RX8 Success Stories

I want to hear them.

I'd like to hear also whether the post-facelift cars are worth the extra money.

And i'd like to know what they're like with mild bolt-ons and suspension work. (Intake, header, exhaust, Cobb AP.)

I'm uninterested in hearing about the failures, i've spent the last 5 years on the internet with my eyes being assaulted with all the glaring faults of a rotary every time this car gets brought up. And i REALLY don't care in the slightest about the gas mileage, so don't bother.

I want to know how easy they are to work on, and just how awful a job it will be IF the motor does happen to give out.

I just want to know the good things at this point.

I am also interested. They've really started to depreciate lately.

"IF the motor does happen to give out" ... you'll be in luck.

I've been anxiously waiting for Hinson to iron out their LS-swap kit: http://www.hinsonsupercars.com/s-942-mazda-rx8-2003-present.aspx

Watch this (somewhat crappy) company single-handedly change the rate of depreciation of the RX8.

dculberson wrote: I am also interested. They've really started to depreciate lately.

Buy my Miata. You need it.

LJD wrote: "IF the motor does happen to give out" ... you'll be in luck. I've been anxiously waiting for Hinson to iron out their LS-swap kit: http://www.hinsonsupercars.com/s-942-mazda-rx8-2003-present.aspx Watch this (somewhat crappy) company single-handedly change the rate of depreciation of the RX8.

Ugh. Do not want.

I had an '05 six speed as a daily for about a year. I bought it in 2010 with about 35k on the clock. It started every time. I drove it like I stole it. Awesome, balanced chassis for AutoX and track days. I wouldn't have gotten rid of it except I needed more room for teh famly.

As far as repairs go I didn't need to do any but, for such a small engine, things seemed pretty cramped under the hood.

Okay, here goes...

I had an 04. This was the 5th rotary vehicle I owned up to that time so i may be a bit biased.

The chassis is STELLAR! so communicative, so tossable, so wonderful! I could even comfortably "sit behind myself" in the back seat. Nobody really complained about the back seat. In fact, I liked it back there (it felt like a cocoon).

The engine is FUN to rev the piss out of. However, it makes 5.3 in/lbs of torque.

The car is pretty easy to work on. Especially if you understand Mazda's way of doing things.

I had my clutch pedal break off. I had my coils go bad - common problem. I had my CC clog.

The only reason I got rid of it was for better gas mileage (and I needed something to tow my Rx7's with).

Everybody commented on how beautiful the car was. People asked me if it was everything from a Ferrari to an Alfa.

I have heard of very few RX8's that LEGITIMATELY had to have new engines. Most of the things you hear are from differed / non-existent maintenance OR poor troubleshooting abilities on the part of the stealerships.

Hope this helps!

Rob R.

The following links may help you judge for yourself. I have never rebuilt a rotary or worked on an RX8 but in watching past instructional videos it doesn't seem difficult at all with the proper tools and a clean work environment.

http://www.atkinsrotary.com/index.php?pag=5

http://www.rebuildingrotaryengines.com/

wvumtnbkr wrote: I have heard of very few RX8's that LEGITIMATELY had to have new engines. Most of the things you hear are from differed / non-existent maintenance OR poor troubleshooting abilities on the part of the stealerships. Hope this helps! Rob R.

This.......rotaries have gotten a bad rap from retarded owners....

Always thought they were kind of sexy.

Mine gave me 66k miles of trouble-free service. Towards the end, it started to gradually lose compression. Mazda took care of it very quickly. The only reason I sold it is because I wanted to be able to get 5 digits for it. I was religious about maintenance.

They are easy to work on. There's actually room to put your hands. You can get a decent bump in power by dumping the cat. Other than that, bolton's are pretty useless. The Cobb AP, mid pipe, and BHR ignition kit (if the car needs coils) are the only non-forced induction mods I would do.

The axialflow shortshifter is awesome. A must have; it the best money I spent on the car.

I will argue that the RX8 is a better deal than an E36 M3. I'm on my phone, so I'll probably post more later.

Back to rebuilding rotatries, it isn't hard to do. If you can rebuild any piston engine, you can rebuild a rotary. Now here comes the rub, COST, but when you think about it isn't any more expensive as its piston counterpart. When you start counting the machine work to get a fresh crosshatch, mains checked, crank checked, valvejobs, head surfacing.

Would I buy a blown up RX8? In a heartbeat. I would compare rebuilding a rotary to rebuilding an automatic transmission. Someone let the magic smoke out and I am here to get it all back in there.

As a rotary nut, here are my obversations:

04-05.5 had these issues:

poor ignitions poor starters bad engine seal tolerances (potentially) weaker transmissions through 07

the facelift ones have the more robust starter, less likelyhood of bad engine due to poor seal tolerances (engines are hand built, thats some AMG E36 M3 right there :P) stronger transmissions (top loaded instead of split case) with better syncros and gearing.

most of these changes happened after the 2006 model year but the new facelift ones are a lot more reliable and have better components in those aspcts:

things to check be aware of: Starters ignition coils, modules, plugs Engine compression (but they have an 8 year 100,000 mile warranty) Transmission (IE gear grinding look out for) cats clogging clutch pedal failure

The benefit of the 04-06 ones are that they are dirt cheap, an incredible suspension, easy to work on, mazdaspeed contingency program is A+ excellent and they are the lightest out of the rx8s, especially without a sunroof.

And I'f your over 6' I would only be looking for a sunroofless model, which means you have to stick with the cloth interior, which is arguably better but you wont get heated seats but some odd combinations will come cloth, no sunroof with navi.

I've done my research you can lol I just don't have a worthwhile job to replace my mazda2 for one yet due to fuel mileage.

you can find sub 60k mile rx8s for 7-10k manual cloth...

or a wrecked or dead engine for the 3k range.

Modding them for power is really expensive and almost frutless, weight reduction is very beneficial. You can spend 1500 dollars on intake, full exhaust, no cats and a tune and pick up maybe 11whp.

This thread pertains to my interests...

Does anybody have experience with the RB ECU reflash that supposedly lowers underhood temperatures a little and richens the mixture at higher rpm?

I love mine so far ('09 R3, 13,200 miles, now almost 25k). Bought it in March and except for a couple of things, it has been perfect. I've tracked it several times this year without a hitch. The high redline is addictive. I run Castrol Edge synthetic 10w-30 in mine (also heard from a Mazda engineer that this is what I should run, not what the manual says). As long as it is revved there will be no issues with carbon build up. I'm getting ready to do the maintenance on it soon, plugs and filters, mainly. I'll do that when it is parked for the winter though.

As far as serviceability, brakes are easy (about 1 hr taking my time to swap all pads and rotors for the track, incl. setup and clean up). Oil changes are a bit of work since you need to get the car level. I drive mine up on ramps, drain, then jack the rear up to get the rest out of the oil pan. Diff. and trans. fluid changes are the same as my old Miata. Plugs look fairly straight forward, but I have yet to change them. Plenty of room to work in the engine bay. Its all just plastic covers.

I also put the racing beat screens in front of the oil coolers and radiator. It took me about 1.5 hrs to take the front bumper off, install, and reassemble. The longest part of that job was straightening the oil cooler fins.

So far, I'm very happy with mine :)

I have a post facelift RX8. It's an R3 and in my opinion it is totally worth it. Seriously, I drove it to a scion dealership to test drive an FR-S and it made me think the FR-S was a little sloppy handling in comparison. I may be biased, however.

If you want to do bolt ons, there seems to be little you can do to gain lots of power, as Mazda unlocked most of it already. More noise, OHHH yes, but not much more power. Some, but certainly not 50hp. As for suspension I went with the "this car is WAY better than my driving" mindset and decided not to even think about messing with it.

It seems you can get some great numbers from forced induction with the expected apex seal danger, but Series II (post face lift 2009+) RX-8's have no way to tune the factory ECU. Cobb only made a tuner for the older ones, and they don't even make that anymore. Standalones would work just fine, but anywhere with an inspection would take issue unless you did something piggy-backy with megasquirt or something. I'm sure plenty of people here could figure that out. Most owners seem hesistant to mess with it until the warranty is up.

As for reliability, I can't report as mine only has 10k on it. It runs just as smooth and powerful as the day I picked it up.

I didn't care about mileage when I looked for a car either, and as a great handling drivers car I was shocked how much I loved this thing.

The normal ones (not the R3) ride surprisingly well, too. Also shockingly good. Mine is sharper handling, but death on the spine if you have osteoperosis. Also the spare tire takes up a lot of the tiny trunk on the normal ones. The R3 doesn't come with one, so I have all of the tiny trunk to myself.

Some of the many, many small changes in the post-refresh cars supposedly fix the small problems like the coils going bad and the clutch pedal thing, but I can't say if any of that worked. Again, mine is fine, but it's low mileage and 1 is hardly a valid sample.

My opinion is if you aren't going for an R3, go with an older one. Way more aftermarket support. All of the little changes made many of the parts incompatible with the newer ones, and the newer ones sold in such low numbers that cash strapped after market companies are hesitant to develop new products for them.

Speaking of power and noise, check out this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5yiYB3kp54&playnext=1&list=PL771EDEB97F4145E6&feature=results_video start around 0:30 to see the best part.

Great now I'm all excited again about and RX8 I may look for one again come winter when they are nice and cheap and hopefully have a better job by then.

In reply to 92CelicaHalfTrac:

Eric Berg's brother Ryan just bought one with a blown motor for $800.

JamesMcD wrote: In reply to 92CelicaHalfTrac: Eric Berg's brother Ryan just bought one with a blown motor for $800.

I just talked to Eric yesterday... i'm mad he didn't tell me, now.

We're bringing his white MX6 back to Indy for more Challenge shenanigans.

My brother has an '05 with about 50,000 miles on it that he's owned since new. Sport model I believe (has the cloth/fake suede seats and no sunroof). Whatever is a step under the GT package. I'm 6 ft he's 6'1 and when RX8 shopping we sat in one with a sunroof and our heads were maybe a centimeter from the roof liner. I can ride in the back seat with someone my size in front of me and we're both comfortable.

It's been a great car and is a hoot to throw through turns and wind the piss out of. He drives it year round and has a set of snows he puts on in the winter (we live in Chicago burbs).He gets 18 mpg no matter how or where he drives. He's still never AutoX'ed it :(

All he's done is regular maintenance until this year when one of his coils died. We replaced them with a set of BHR coils. What a world of difference! The stock coils seriously blow ass. Even since new the stock coils made the car tricky to drive. With the BHR coils the car drives like it should. As a power mod and to prevent any issues with the stock cat breaking up/clogging I installed a BHR midpipe for him about a month ago. I think the next stepp is a Cobb AP. It's been easy to work on when I've done the previously mentioned mods.

Oh I almost forgot the one issue he had with the auto leveling of the headlights. It was fixed under warranty and hasn't been a problem since.

He loves the car. He still doesn't love the gas mileage, but it's still worth it for the smile it puts on his face every time he drives it.

I had an 04 for about a year that I bought used in 08 with ~40,000 miles on it.

The chassis is simply telepathic, I've yet to drive something that can match its steering feel and ability to be neutral in all cornering situations. This includes Miatas, Corvettes, highly modified Mustangs, Camaros, and STis, and my current DD, an e46 chassis 330i ZHP. The gearbox was awesome, the seating position was excellent (except with a helmet on), and the motor made the most glorious noises and loved to be abused. It was the best driver's car I ever owned.

The only mod I did was add some Direzzas in the stock size, and an alignment. The tech that did the alignment raved about how easy the car was to adjust. Everything was pretty straightforward to work on, and it's still just a car even if it's powered by magical spinning Doritos.

Get a non-sunroof, manual seat car if you are going to be partaking in any activities where a helmet is required.

92CelicaHalfTrac wrote:

dculberson wrote: I am also interested. They've really started to depreciate lately.

Buy my Miata. You need it.

That's true, but your Miata it worth too much for my cheapskate self.

An $800 RX8 would be in my garage no questions asked. But I'm gonna guess those are a little tough to come by.

Holy E36 M3 I had no idea that R3s were getting this cheap. Dammit I need to get my current sitch sorted so I can buy one before they become no existent.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/WE-FINANCE-2010-Mazda-RX-8-R3-6Speed-28K-1-OWNER-CLEAN-CARFAX-FACTWARRANTY-Bose-/290783230534?pt=US_Cars_Trucks&hash=item43b407fa46#ht_16166wt_1010

In reply to singleslammer:

This is not a link I needed to see. The Wife would veto the color anyway.