Herblenny

I've heard some where that RX8 engines been blowing?? Is this true?? Anyone know of what might cause this problem??

93rdcurrent

I don't think I have heard of anyones engines blowing. But there were a few that were replaced. Apparently there was a problem with a seal and they were leaking coolant. There were a few members on the forum that had their engines replaced, if you do a search you can find the stories. I don't think this was at all wide spread.

Gord96BRG

You heard wrong. Nobody is blowing up RX-8 engines. A small number (maybe 70 in all of North America, out of 20,000 sold) have been replaced for a few reasons (leaks, maybe seal problems), and most of those replacements were because Mazda wants to see any problems back at the factory for analysis rather than having the dealers repair them, otherwise they would have just been repaired by the dealers. There is no problem.

Regards,
Gordon

Overport

There is absolutely no problem with RX-8 engines blowing up. there was however a problem in the past with the RX-7's blowing up......which led to japan taking the RX-7 out of the american market.

787B

the Rx7 was NOT withdrawn because the "engines blew up". Having owned 4 mazda Rxs, in my experiance they are MORE reliable than a conventional Piston engine, driven and maintained "like for like". Witness the Mazda Rxs legandary results in motor sports!.

sferrett

This is BS - Mazda stopped import of the rx7 because they weren't making enough money. Damn shame too.

khoney

I second the BS. Doug, please don't make statements like that unless you know the facts. The truth is, the 3rd gen RX-7 was too expensive. They did continue to sell them in Japan, however. In fact, they just recently discontinued them there within the last year or 2.

Ike

Face facts people, there was a problem with the factory design of the RX-7 though, the amount of engines that have been replaced probably eclipses that of how many FDs were sold. I personally know a couple people that are on their 3rd engine in their FD and neither of them has over 120k on the odometer. It's almost almost impossible to find a used one for sale that doesn't list how many miles are on the new engine or list it as having a brand new engine.

Gord, that number of 70 was come up with some months ago by Canzoomer, and I would imagine the number has grown from there. There is a problem but probably not a large enough one to not buy the car if it's what you really want. Also is it a problem that if it doesn't happen in the first few months it's not going to happen or is it something that could happen at any time in the life of the car. If the later is the case Mazda had better get it figured out and get a recall started.

Ike

rotarygod

The 3rd gen RX-7 had the most power of any factory RX-7 rotary. It had the most heat, least room for heat to leave the engine from and the absolute worst cooling system of any of the RX-7's. The turbos were so small, spun so fast, and had so much heat running through them that they wore out pretty quickly. The coolant system of the 3rd gen was lousy as well. Many people would overheat them sitting in traffic on a summer day. The 2 biggest problems with them as a result were turbo failures and dead coolant seals which would cause the coolant to leak into the engine, etc. There wasn't an issue with the hard seals breaking.

Mazda added a fix to those who wished to rebuild their engines by offering small stainless steel heat shielding around the inner coolant seals on the exhaust side. These were not included from the factory but made the coolant seals much more heat tolerant when rebuilt. They were independent of the seals themselves though and had to be purchases seperately. The other option was to use aftermarket coolant seals.

This car had problems because of a couple of serious issues such as poor cooling ability and pathetically small turbos. The only actual engine issue was with the coolant seals and much of this goes back to the heat from the poor cooling ability. The down side was that the cars needed major service fairly early in their lives. It was poor engineering on the car not the engine (aside from the lack of a heat shield) that was the real issue with that model.

Chef RX-8

My engine did not blow. There was a leak in the seal of the rotor and I was leaking oil. They just replaced it. The tech told me he could of fixed it but they wanted to test it to make sure there was no major default.

Herblenny

hmm.. I always heard different.. as others have mentioned.. Fd's were taken off because of poor sales.. in 1993 they sold 10K+, 1994 I believe 3K or so.., 1995 less than 500 were sold in USA... and by 1996 left over 95 were going below wholesale value.. Same thing happened with 300ZX (91-96?) and Supra (92?-98).. It was the shameful SUV era that distroyed Japanese Sports Car here in US.

Japan still produced FD3S until i believe Feb or March of 2003. Its only been discontinue (production) only about a year ago.

Far as RX8, I was hoping what I heard was wrong.. and clearly I did hear it "wrong".

Katchoo

Ok...let me try this: Fills engine up with 2.5 gallons of 20-50 oil.

*RrRRrRrrrrrRRRrr*

<poof! BAM! Plop! Dribble...bloop>

Darn! Must have been a bad seal....

Heh heh

rotarygod

Obviously you're someone without a rotary or you built it yourself.

rx-7~rx-8

Most RX-7 owners would abuse them... like redline to 8K everytime n shift... this one guy that had like over 5-6 different sports car..one of them being RX-7... he had about 350rwhp... and he would abuse it soo badly... drag race it... track it.... street race.. and shift at 8,500 RPM.. majority of the time... and then the seals broke... and then he said man the RX-7 is sweet... but then engine blew up... man becuase you drive like a maniac...

ANY CAR... DOESN'T MATTER WHAT MAKE... shift at 7-9K rmp... and it will shorten the life of the car...

Rotaries being so DARN fun to drive... you just can't hold back... so it's not your fault when something goes wrong... the car is just asking for it... when it has a rotary in it... hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm......

Zeltar

Keeping you honest on the 300ZX: it was produced as two completely different cars, of which the second generation started selling in July 1999. The model years were '90 thru '96. The price grew from 27K to 50K... and I believe the only significant change was the addition of airbags in '91. Rather insignificant, in '93 they replaced the center speaker with a Sony CD player - plugged into a Bose system. The Turbo came out about 6 months later, and capped at about 55K.

Ike

Regardless of why the RX-7 was really cancelled, it was partially for the same reasons the Supra and 300Z were cancelled. People weren't buying higher end Japanese sportscars at the time and none of them sold well. Times have changed and people now want Japanese sportscars and are willing to pay higher dollars for Japanese cars in general.

Herblenny

Zeltar, Thanks for clearing the 300zx for me..

RX7 and RX8's are completely different car.. Me and another FD3S owner drove the new 8 when Trussville Mazda got it in stock back in Nov. of last year (I think it was Nov?).. And both of us agreed that its a different breed of car.. I have around 340HP at the wheel and my friend (SPOautos) has 412 at the wheel.. handling and speed was different.. Maybe we were used to the power our FD's made.. Like someone said, most 7 owners tend to push the limit of the car.. And being turbo charged, its more likely something bad is going to happen.. Luckily I haven't had any problems..

I can't wait to see the Mazdaspeed version of RX8.. I'll be considering it when that comes out!

CjsfastSS

I've had the pleasure of seeing the road and tack magazine that's totally dedicated to the RX-8, and well I got a sneak peek at the Mazda Speed RX-8 and man does it look really sweet. If ya'll want to see it, I'll scan it next time I have off and post it