The biggest car-related brain fart of my life came last night.

I had just arrived home from the track. My car burns 1/2 quart of oil on a typical track day. I take oil to the track, but I normally wait until I get home to top it off using the 5qt jug of Mobil 1 0W40 instead of the 1qt bottle I keep with me. I did that as normal while the car was still warm. Then it hit me.

I smelled the distinct odor of fried chicken. In that instant, I knew what I had done.

A few weeks ago, I fried up some southern pan fried chicken. I disposed of the oil in an empty Mobil 1 jug and forgot to mark it "OLD". When I looked at the level stripe on the side of the jug yesterday, I saw clean looking oil, so I used it. It looked clean coming out of the jug, too.

I'm headed out to the garage now to drain the oil pan, flush it with mineral spirits, let it dry, and refill it.

Not only was that a stupid move; it was also a costly move. I just changed the oil last week. So much for a $25 jug of Mobil 1.

 

That's both awful and hilarious.

Fried Chicken Exhaust mod.

 

Send that for a used oil analysis. See what you get as result:/

The stupidest thing I can think of was shortly after I got the car, one of the first track days at Shannonville I found a Hyundai Accent catching up to me. So of course I wasn't going to let an Accent best my new thoroughbred sports car, so I push the car more. He's still getting closer.. I push more... the tail starts to come out, but under control. Next turn, around 140kph I turn too early and allllllmost fit into the turn. 2 wheels off, 360 spin back across the road and into the grass on the other side. Stop a few feet from the wall. Definitely a code brown.

Back in the pits, turns out the the Accent is stripped out and running a Tiburon 2.0L engine, and the driver is an instructor. He got the whole thing on video.

So. Yeah. My Rx8 ownership could have been very brief.

 

I'm sure he wanted to pull a "You have much to learn, grasshopper" line for that haha

Mine was definitely, without a doubt the time I put the plug wires on the wrong coils...thought she was blowing up. Then she stalled out and backfired like a shotgun. The entire subdivision probably freaked out over that one.

I'd say breaking the radiator nipple off that goes to the coolant bottle as well, but that one's all too common and was a blessing in disguise since it allowed me to upgrade.

 

I have a few but not using my thread chasers and breaking off a LIM bolt in my freshly rebuilt Pineapple Racing engine was probably the most painful. I had to load it up and take it to a machine shop.

One of our local guys misread the spark plug DIY today, and tightened his plugs to 120ft/lbs and of course, and broke one off in the engine and had to get it towed.

I know another guy in FL who hooked his oil lines up backwards (how I don't know) and ruined a fresh rebuilt engine. That is probably the worst I have heard.

 

How does one hook up oil lines backwards?

Edit - To add to this. Within 15 minutes of owning my RX8 I nearly totaled it. Driving on wet roads with tires that can only be described as ditch finders and a blown right rear strut (didn't know it was blown at the time, just loud.) I was over concentrating due to lack of sleep and understeered almost directly into a nice embankment of mud and dirt. The brakes had just been replaced so I managed to stop in time, but I was wide awake after that.

 

I have no clue with the stock lines, but it happened.

 

Good news is, I test drove the car today in advance of Saturday's track day, and I smelled neither KFC nor mineral spirits in the hot oil. It seems I am good to go. Why am I craving fried chicken right now?

 

Changing the oil. Got it nice and warm, drained the oil out, removed the old filter and then got conscripted to help find a neighbor's errant dog.

Found the pooch helping a neighbor with their rabbit problem.

Returned to refill the engine with oil and fired it up.

It surprising just how much under-hood real estate oil will cover when an oil filter isn't installed. I also left a trail of oil out my garage and half-way down the driveway before the oil level warning light came on.

 

Brainfart yesterday
I went to the local public health office (ewww) to get a yellow fever shot - travelling to Bolivia next month. Parked way out in the boonies and jammed my small black Jansport backpack under the seat. Exited car and locked it up using the little black rubber button on the door handle. Went in for 2hrs (seems to be the minimum at any building with the word 'public' on it) and got a shot in the arm and a yellow card.

Came back out and tried to unlock the door using the little rubber button. No beep. No bueno.

Realized the proximity key was not in my pocket.

Tried to open the door. It opened right up.

The proximity key was actually in my backpack, in the car. Car was unlocked and could have been driven off.

 

2 compete for the #1 spot

#1 Swerved around a car stopped waiting to turn left into a parking lot not realizing although there was no shoulder, the grass that looked level with the road actually had 4 inches of drop. Had on brand new F14 rims at that time for 2 weeks and got a cracked lip on the front.

#2 Was changing my oil while exhausted from the day with the car sitting on 2-piece race ramps and removed the 1st section to get underneath for spraying stuff down for winter while oil was draining. When oil change was all done, got in and backed up forgetting to place the 1st section back in place.. so the car hit down harsh on the LF corner but not as hard as it would had been if both 1st sections of the ramps were missing. Luckily no noticeable damage resulted but was still pretty pissed off at myself.

 

Those are good (bad?) ones.
I have one comparable to #1:

Going into work at 5 am one morning, the stretch of 4 lane Boulevard off the interstate near work was being worked on and had a detour.
I had to go the opposite direction of work, make a u-turn and go the other way.
I was running late, it was dark, another car was approaching and I saw the temporary yellow paint veering off towards the u-turn and made the turn at about 25mph across the 4" high concrete median slamming the wheels and jumping across.
The paint was for the turning lane approaching the u-turn.
I thought for sure I bent my wheels and did some damage, but there was nothing.
That's when I realized how solidly these cars were built.

 

I got another one that I forgot about until I just did it AGAIN.
Once I was bleeding my brakes and the best container I had on hand was an empty bottle of Lucas 2 stroke oil. Once finished with the brakes, I did a quick walkaround and noticed the Sohn reservoir was low. What's blue, oily and comes in oil bottles? Lucas 2 stroke oil! But also...ATE SuperBlue brake fluid.

So yes, I put brake fluid into my oil injection, mixed with real 2 stroke once I realized my mistake. This was a track day so it was all consumed by lunch time.

Fast forward to today. The SAME damn container!!! Why do I even still have it?!

 

I've had my RX only a couple of months, so I haven't had time to do something really stupid to it yet, close, but not quite. But I won't let that stop me from illustrating my stupidity to the forum, instead I'll tell you about the time I built a storage chest for the back of my '66 Dodge van.

Drilled some holes and bolted it in about as far back as the rear axle. The first time I filled the van with gas after doing so I ended up with about 5 gallons of gas sloshing around on the floor of the van. That's right, I'd drilled through the bottom of the chest, into the van floor, and right through the fuel tank when installing the chest. Not only was that smelly and bad for gas mileage, but I could have killed myself if the hot tip of the drill bit had ignited the fuel. I have no idea why I did that, I knew where the fuel tank was located on the van, and should have had the common sense to have checked before I drilled.

That reminds me, I did something even more damaging on that van. I bought an oil pressure gauge for it, which used those weird little compression fittings to hold the nylon oil line in the gauge. I over tightened the fitting, and about 300 miles after installing it the engine froze solid due to all the oil running out of the damaged oil line. Get the irony? I ended up destroying my engine due to lack of lubrication because of a gauge I'd installed to help ensure I had good lubrication. I sure was an idiot back then.

 

You could run a KART engine on peanut oil, so I would've just drained, driven a 1000 miles, and drained again since one can't get the 7.7 gals out on one drain.

I wouldn't use mineral spirits on anything except cleaning up oil spills.

I'm pretty sure neither product actually hurt it.

 

^ Considering I didn't start the car, all I needed to do was drain it. I rinsed it with mineral spirits just because I wanted to. Mineral spirits is perfectly compatible with motor oil, so no issue there. In fact, it is one of the ingredients in Marvel Mystery Oil.

 

Varsol (mineral spirits) should never be put in engine started or otherwise. It's about like putting gasoline, except it doesn't boil off as easy.

You probably got by with it, but the cooking oil was almost nothing unless it had some clogging food particles.

 

Not catastrophic but it hurt... Not one week after I'd bought my beautiful red 2010 with leather interior I decided to stop somewhere and get a coffee--something I'd never do but for whatever reason decided it was a good idea then. Tried to put the cup into the cupholder while driving, thought I had it in... didn't. Took me a while not to hate coffee after that.

 

Two instances of code brown:
1) My fault - Was attempting to install the rear sway bar, but of course the 65k mile old endlinks were seized and broke. Tried to cut them off and that did not go every well. I thought "who the heck needs a rear sway bar for daily driving?" I'll give you a hint, its me. It was raining moderately that day and I was taking an on ramp with two gradual turns. While on the first turn, moderate acceleration at about 4k rpms, i hit a little pothole and the rear just throws itself out and I end up doing a 360 spin. Thank god I stayed mostly on the road and ended up pointing the right direction to continue. I went 50 on the highway the rest of that trip. The kicker is, while turning onto the on ramp, I bottomed the car out on a bump. The road looks flat, but has deceptively tall "waves" in it. I had an undertray so I thought no big deal. I have an undertray, so I thought no big deal. A day or two later I find an oil leak. Turns out the bottoming out snagged the quick drain plug on my oil pan the previous owner installed and slightly bent the oil pan around the drain plug. Beware using those if you are dirt nasty low.

2) Not my fault - I had just installed new brakes and pads 5k miles ago. I also just installed coil overs less than 100 miles ago (no rear sway bar at this point). I am traveling on a road where there is an intersection with 2 stop signs on a hill with semi limited visibility while trying to cross. This is a high accident area. I am minding my own business and driving normally for once coming up on this intersection with two cars at the stop signs and I have the right of way on the main road. One of the morons decides not to spot the loud, flash blue car and starts crossing. At this point, he is in the middle of the road and I am barreling at him, about 3 car lengths away coming downhill. I slam on my brakes and swerve into the oncoming lane to avoid this dingus, lo and behold about four car lengths in front of me is a car coming toward me, so I swear back into my lane. I was blessed to survive that. I truly believe if I had the oem suspension, or if had I (or the oncoming car) been 1 second slower or faster I would probably have been in a fatal accident that day. Who cares about my life though, worst part is that it ruined my new brakes. Heat spots and grooves that I am only now replacing. Terrible.

 

Wait a minute. You can't ruin car brakes with a one time stop no matter from what speed.

It's the buildup of heat that gets them, and a little buildup will break them in.

You might have tweaked some suspension part that makes noise when you brake or whatever.

Those grooves took thousands of miles to make; the near accident just caused you to check closer.

 

I'm not sure about pads, but you can certainly ruin the face of a rotor. Speaks more for the quality of the rotor IMO. Previous to this I was under the same mindset. Braking noise is no issue, its brake feel that's been no bueno.

To be specific on the damage, I had my car serviced within the week after that. All four corners had heat spots, the front was bad enough that the rotors needed to be resurfaced. After that, the rear has had grooves. I recall the braking still not working quite properly. It is certainly possible that the grooves became worse overtime, but having only been on for 5000 miles. I'm not sure what to tell you as I am no expert, but I had been in an out of there when I replaced pads and rotors and checked during break-in - everything was fine. The grooves are absolutely terrible right now and have more damage that could possible ever be done in 10k miles.

I wish I would have taken pictures at the time as that would perfectly demonstrated the damage.

 

I still don't think the grooving can be done in 5k miles unless the calipers are stuck tight.

When you say "new brakes" you must mean that you sent car to a mechanic to fix them.

They might have put new pads on, but didn't pay attention to condition of rotors.

I've repeatedly braked my 07 rx8 Gt from 90 to 30 mph on a sports car track for those 20 minutes sessions, 15 different track days, 33k miles, and am just now wearing out pads.

Rotors are smooth so I'll just pad slap.

I've seen Corvettes sit out a session or too because the track was overheating their brakes.

Don't let whoever "fixed" your brakes work on your car anymore.

 

I'm curious about this brake problem as well. I track my 8 upwards of 18 times per year. Quality rotors (OEM, Centric, AC Delco) last a little over 2 years in the front and longer in the rear. I go through 3 sets of front and 2 sets of rear brake pads (Carbotech) per year. I don't have problems with grooving or uneven rotor wear, even under the extreme braking to which I subject the car regularly. Some pads are harder on rotors than others (looking at you, Hawk), but none I have ever used would cause what you describe.

 

Started up the engine in 12 degrees weather and the revs were high. Being the rotard i am not letting them die down or warm up even because my work is "haunted" and i ran out the door after "seeing" the phantom yeah total idiot new driver. So i put it in gear in a frenzied panic to gtfo and it took off and didnt let it defrost so i couldn't really see and bam! Right into a lightpost.
Cosmetic damage on the front bumper cover, spoiler, grille, fiber impact absorber(served its purpose), license plate cover and to top it all off, the mazda insignia. Coworker saw the whole thing. Estimated the cost. Bent the hood out of allignment a little nothing too major just an eye sore now. This was all in the first wee of owning it. 2005 base model automatic with panel and slap shift rear spoiler mod and tinted windows. And now a cracked bumper with license plate hanging off.
Stomach dropped and was like mother trucker. Been searching for used painted oem parts ever since but no luck yet. I learned to take care of it the hard way too late in the game. Yeah and thats about it. Still saving up to get it fixed. Have to pay for the installation too. Trying to find a painted bumper cover in good condition. All of the online listings sell out the next day. Junk yard or primed polyurethane it is. really dont want to pay for the paint job.

 

During my younger days with the rx8, i was on a late night cruise down one of the roads with a slight hill on it, usually at normal speeds around 45-65mph, your car stays pretty planted to the ground. Well, a 2.5 gen Eclipse GSX decided to want to go at it with me.. being young and dumb, i obliged the duel and there we went, my car was lowered on mazdaspeed springs and shocks at that time when we took that little hill at around 100 mph catching air and then slamming to the ground, i saw sparks fly out back and then we slowed down, looking at each other and said "oh ****". I took the 8 to the shop to my relief there was no damage to the 8 except for the stock exhaust contacting the ground. (Note: i was young and dumb).

Secondly, i was coming back home from seeing my at the time gf who lived about an hour away. It was about almost midnight on a two lane highway (I-5). Being tired, i was driving about 75-80 on the fast lane when a corvette (c-4) decides to tailgate me. Yes, i could have moved to the right lane but i just wasn't having it that night for some reason. As he rides my ***, i start to speed up going about 90mph, he finally decides to pull to the right lane and i just stare at my passenger window as i see his black bumper, black fender... white door.. chp logo on door... and then i decide to down shift and slow down. I got pulled over of course but luckily let me go with a warning.

Young and dumb days with my car

Luckily that was it for me though i had my dad borrow my car one day and he decided to flood the engine...