SteveGT

As part of being a relative noob to the RX-8, I have been trolling all the forum sections to educate myself better. A couple of questions to you long termers. Sorry if this has been asked before but....

1) Have there been many known engine replacements in Australian delivered cars as our Yankee cousins seen to have experienced - or are they just harder on their vehicles?

2) Whats the thoughts on adding pre-mix to the fuel to help out with added lubrication - does it really help with longevity. And if so, whats recommended.
Steve

takahashi

A lot of engine replacement in US are not geniune, by that, I suspect some simple solution can be done to it to retify. I have heard an ignition coil failure resulting on engine replacement.... go figure.

Premix I have no experience and one person I know who does it cog up the fuel filter, after experiencing fuel starvation on track. He may not know what he was doing but hey it did happen.

My $0.02 as always

matt13b

Also,America has been known to have poor quality fuel and rotary engines don't like bad fuel at all!

auzoom

I mentioned this somewhere else too, but the recent TSB to do with "Seafoaming" the engine would have saved a large number of the replacements had it been around 12 months ago.

Also, in the US they have a very light oil weight which with the heat and fuel blow by would result in ridiculously ineffective oil after a few 1000 k's.

Andy Wana

Steve, my mate's RX8 had an engine replacement due to a "vacuum leak" (or something along those lines)
That's probably the only case of engine replacement in a RX8 that I know of

thisllub

Friends that are long time rotary owners swear that warming up is the toughest thing for a rotary. One fanatic used to start his engine then go back inside to drink his coffee on winter mornings.
Warming up from freezing or below just has to be harder on the engine than warming up in our climate.
I never take it over 3000 rpm until the temperature needle stops moving.
Luckily for me that is always by the time I get to the end of my street.

Revolver

There have been very few reported instances of engine replacements on Aussie cars. I wouldn't worry too much about what has gone on in the States if I were you.

As for pre-mix, the balance of opinion from the gurus' comments I've read seems to be that it is unnecessary.

Cromax

I premix when I'm on the track or going on long trips but for day to day driving it's not worth it as the mix will separate by the end of a week anyway (unless you throw it into the corners enough, which is impossible).

It depends on which expert you talk to in regards to premixing as to whether they think it's necessary or not.

You can modify the OMP to get oil from a different tank filled with 2 stroke if you're really worried about it though. There's a kit that's being sold in the states to do that, it's probably worth a search if you're interested in it.

Going back to what Taka said though, if you clog up your fuel filter with 2stroke you're using too much (or the wrong type) as it dilutes pretty well. You should use no more than 100-150mL in a fill to increase the lubricity of the fuel. I recall someone from another car club I was involved with a few years ago clogged his fuel filter up with octane boost ... but he put a lot more than the prescribed amount on the side of the bottle.

Warming up is easy ... just don't give it the beans for the 5-10 minutes it takes for the car to get to operating temperature ... then don't feel too bad about driving it like it's hot!

SteveGT

Thanks guys - its not so much worryng about something that I have already bought, but I'm getting a lot of uphill from people saying things like "why did you buy one of those gas guzzlers" and "the car will cripple you at trade in time - why didn't you buy a xyz". Plus the reading on the US Forums leave you with some questions over reliability too.But I've found over the years that what happens in one country doesn't necessarily reflect on somewhere else. But if (say) that the consensus in Australia of using a premix generally is a good thing, then I would probably go along with it. As I said earlier, I'm on a learning curve, so I have to ask the obvious....

Cromax

It's just a normal car Steve, just has a few idiosyncracies that are different to other cars (eg. fuel useage is 12-14L/100km (which isn't that bad!), it uses about 1L of oil every 3-5000km, low end torque is not that great, you need to floor the crap out of it once every now and again) but once you get used to them you realise how much better a rotary is!

auzoom

What you premix with isnt the concern of most of the proponents. The concern that was raised by RotaryGod is that the injection setup on the S1 8 does not give adequate oil coverage on the apex seals. You can read up here https://www.rx8club.com/series-i-tech-garage-22/renesis-engine-issues-finally-identified-138114/

ASH8

Actually to set the record straight, there have been many engine replacements here in Australia, not like the Numbers in the US,but to say there have been very few is incorrect.
Australian Motors Edwardstown, Adelaide ( 2 Mazda dealerships) have replace 7 engines. They sell about 100 new Mazda's a month, can't tell you the rotary percentage.
Most of the engines replaced under warranty was due to owner neglect, not checking engine oil, not servicing the car was another, one had virtually no oil in the sump and the owner ignored the oil warning lamp.

As far as premix, yes I would recommend 1 mil per litre of fuel, I will be doing it when I get my new 8 in a few months., but many do not, IMO it helps by giving just that little more lubrication-- hence better sealing and compressions.
If you get a good one it also assist in preventing Carbon build up which is an enemy of all rotaries that usually play up around the 50-60K mark...but again a lot of that depends on how you drive.
"remember a red-line a day helps to keep the carbon away"

auzoom

I know of probably 5 or 6 engine replacements (in QLD and VIC) but I still say they are mostly wasted replacements as the "Seafoam" treatment would have likely fixed them if not prevented them.

Revolver

Interesting to get a firmer idea of numbers of engine replacements. I wonder if that's any higher than other marques? I'm sure we've all met people who have no concept of regular servicing and maintenance. You let any engine run low on oil, it's gonna struggle.

Hahaha, an aside regarding the nature of these recent threads. Gone are the 'Wow, I just got my new RX8' and the 'So, what do you think of my new mod?' threads. Now it's all about fuel costs and keeping the damn thing on the road!