exhaust of the engine to overheat and cook. Mazda released a REV C version of the rx8 coils which has solved these issues. Otherwise people suggest the BHR LS coils, or the RRP "smart" coils, or the sakebomb IGN1A kits. IMO just find the stock REV C coils as they will survive misuse and not require additional wiring failure points being added to the car. Generally at this time you would replace the sparkplugs and wires as well.
Since the ignition coils may have failed the next thing on the list is the catalytic converter, which is illegal in most states to remove FYI. If you have the RB midpipe, chances are it has already been removed.
Another common Rx8 ugrade is the starter. Mazda made a 2.7hp starter to spin the engine faster to increase compression during starting. This is a common low compression hot start remedy.
Around 120k miles the rubber bits in the engine bay tend to go. I suggest getting a silicone hose kit for all the radiator/vac lines. For some of the smaller vac tubing you would need to just buy small spools of tubing. Commonly this is something you can do as you work on things. For instance if you are getting a new radiator you'd toss in those lines. The first failure Ive noticed on my 3 cars was the heater core tube leaving the engine near the oil feed.
Radiator wise commonly the plastic gets brittle and will snap off when you mess with it. Which leads you to going with all aluminum radiators.
On the intake behind the accordion piece there are 3 elbows that go to vacuum hoses, these can also commonly leak or break off
Oil system wise the oil lines can also tend to corrode and leak over time. These can be replaced with 10an lines fairly easily. The big mistake here is people commonly just have the stainless braided lines uncoated. The stainless braid will rub through anything over time like the spark wires, clutch tube, AC lines. So look for the fragola black coated PTFE lines or nylon covered stainless.
Oil cooler fins tend to get punched in by rocks and debris. So take two toothpicks and straighten out the fins. FREEEE!!!!
Another cheap one is the coolant relief tube that comes out of the top of the coolant reservoir. Change out the little tube to a longer tube and route it to drain under the car. Mazda put a little short tube that dumps onto your power steering connectors and corrodes them.
Rx8 common "upgrades"
Cold Air Intakes.......... One of the two that are ok to get is the AEM intake, however this doesn't have any real power benefits. You are paying to trade off how easy it is to service the car instead of taking out the OEM airbox each time. The downsides are that your intake filter is lower and susceptible to rain issues.
The other option is the Racingbeat intake system which basically just adds a scoop to get pure ram air, but I also would believe it is susceptible to water ingestion. The trade off on this one is the ram air pressure increase which helps drive more air and thus more power into the engine.
Headers............... Last I checked there are no great ones on the market people rave about. Since the engine has no intake/exhaust overlap there is not much scavenging to make use of long/short tube designs thus no real HP gains to be made. The important part is making sure there is no bottlenecking happening. Chinese cheap headers may not transitioning properly or simply have too small of tubing which would create backpressure on the engine.
Sway bars are another common easy/cheap upgrade for driver feel. You can read up on the racing forums to see what people suggest now adays, but back in the day the common one was the RB swaybars. A key thing to note is that the connecting endlinks are always going to be bad and I suggest just buying OEM Rx8 endlinks at the same time since you are likely to have to cut off the old ones.
Coilovers are another common suspension change. Everyone has their taste and thoughts as far as racing performance "buy 5k$ coils for an insurance estimated 3k$ car". Personally the tein flex Z are in the right price point and have lasted me almost a decade on the street. Recently I have been considering going to the tein monosports as they have closer spring rates to what I would want for occasional autox while also still being reasonably priced for a car only worth a few grand.
Sohn adapter is your famous reliability upgrade. Its a great idea to separate the oil injection and the oil pan. However there really isn't any data proven benefit for wear. Design wise I have two issues with the kits. Generally they leave you with a tiny washer fluid reservoir which is annoying. Also they did not design the kit to have an o-ring groove, so commonly the paper gasket will leak engine oil that is supposed to go to your engine bearings.
Solid Oil thermal pellet is another reliability mod which deletes mazda's oil thermostat that restricts oil going to the engine bearings. Most people change this out during a rebuild though.
@MincVinyl That post is like all the stickies in one neat list. You are a god. Will you adopt me?
Yeah I should probably just save it by now instead of retyping it out. Probably up to the mods whether someone could rewrite the sticky threads since I think a lot of the info is old news or could use re-confirmation after the past 15 or 20 years
Last edited by MincVinyl; Nov 21, 2025 at 03:04 PM.
If there are any mods still active that are compulsive pruners, I would definitely say they could use some updates. A lot of good info in replies that could be added to the top posts.
I would also like to throw out that nowhere on that list does it say "buy fancy looking spark plugs first thing and wait 2 days for them before doing more diagnostic." Yet there people go. My plugs are NGKs from roughly the era of F&F Tokyo Drift. They're copper core and still test just fine, even though they look like they belong in a museum.
Last edited by CapnLimbless; Nov 21, 2025 at 03:26 PM.
Congrats, here are my general suggestions after a decade of many Rx8s. For the most part there is the general stuff you should iron out on any new to you car.
Battery check
Belts.......... (don't overtighten or you will flex the E-shaft and wear out your stat gear engine bearings.)
Brakes ........ Go oem pads or hawk HP 5.0 pads for street, Do not go autozone or any cheapo pads.
Tires
Oil change.......Personally I suggest VR-1 conventional 10w30 unless you have looser race bearings in the engine, then go to the higher pressure and 20w50
MT fluid............use redline MT90 or if you want read up on the racing forum threads. Most off the shelf fluids will cause grinding even if they say they are "safe" for our syncros
Coolant Flush
Rx8 specific things to know
The original ignition coils tend to fail early and clog the catalytic converter, causing the exhaust of the engine to overheat and cook. Mazda released a REV C version of the rx8 coils which has solved these issues. Otherwise people suggest the BHR LS coils, or the RRP "smart" coils, or the sakebomb IGN1A kits. IMO just find the stock REV C coils as they will survive misuse and not require additional wiring failure points being added to the car. Generally at this time you would replace the sparkplugs and wires as well.
Since the ignition coils may have failed the next thing on the list is the catalytic converter, which is illegal in most states to remove FYI. If you have the RB midpipe, chances are it has already been removed.
Another common Rx8 ugrade is the starter. Mazda made a 2.7hp starter to spin the engine faster to increase compression during starting. This is a common low compression hot start remedy.
Around 120k miles the rubber bits in the engine bay tend to go. I suggest getting a silicone hose kit for all the radiator/vac lines. For some of the smaller vac tubing you would need to just buy small spools of tubing. Commonly this is something you can do as you work on things. For instance if you are getting a new radiator you'd toss in those lines. The first failure Ive noticed on my 3 cars was the heater core tube leaving the engine near the oil feed.
Radiator wise commonly the plastic gets brittle and will snap off when you mess with it. Which leads you to going with all aluminum radiators.
On the intake behind the accordion piece there are 3 elbows that go to vacuum hoses, these can also commonly leak or break off
Oil system wise the oil lines can also tend to corrode and leak over time. These can be replaced with 10an lines fairly easily. The big mistake here is people commonly just have the stainless braided lines uncoated. The stainless braid will rub through anything over time like the spark wires, clutch tube, AC lines. So look for the fragola black coated PTFE lines or nylon covered stainless.
Oil cooler fins tend to get punched in by rocks and debris. So take two toothpicks and straighten out the fins. FREEEE!!!!
Another cheap one is the coolant relief tube that comes out of the top of the coolant reservoir. Change out the little tube to a longer tube and route it to drain under the car. Mazda put a little short tube that dumps onto your power steering connectors and corrodes them.
Rx8 common "upgrades"
Cold Air Intakes.......... One of the two that are ok to get is the AEM intake, however this doesn't have any real power benefits. You are paying to trade off how easy it is to service the car instead of taking out the OEM airbox each time. The downsides are that your intake filter is lower and susceptible to rain issues.
The other option is the Racingbeat intake system which basically just adds a scoop to get pure ram air, but I also would believe it is susceptible to water ingestion. The trade off on this one is the ram air pressure increase which helps drive more air and thus more power into the engine.
Headers............... Last I checked there are no great ones on the market people rave about. Since the engine has no intake/exhaust overlap there is not much scavenging to make use of long/short tube designs thus no real HP gains to be made. The important part is making sure there is no bottlenecking happening. Chinese cheap headers may not transitioning properly or simply have too small of tubing which would create backpressure on the engine.
Sway bars are another common easy/cheap upgrade for driver feel. You can read up on the racing forums to see what people suggest now adays, but back in the day the common one was the RB swaybars. A key thing to note is that the connecting endlinks are always going to be bad and I suggest just buying OEM Rx8 endlinks at the same time since you are likely to have to cut off the old ones.
Coilovers are another common suspension change. Everyone has their taste and thoughts as far as racing performance "buy 5k$ coils for an insurance estimated 3k$ car". Personally the tein flex Z are in the right price point and have lasted me almost a decade on the street. Recently I have been considering going to the tein monosports as they have closer spring rates to what I would want for occasional autox while also still being reasonably priced for a car only worth a few grand.
Sohn adapter is your famous reliability upgrade. Its a great idea to separate the oil injection and the oil pan. However there really isn't any data proven benefit for wear. Design wise I have two issues with the kits. Generally they leave you with a tiny washer fluid reservoir which is annoying. Also they did not design the kit to have an o-ring groove, so commonly the paper gasket will leak engine oil that is supposed to go to your engine bearings.
Solid Oil thermal pellet is another reliability mod which deletes mazda's oil thermostat that restricts oil going to the engine bearings. Most people change this out during a rebuild though.
sorry for late response, i appreciate this list! Im looking into a sohn machine, as ive been manually premixing since i got the car. Also should mention the previous owner rid make one mod, which was a racing beat exhaust + magnaflow cat (i believe i described this right)
again, appreciate the warm welcome from you all. Ive always loved driving and racing, as well as cars in general, but now im more driven then ever to learn as much as i can about them, especially my rx8 😁
Nice car. Hope it didn't set you back too much, but to not have it worn out, it's almost priceless.
I can relate to wanting to drive sports cars from the second I got my driver's license. I heard all the same things. My dad offered to lend me his old truck for free, but I HAD to have a turbo 300zx. The only question you really need to find out for yourself (and by yourself, in the car), is if you are truly an enthusiast who wants to drive for the thrill, or if you just want cool looking cars that can go even faster with less effort. Like I always use the example of the Audi TT. They make ones that do over 180mph, but a literal idiot could drive it that fast. There are tons of cars that look cool and go fast, but won't let you push yourself as a driver and get the thrill of feeling the body move at your direction. The ultimate example is a Tesla IMO. I've driven a model S at about 175 and it feels like being in a greased brick.
If the thrill of driving is what you want, this car is a fantastic entry point to what a true enthusiast car drives like. It has a near 50/50 weight balance, rear-wheel-drive and runs at high RPMs by nature, so perfect for practicing high-RPM shifts. Meanwhile as fun as it feels, it's honestly about as fast as a modern Corolla and weighs as much as a Subaru Outback. Combined with fantastic suspension and chassis design for the price, it's pretty hard to roll. So you can push yourself and the car, feel the risks of doing that and still not be going so fast before you can practice rev-matching that you die before you ever see a track.
Congrats.
Appreciate the words! I used to do some karting back in the day, and had dreams as a kid of racing. Of course when I got to the age to understand the price of racing I gave that up 😂. But i always knew I wanted a car that would give that same thrill of REAL driving, as well as one i would build a connection to. This car checked those boxes from the start.
