I have finally officially joined the club! I am super excited and this is my first manual car. It took me about 8 hours total to figure out how to drive it with some friends haha but it's marvelous. This one has 71k miles, and I personally know the previous owner for years. He owns a 700hp RX-7 and added a turbo to his 1992 Miata, so I believe I can trust him with a stock RX-8. I've had it for 3 days and it works like a bullet. I'm bringing this bad boy to the shop tomorrow, so cheers to good maintenance! For those that live in Northern VA/DC/Maryland, Browns Mazda in Chantilly VA apparently has two Mazda trained rotary technicians that were flown to Japan for training. I'll try to update how it goes! Any suggestions on maintenance or modifications, I'd love to hear it! Also, I need a name for her hehe.

 

Beautiful color. Gorgeous. Sounds like you’re good to go man. Welcome to the club.

 

Congrats man

 

Beautiful car! Enjoy.

 

Nice, looks great. I also got mine recently, don't forgot to see the "new owners" fixed posts, a lot of good information there. My recommendation is to buy an obd2 reader. Also I use an tablet mount that goes as a "disc" in your headunit, then you can use another Bluetooth connection or the aux port to have a modern entertainment system plus real time parameters. Sounds obvious and simple but works ^^

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Thanks man! I've read so much RX-8 maintenance and rx8help.com is so goated. Currently I got an aux to bluetooth converter, but im thinking of changing the head unit altogether. Thank you for the suggestions though!

 

Another option is maestro idatalink..this allows you to display various gauges on a compatible head unit. I went with that since my head unit was not working:

 

that look really, was it easy to install? By any chance you have pics of the process?
I'm guessing this is installed like any other head unit.

 

If it's any consolation, the RX-8 is one of the harder cars to drive stick in my experience. Its lack of low-end torque can be brutal if you lug the engine, and its light flywheel makes that easy to do. If you can drive an 8, you'll probably be fine in anything else!

 

I think it might be this center dash fit. I was thinking of getting one myself too eventually when I'm thinking of swapping the radio unit to one that supports apple carplay, or the one there too!

https://www.crutchfield.com/S-LqJnlR...lat-Black.html

 

Thanks! I thought I might've been a bit slow to catch on, and I stalled the engine way too many times when learning. But I'm daily driving it now to work and such, and it's been great. Uphill is still a bit of a struggle sometimes but it's a learning process and I make sure safety is first. Thanks for the input and encouraging words!

 

The maestro is just a small interface box that plugs into a compatible aftermarket head unit. It allows the user to retain factory steering wheel controls but also can display gauges on the head unit itself. The gauges simply pull the OBD II data to display on the unit.

Sorry, no pics of the install.

 

Welcome aboard the club and S2 ownership.

 

Thanks 😎 It is currently my daily and it's a dream so far to drive. I did a compression test and all the checks for it. Every system is good besides brakes, but that's a wear item anyways. The compression test comes back alright, so its estimated I have 2-3 years left on the seals and engine (first engine, never been replaced). Since it's my daily, I really don't want to play the time-bomb game, so I'm looking to do a whole renesis engine swap early next year ideally. Need to start saving some change already for it lol.