Hello everyone

I just purchased a 2005 RX-8 I have been eyeballing on craigslist for a few months now. I assume most people know how the ad goes..... " Cars in great condition...Motor is blown...Need to sell". I watched it go from $3500 to $2500 to $1500. I went with 1k cash and picked it up. The seller knew nothing about cars let alone a rotary , all he said was he had two mechanics look at it and both said no compression.

I knew going into this it would be a long term project. The end result I want to have a 100% dedicated track car. I'm not looking for massive power so I most likely will stick with the Renesis. I just want great handling, great brakes, and crazy stupid aero lol. My wife is currently in dental hygiene school, so I wont be doing anything really major until she graduates.

I have no previous rotary experience so this is a new ball game for me. However I am mechanically inclined to tackle most projects and also have the necessary tools between my dad and I. My last project was a 1970 Datsun 510 with SR20DET swap that was basically a 90% restoration. I did everything on my own besides the paint job.

My first plan is to really determine if its low on compression and take it from there. Any advice on where to start to test the engine would be cool.

Thanks

 

Check the "New Owners - Read This!" Thread before you dive into anything, it's full of helpful information that's useful for everything your looking for - from cooling reliability to basic performance increases. Rebuild the renny, or have it sent to someone who knows how to rebuild a renny, install nessecary ancillary upgrades, strip it out to bare bones, and enjoy. These cars handle fantastically in stock form but with a solid quality set of coilovers and big brakes they are even more excellent. You won't beat anyone in a straight line but those corners are gonna be all yours.

 

Thanks Celestial , I have been reading through different threads while I have down time at work. When I get some time I will start with a compression test and take it from there.

 

Push it off a cliff and buy a Miata. Your wallet will thank me. Or you. Or your GF. Or someone. There will be thanks.

 

I would never own a Miata , I know they a great and reliable for the track . I just have never been a huge fan of them and too many Miata owners complain about everything when it comes to scca racing. If i fart wrong it puts me in another class .

My friend that's helping me with the build is a die hard Miata owner, he is actually really excited about the build him self. He never once pushed me to go Miata . We have debated even going to a boosted MZR engine as he has many sitting around .

Thanks for the great advice !

 

The reason I say that is, there is a cost premium for every part you will want to bolt onto a tracked RX-8. The 8 is a relatively expensive car to own in the fist place. When you start tracking one, you quickly learn the meaning of "expensive". Everything costs considerably more. Brakes parts, rims, tires, control arms, suspension links, hubs, bearings, performance parts, everything. Miatas enjoy an expansive aftermarket, and you can actually add more power to them at a reasonable cost. And, they handle almost as well as RX-8s. I have owned my 8 for 4 years and tracked it for 3. I just bought a Miata. My wallet is grateful.

 

What Steve said...

Only reason I don't track a Miata - which, at least at my skill level, are about as slow as the RX8 around a track - is that I don't fit them comfortably with a Helmet on. Proper go-fast parts for the RX8 are pretty expensive and they tend to be harder to find as well in some cases. I like rotaries and owned a bunch of them in the past, but the parts cost of properly modifying an RX8 for track use (like suspension, brakes etc) aren't that far off the parts cost for doing the same on an aircooled 911...

If you do any sort of competitive driving like SCCA club/time trials, make sure you sign up for a Mazdaspeed membership. That gives you access to discounted parts and some performance parts that you can still get from Mazda.

 

So I had a chance yesterday to mess with the RX8 a little bit. We started by putting in a new battery and just trying to get the thing to turn over. When turning the ignition we would get a click click click from the starter like the battery was dead. We then doubel checked the batter and it was at 12.7.


So at this point we took out the spark plugs and this is what the first two looked like. If I recall these are the leading plugs.








The trailing plugs had a black gunk on them, not the rust looking corrosion on these ones. After seeing these we figured the starter and battery were working properly and may be the damn thing is stuck.


We took a breaker bar on what I would call the crank ( excuse my ignorance to rotaries at this point) and tried to turn it by hand. It wouldnt budge. Now on a know working rotary could you rotate by hand with a big enough breaker bar?


I think we are at the point we are just going to pull the engine ..... kind of what i expected fromt the begging anyways so not a mood killer.


Thanks in advance for any insight.

 

If you have both sets of plugs out and the transmission is in neutral, you should be able to turn the engine over by hand with not that much resistance.

Those plugs look pretty bad, although it's hard to tell from the pictures if it's corrosion or combustion deposits.

 

To me it looks like corrosion. It was all hard like rust or something. If I remeber correctly just these two plugs were out. Would it make that much of a difference having the other two out?

 

I'd pull both out just in case. You'll still be working against some compression, but a reasonably sized breaker bar should allow you to turn over the engine.

If it is corrosion (combustion deposits can be pretty hard, too) then you'll probably do a fair amount of damage if you tried to turn over the engine, but then again it's already pretty messed up.

One other option if you want to try something before ripping out the engine would be to use one of those cheap Harbor Freight inspection cameras and see if you can get a half decent view of the combustion chamber.

 

So I got the engine out last friday , I'm going to break it down to see the rotors and the housings to see how much damange is done. I watched a few prety helpful videos on youtube about the break down so that should be pretty straight forward. Any information on what areas to check and what to look for would be great.


The engine at this point is seized if that helps with pointing me in the right direction.

 

I was able to get into the internals last night and this is what I found .



I would assume a water seal broke , anything else I should be looking for on the housings ?

 

I have both an RX-8 and a Miata that are dedicated track cars, guess which one is more fun to drive when they're both near stock power levels.

Seems you're already headed down your chosen path so good luck though. Cheapest option to get going, even though I'm not a fan of them, is build another renesis to put in.

 

I have been driving my SR20 swapped Datsun 510 on the track for the past 3 years and I wanted to get away from beating that up on the track. This is the car I decided to go with. I already have a plan in mind in regards to what I want to do to the car, I'm not just jumping into this with no plan in mind.


For any future readers of this thread....... please do not tell me how a Miata is better than an RX8 for track use.


Thanks