Hello everyone, i am a new member here, and a very happy new owner of a 2003 Mazda RX8.
There is a lot of things i will write in this post, so here is a TL;DR for some users:

I was searching for a car to buy for myself. Nothing special, just a japanese car, to drive it to work and have fun with.
But i also have a very good friend, who drives and owns two rotary Mazdas. (one being a 3 rotor Turbo...cough cough )
So with his years of experience and knowledge, i ventured into buying an RX8. Found one right in my hometown, for 3000€.
Both of us checked out the car, my friend said it was okay, and bought it the next day. The engine runs fine, buuuut...


There are some issues. Full story is bellow:

When i bought the car, the owner told me he got the car as it is.
A 2003, Titanium Gray Metallic, RX8 GT/Revolution with 146.000km.

He drove the car for 3000km (he confirmed it by showing a picture when he first bough the car and a video of a last joyride he ever did in it)
After his last driving, he left the car outside on gravel for a year. Yup, sunlight, rain, snow and even slight damage from hail.
(Thankfully all the windows are intact, even the glass sunroof) + (it didn't crack the paint, but there are thousands of those small dents over the car)
He never modified it, never had time to do it. And since he drove it for a small period of time, only changed the engine oil and oil filter.

Unfortunately he removed the car from the registry, so the car couldn't be test driven on the road. So yes, i bought the car without trying it. Quite risky, i know.
On the plus side, the guy had a friend, that later came with a trailer, hooked the car up and we safely carried it to a shop my friend knows. So it's safe.



^late night arrival at the shop, i was dead tired. Excitement was keeping me up like caffeine xD

Now when i was looking for an RX8, I just wanted a nice sounding car, because it is what i love about cars in general. The sounds, baby!
So i did some searching on what does my car have exactly.
List of option include:
- Pop up navigation, with the original Navigation CD (no Croatia though, useless to me)
- Bose 9 speaker set up
- Heated seats
- Black/chaparral leather interior
- Glass sunroof
- 8 way power seats, lumbar support.
- Stainless steel vent strakes
- Front splash guard
- Side aero flare
- Rotor RX8 emblem on Doors and side steps
- blue/white/red dashboard lighting system
there are more, but these ones stood out to me, and makes me love my car even more :D

Now on to the issues.
As i said, the engine runs okay, but on first few startups, it did almost die.
We figured it was probably old fuel. My friend recommended new and better spark plugs. Which i did order.
Ryan racing performance ignition kit and NGK laser iridium spark plugs. Now i wait for the parts to arrive.
My friend did try revving the engine, after warming up. He held it at 4000, 5000, 6000 for a minute.
Apart from few exhaust pops and steam (no blueish smoke), everything seems okay.

The owner also received two Recall letters from Mazda, one for the fuel tank and for the front lower control arms.
Both of these my friend already had fixed on his RX8, so i will to.
My car also had a Carista OBD2 inside, so we checked out the CEL codes:



^from what i've read on the forum, P0610 is probably a fault inside the ECU
^^and the P0661, my friend is sure is caused by the modified air filter, which was hidden inside the plastic housing
Since the previous owner did not do anything on the car, and we did not assume it was modified before him,
no one knew it had a modified air filter. Mushroom style, filled with trash, oil and water.

Also, there was no power steering. We tried removing both connectors and connecting the wires directly.
Nothing. So fortunately my friend had a spare EPS module. He replaced it and viola, power steering works perfectly!

Also the DTC light was on, but the steering wheel reset turned it off



^i took this picture after i reinstalled the headlights. I had the polished. The were yellow and foggy. Don't worry, the bumper seems of because
it's not in place all the way
^^the lower plastic undertray is broken in half, will try to get that fixed or replaced
^^^And yes, those bumper turn signals are not only painted, but also have filler and paint on them. They work, and the plastic is intact, which angers me the most.
If only someone didn't cover it with filler and paint. So ugly. I will replace them.

And last issue. Car crash history. Since the previous owner did not crash it, and i had no information before him about the car i figured it never crashed.
But while reinstalling the headlights i quickly realised the rx8 did crash...sort of. I don't have any pictures, but i noticed that one of the brackets holding
the left side oil cooler is slanted. Roughly 15 degrees down. And right bellow the bracket, the top row of cooling shims are squashed,
but in the same top row, under the other bracket they are normal. And there are no leaks as far as i can see.
Next is the broken-in-half plastic undertray that connects to the front bumper. It had bits of dirt and grass. So far i can say that someone understeered into
a grass hump on the side of the road. Add that to a faulty control arm recall which was not done yet and i am sure as hell that i need to fix this car before driving it.

Lastly i got a special key for the car:


^Rotor shaped key.The "MazdaRX8" tag plate was missing, and the shiny rotor bits were damaged. I am planning to "remake" the key.
The two rotor covers will be out of brushed aluminium, and so will be the tag plate, with the "MazdaRX8" being laser engraved.
This i think will be much nicer and will last muuch longer than that cheap plastic.
^^ I am also planing a custom remote. Using the same electronics inside, i want a custom housing which can be clipped on the original key.
If 3D printed, it could be done.
^^^ Also the Mazda leather keyring, which is like the best thing ever :D

That's all for know. I would like to keep this thread as a journal, mainly for me to keep track of what i've done to my car.
So thank you for reading and i hope you like my rx8 story.

 

RX8 Journal part 2:

So a month passed and the parts i order all arrived:
- NGK Iridium spark plugs
- Ryan racing ignition coils
- Side turn signals housings
- ECU
- Hankook Ventus Prime 3 K125 Summer tires
- YATOUR Bluetooth Adapter

Now a small bump on the road to finishing my RX8, is that the seller sent the wrong ECU.
(this was especially disappointing, because the first order which was the spark plugs and IG coils,
took nearly a month to arrive, because our incompetent lazy Boarder workers held it for 15 days!
The ECU was shipped alone, and arrived in a week. But human excrement happens and the wrong ECU arrived)
He shipped the lower power module. I will be sending it back and getting the proper ECU soon.

As for the tires, in Croatia winter tires are required by law to be used on public roads between November 15th until April 15th.
Luckily when i bought my RX8, it had winter tires. The front tires were from 2004! and will be trashed, but the rear tires
are from 2018, and i believe they are still good to use. I'll have my colleges at work tell me are they still road worthy.
If so, i only need two new winter tires, and i will place the new ones on the rear wheels.

There is also a slight issue with the RX8 wheels. The paint is dead. I can literally pull the paint of with my hands. It crumbles and brakes.
So i will have the wheels refurbished in the original paint. Luckily my friend had wheels to spare, and i found scrapped tires to fit on the wheels.
This way the guys in the shop can work and move the car around the parking lot if they need to while my wheels are being painted.
As for the body and paint, there is slight hail damage and scratches, but nothing severe to cause corrosion. I mean it was sitting outside for a year.

YATOUR adapter was installed and works perfectly, music and phone calls. I even realized that the RX8 plastic backing of the driver seat is perfect
for the microphone wire to run through. No glue, tape, stitching or seat disassembly required. Just push the microphone wire through the gap between the
leather and the plastic backing, and the microphone will sit in place at the height of your neck. Plus since the seat is electronically controlled, there is no danger
of tearing the wire.

Now for the key and remote.
With the Rotor shaped key and the Original Mazda leather key ring it is a beautiful set that really shines along with the RX8.
Until you add the ugly remote controller to that. The beautiful key set now becomes an ugly bulk of plastic and metal that
you can't even fit in your pocket anymore. Yet it's still better than having no remote controller at all. So what to do?
I could buy a new remote controller, with a flip up key, but what's the point of the rotor key then? I figured out the solution myself:


As you can see, there is just barely enough room for the key and the batteries. The wires are soldered to the PCB, but the other ends are only taped to the batteries.

Instead of a wide 3V button cell, i used two 1.5V cell batteries in series to power the remote. I did not test it yet, because my car battery is drained atm. But will be testing it soon.
Now before you call me names for destroying my remote, don't worry this one i modified is a backup. I have two more.
All of them were tested before i modified this one and they all worked.

Lastly the key itself:
My college made me three aluminium pieces, so first i used one to copy the original piece entirely. This process took way more time and effort,
trying to make the entire top curve towards the edges and apexes. Plus the curved piece was now harder to sand in a straight line,
so a brushed effect is impossible to make by hand. So i decided to grind the edges at a 45° degree angle, smooth them out with sand paper.

Mind the black duct tape. I will find a better solution to hold the remote plastic enclosure.
I think the end result is a one of a kind, hand-made Mazda RX8 key that no one else has, but can easily make themselves.

As of this post, the car will be going under repair/maintenance on Wednesday, October 15 to install the necessary components, testing the compression and so on.
I also already purchased two 5 liter Mazda FL-22 premixed antifreeze, and i will replace the fluid as well. The transmission and differential oils will be replaced in the future.
Keep in mind that the current work is being done just so that the car can be registered legally for the road.

 

Sounds great man, I love the detail of your post. Let us know what your compression test results were and have fun with the car. Sounds perfect for what you are looking for in a car.

 

RX8 Journal part 2.5:

Today the guys in the shop finally had the time to work on my car.
They tested the compression. I didn't see the numbers myself, but my friend who owns and drives an RX8
for years has talked with the mechanics and in short, the engine will last probably 1 two 2 years.
I think that's reasonable considering the car has almost 150.000km on clock.

So they replaced the sparkplugs and ignition coils.
I found a new issue while the car was up on the lift.
One hardline that leads to the air condition cooler is broken.
A small setback, but thankfully winter is coming so i have time to fix it.

I myself didn't have time today to look under the car while it was up,
because i had deliver my rims to a guy who will refurbish them.
Once they took the original wheels of, we quickly saw that they were spray painted on the outside.
Inside was naked aluminium. The guy will blast the paint of, repair damaged areas by welding aluminium on
and shaping them up, balance them etc. and finally a coat of paint to protect them.

 

RX8 Journal part 2.56:

Replaced my bumper turn signal housings, and placed the bumper back in position.
Tested all the lights, and the xenon sprays. Everything works.

Found a new problem. I believe one of the Vacuum hose nipples broke:



Someone please tell me which of these three hoses in the video is the one that i need to fix.

 

Looks like the jet air line.

You really need that (and to not have a hole in the intake after the MAF sensor). A plastic elbow should be all that's needed?

There is no meaningful way to convert compression into how long the engine will live. Your friend should be able to give you the actual numbers, otherwise he's not helping.

 

Rear Rotor


Rear Rotor


Front Rotor


Front Rotor





Okay. And can i fix the plastic elbow with cement glue or should i get a new one?

 

Get a new elbow, they're like $2 max at any auto supply store. It will be more reliable.

Umm are those numbers corrected for altitude and rpm? They're spectacularly low, like the car should not be able to start warm kind of low.

New is 9ish bar, passing is 7. This shows 5.

 

Talked to a friend who drives a 04 mazda 6. Yes, i can buy that elbow easily and i will do first thing after work tomorrow.

Well to be honest with you, i am a bit puzzled myself. When i set up an appointment with the car shop to work on my car,
i very clearly stated to them, that they should check the entire car for faults, check the compression and replace the sparks and ig coils.
The day that i moved my car form the car shop parking lot, the mechanic guy who worked on my car wasn't there, and i forgot to ask if they did what i asked.
Since i was in a hurry to move the car and return the borrowed plates to the shop owner. They either had too much work to check the car or didn't bother to do it.

I still have the compression tester with me, so i could test it again myself. No worries there.
My biggest concern is that i still don't know what is broken on the car that i don't know about.
For example: i bought 10L of Mazda FL-22. I want to fill up the car with this liquid, but i need to drain the old stuff out.
Buuut in order to do that, i need to be sure that i am not losing coolant anywhere.

So i bought 3L of demineralized water. Looking at the coolant overflow tank, i can't really tell if the fluid is between low and full.
I would say there isn't even fluid at all in the overflow tank. Today i put almost 1L of distilled water in the tank and i still couldn't see
where the liquid line is on the outside of the tank. The car will go to the Mazda dealer anyway to get two recalls done,
plus the replacement ECU and get the master key coded to that ECU. I will have them flush my coolant and place new coolant in.
And have them check the entire car finally!

Also also, since i placed back the front bumper i took a closer look at both the front and rear of the car.
The front bumper needs work and is not sitting correctly, the left side of the car is damaged from an unknown crash
(the mudguard near the headlight is tucked in slightly) and the rear bumper was certainly put back wrong, since it isn't flush with he body as well.


I suppose the P2259 is because of the missing plastic elbow, because it was not shown before.
The guys in the shop probably broke it when the where bending the air rubber part.


The whining noise you can hear when i am at the engine would come on and off at idle. Cold or warm.
The sound is coming near the right side of the engine.
(Don't worry i took the coolant cap of, it's not missing.)

 

None of those codes relate to the broken elbow, they're their own problems.


2259 is the secondary air pump used to warm up the cat on startup. It shuts off about 30 second after startup. Sounds like an issue with the wiring to it.

p0661 is one of the intake valve solenoids (SSV, VDI, APV). Typically these solenoids fail with age, and it might make sense to replace all 3. This will manifest as poor performance in some rpm range, depending on the valve.

 

Thank you for your help Loki. I will add these to my issues list:
-inspect wiring harness
-check and or replace intake valve solenoids

 

Engine is close to done sadly . You will have hot starting issues no matter what so that really sucks. You planning on a swap soon?

 

Well no plans for a swap. The only idea i have is that i need to work my *** of to have money for that car
If i ever will swap it, it will be a RX8 engine again.

 

So true. These cars can get expensive pretty quickly especially when you are dealing with a nearly dead engine. Mine is about to have similar problems in the near future due to low compression. Sucks big time man feeling your pain...

 

Finally had the time to install the new plastic elbow for the vacuum hose.
Started the car, everything runs fine. Checked my OBD2 app, reset the codes.
Voila, the P2259 code is gone. Even after the car warmed up, there were no strange noises, no rpm drops
or engine stalls. I pressed the gas two times up to 5K rpm, no problems.
So now these OBD2 codes are still present:



On the other hand, one of my tires deflated. Gonna have to fix that somehow, because it's sitting on the tire itself.
But once the tire is done, finally the car can go to MOT. If all goes well, the car should be ready to drive next week.

 

Finally had the time to install the new plastic elbow for the vacuum hose.
Started the car, everything runs fine. Checked my OBD2 app, reset the codes.
Voila, the P2259 code is gone. Even after the car warmed up, there were no strange noises, no rpm drops
or engine stalls. I pressed the gas two times up to 5K rpm, no problems.
So now these OBD2 codes are still present:





On the other hand, one of my tires deflated. Gonna have to fix that somehow, because it's sitting on the tire itself.
But once the tire is done, finally the car can go to MOT. If all goes well, the car should be ready to drive next week.

 

P0661 is the solenoids by the firewall. There are 3 for Air, VDI and SSV. Best to swap out all 3.

SKU:18-7410-KL01

Manufacturer SKU:KL01-18-741

for P0610 that is a PCM communication error. Could try to reset the car by disconnecting battery and hope it doesnt come back but there could be a wiring issue with it or worst case its toast. That will require further investigation. Good luck!

 

Thx for the serial numbers for the solenoids. Are all three solenoids the same? Just one type?

Yeah, my buddy and i tried resetting the car. Didn't work.
As for the wiring, we didn't have space or time do it.
So i ordered a new ECU. It arrived few days ago.
After the car passes the MOT, i am going straight to the Mazda dealer.
I already talked to the guy in charge of the car service there.
They already have experience doing recalls on the RX8.
And mine didn't have any recalls done before.
YES, i have the faulty Takata airbags.
Also i will tell them for the solenoids, ECU, coolant flush and the new premixed FL-22 coolant i have in the trunk.

 

All 3 solenoids are the same yes. The idea is if one fails the other two aren't far behind. I'm sure you'll have this car back on the road and in good shape too. My only concern is how much money you have into this car now. Especially since you are going through Mazda for parts. I fear that car will never be worth what you are putting in to fix it mainly due to low compression.

 

P0610 could be as simple as a bad ground at the ECU. Cheap fixes first: undo and clean all grounding points and connectors.

I reread your first post, and you should repair/replace the plastic undertray. It's necessary for proper cooling.

 

Well so far i spent 1300€, which includes new summer tires and ignition coils and sparks, and some other parts.
For MOT and Insurance, it will be 475€. I paid the car 3000€.
In total, 4775€ will be to get the car driveable. And i am taking into account another 1000€ to
fix the plastic undertray, repair the bent chassis, replace solenoids, and or other mechanical parts.

But don't worry. I don't plan to have the Mazda dealer fix everything for me.
I'll have them do the recalls and do the coolant flush, plus check the entire car.
Oh and have them install the new ECU, if this one is toast.
Once that is done, i'll use my spare time to fix the car at my home, somehow, out on the street

 

Oh jeez... this is such a heartbreaker. Wish you good luck my man, keep us posted.

 

Check out http://utires.com. I’ve used them twice to get used tires (7/32 tread) to tide me over till I could get what I want.

+1 or getting all three replaced.

 

RX8 Journal part 3: Preparations for MOT!

Hi guys, so finally my rims have been painted, and i picked them up. Moved the wheels and tires to my workplace,
where i will mount them on the car. The current wheels are borrowed and will be returned.
Tomorrow after i add the wheels and tires, my father will drive the car to MOT. I'd do it myself, but i work 11 hours a day, so no time for it.
After the MOT, i will give the car to the Mazda dealer to have them do the Recalls and other stuff i mentioned before in this thread.


Car was sitting on other side of town, parked safely at a friends house. It ran out of voltage, but had enough to
show lights. Few minutes charged it up nicely.


Had to buy a lousy, cheap electric pump. The stupid thing shows 1 Bar as 3 Bars on the gauge.
Don't worry, after a 200 meter drive i stopped at a gas station, filled up and inflated all tires to 2.2 Bars.


Small amount of condensation in the Right tail light. Small issue,
The bigger issue is that all the glass inside was foggy.
Had no trouble removing the fog, with air. But still puzzled that it's moist inside the car.

 

Wow, you've been busy! Great progress. The condensation problem is due to bad gaskets. There are two ways to solve it.

1. Take the lights out and drill very tiny holes on the bottom of the light where it will be hidden when installed. This will allow excess water to drain out allowing your rear lights to not look like a fish bowl.

2. Buy a gasket set off ebay or silicone around the holes for the wiring. Make sure to completely remove the old gasket.

Hope this helps.