okay so I have an 05 manual with 120k miles and recently I've had trouble with cold starts. It takes about 10 seconds of constant cranking before it will finally start up. the coolant light comes on as well as there is white smoke coming out of the exhaust until it warms up. The car runs great and has no problems starting when hot.

 

If the coolant level light is on but the coolant level is good when you check it then it is just a faulty coolant level sensor and that is a common issue that is unrelated to the hard starts. If you are losing coolant than you need to find out where you are losing it. It could be an internal coolant seal failure or it could be leaking externally in many places.

As for the cold hard starts it could be a bad battery, bad starter, fuel leak, bad purge solenoid, etc, etc, etc. The issue would have to be properly troubleshooted.

Engine ----> Symptom Troubleshooting

http://foxed.ca/rx7manual/2003mazdar..._S01_0016.html

 

If you don't have a coolant system pressure tester, an oil sample sent to Blackstone labs for $20.00 will confirm that. That being said, when my coolant seal failed it did not cause hard starts, just a rough idle at start up that would clear up as the coolant was burnt off.

 

Yeah I caught it pretty early thanks to the oil sample I had sent out.

 

Tim, are you lose coolant?

 

Mine did not and the coolant was not discolored either. Aside from the rough idle when cold, the only other symptom was a misfire at high RPM. The engine (Mazda reman with 30k on it) was in good shape overall since I pulled it before it could really damage the engine but I decided to have a low mileage engine from a 2008 RX-8 rebuilt instead.

Any updates Tim?

 

okay so from what I can tell Im loosing a small amount of coolant. I haven't checked the coolant system pressure or anything but I will check that asap. I noticed the dipstick has a green substance on it and I'm guessing that has to do with the failed coolant seal?

 

that's what I figured. so I'm guessing I should probably get a new engine or have it rebuilt since I have to take it out anyways and I'm not sure if this is the original engine or not

 

No you should get things checked properly, don't jump to conclusions.