skagen

I know this topic has been talked about extensively in other threads, but I'm just wondering how many have flooded their 8's in the LA or Southern California area. I'm curious as to the corollation between the temp and flooding. Seems to me most who had flood probs were from areas of extreme cold temps...places that typically had snow as a norm of their forecast.

sferrett

I'm in San Diego and I've had one time when the car was harder to start than normal. The engine wasn't cold (restarting after going to somewhere to get lunch and coming back to the car) and it took 2 tries of about 5 seconds cranking to start it. Other than that there's not been any hint of it flooding.

I don't generally shut it off when cold though, if I am going to take it a very short distance I will run it until I see the temp gauge start to move up from the left bumpstop, which is generally less than a couple of minutes.

Cheers,
Simon.

syntrix

I'm fine here in Vegas.

I did have a time last night when it had to crank a bit longer than normal, but this was after sitting for about 45 mins.

8_wannabe

Not even a hint of it in San Diego. Please go here and add to our poll on who has flooded more than once. So far, only two people have, and 90 percent haven't flooded at all. We need more votes to round out the statistics.

syntrix

Good thread, and I just voted.

I really haven't taken any precautions. And there's times when I'll start it up cold back out... and forget something. I shut it off and when I come back, she starts right up.... so far

rodmeister

Ironic that a lot of cars were flooded in SoCal yesterday, literally.

No flooding problems with my RX-8. After reading about the flooding problem, I deliberately shut off my engine after a a few seconds, but detected no problems restarting. I may have been stupid to try that, but not stupid enough to repeat it.

I hope this is an isolated problem, but as a precaution I'm going to habitually rev up to 3500 before shut off.

8_wannabe

wow, you got some guts. Breaking the rules just to see if it would flood? Good thing it was a one-time test.

skagen

You mean you rev it to 3500 and then let go of the gas and shut it off? or you mean shutting off the engine as you're reving it at 3500? Either way, how does that prevent flooding?

Aratinga

Never flooded, but I'm always careful to let it run for several minutes if I just have to back it out of the garage to wash it or whatever. When it was in the bodyshop for a week I told them about the flooding issue; I don't know if the did let it idle for a while after moving it around, but it didn't flood on them either.

sferrett

Here's my theory on the "rev to 3500" option...

When the engine is above idle and you're completely off the gas (such as when you're coasting down a hill in gear), it will completely shut off fuel delivery as the engine decellerates until it gets down to somewhere near idle.

So the thought being if you rev the engine up to 3500-4000 or so, then let off the gas completely then turn the key off as the revs are coming down it should (in theory) be much less likely to flood becuase there is no fuel delivery to the engine prior to you shutting it down - no fuel, no flood.

The other theory I have is that it could be easier to flood the engine when it stops running unexpectedly, such as when it's stalled when cold or when it's running rough and conks-out rather than you shutting it off with the key. My thought on that is there may be a brief period after the engine stops/bogs/conks prior to when the ECU stops firing gas in there, causing some residual fuel to be hanging around.

Just speculation, but it makes sense to me.

Simon.

RenesisPower

Mine has never flooded even after a short run (45 seconds) on a cold engine.

I always thought the flooding issue was blown out of proportion but there are just too many threads on this to ignore this issue.

Anyway I am thankful it hasn't happened to me.

jinani4eva

As I posted last week, mine was flooded on 12/23 and I still haven't got my car back from the dealer.

RenesisPower

Jinani,

Which dealer and what are they telling you re your flooding problem?

jinani4eva

I got her back today.
It was Galpin Mazda I went for service. They replaced spark plugs and a battery.
I'm not sure how these spark plugs are differ from the old ones but they replaced and since the battery was low, they replaced it as well and not take any chance.
Glad I'm back on my 8. 10days without her, it was a disaster.

Oh and Galpin is passing 2004 calender and there's Wildfire RX-8 on it. It looked awesome. If there is someone who's gonna stop by there, check out the calender.

Toadman

Nice of them to replace the battery, but can you verify if they used different spark plugs from the factory plugs? Maybe they just didnt want to wipe off the wet plugs, replaced them all and stick it to Mazda Warranty.

Artifex

I just got my Rx-8 back from Galpin as well. It stalled and would not restart. Mazda 24hr roadside flatbedded it to Galpin last week. They said they replaced spark plugs with 'newly' designed plugs and it should be ok. Before it went in the car had ngk 7s in the leading and 9s in the trailing. Coming out it still has 9s in the trailing and the leading I cant make out, it almost looked like they were bur7eqs! I will check tomorrow and post.

p.s. I asked Galpin if anyone else was having these problems because I saw 4 other rx-8s in the service lot and they said no. Maybe I should ask again