Frankly I am amazed at some of the posts in this thread....the owner obviously doesn't know what has happened, and cannot duplicate / describe it in detail, other than the "drove at 62mph in 2nd gear".

The course of action is pretty simple: go to the nearest dealer, and ask them to do a compression test. If this turns out OK (which is what should happen, since you say it drives OK most of the time), next should be the ECU check. If no codes can be read, then this leaves the AT gearbox. In the FSM there are specific and very detailed procedures for testing the AT. Report a malfunctioning AT, and let them check it out.

If you are under warranty, then this should cost zero. If not, then it's up to you to decide if you want to debug yourself, or let the dealer do it

 

A friend of mine had a similar issue with his A/T. Rattle and lack of power. Compression checked out fine. Dealer last week sent the PCM out to California for recalibration. It appears now all is well. No rattle and good acceleration. Wish I could tell you more, but it wasn't my car, so details are vague.

 

NA product, you can blow the engine just by parking them sometimes.

 

If your engine's redline is 7500 and you were sitting at 6k in second, then anything that went wrong is not your fault. Even if you are doing the paddle shift thing, I doubt the car is going to let you drop in a gear passed redline. You can blow some manuals doing this, but an automatic still has those safety limits. I haven't driven an RX8 AT beyond a test drive during which I didn't switch to sport and pin it, but I bet if you did, it would either limit your speed or bump you to second anyway. If the car allows you to blow the tranny by dropping from 4rth to first while driving or any other combo that would forcibly over-rev the engine while having a transmission perfectly capable of shifting it's self, that would be a design flaw anyway. New transmissions would be flying into cars.

 

WHat octane gas are you using? What was the temperature outside at the time?

 

lol, i'll take this one max5...we did send out the pcm to california for a recalibration to add a wider variance to allow for temperature changes, humidty and such. since then he has had no problems.

i'm not saying thats what's wrong with yours, but that fixed a somewhat similar problem we had with his.

 

92 octane. fair weather about 85F

 

thanks to all who replied!

 

Im telling you, most likely what you heard was engine ping and you lost power. Are you using premium fuel? I work at a dealership and this is a common concern.

 

yes 92 octane is premium fuel. i dont think this was engine ping and loss of power.

i asked a buddy of mine in real life he says he thinks something might be wrong with the transformer or something?

 

Ok Chuck I have an AT. It will redline at 75 mph in 2nd gear.
It will not let you down shift above 60 mph. From 3rd to 2nd.
What I think you heard was Pre-igniton/detonation.
I use 91 octane and I still hear that ping sometimes on a hot day. 100+degrees.
It starts about 5000 rpm full throttle. Most of the time it occurs merging on the freeway, from a Red light on ramp.
If your engine failed (broke an apex seal ,lose of compresion) you would hear it when you start the car. The sound would be uneven during the cranking of the engine.
It would do a da da daaa,da da daaa,, not a da da da. (Sorry I can't give you a better sound bite.) It would be an uneven sound quite audible.
Take it to the dealer and say it looses power.
Thats all you have to say.

 

Did you recently buy gas??? I know that is relative since the 8 burns through it pretty fast. From a different station perhaps?

Your symptoms are pretty much described in the troubleshooting manual. I have attached two files which give you an overview and describe the myriad of possible causes. A qualified service tech needs to look at it.

At 6000 RPMS in second for any significant length of time (you indicated you were unaware so I assume it could have been a 15 - 20 seconds) with the AT there is significant load. This would have built up significant heat. With a poor quality fuel (ignore the octane for a minute) combined with load, heat buildup, 85 degree weather and high humidity maybe, you likely ran into knock/ping/pre-ignition which is generally caused by a hot spot in the combustion chamber/ fouled or incorrect heat-range plugs/poor fuel. There are many other possibilities as you will see from reading.

Take it to your dealer ... no fear of abuse ... just tell them it is down on power at mid to upper RPMs.

If you can find 93 octane buy it. Good Luck!!!



Chapter 12

Chapter 13

 

great thanks for everyones help. ill keep everyone posted on my situation. im going to make an appointment as soon as possible.

 

well i took it to the mazda dealer and they test drove the vehicle and said nothing was wrong with it so i rescheduled again and took the tech on a test drive.

he said i had some knocking due to carbon and not driving the car hard enough, he said i need to rev more to clean out that carbon. the body rocking was due to carbon as well.

we hooked up his computer to the ECU and checked everything, i sat there and watched the car pass every test. the cars computer says everything is fine with the car.

i guess there is nothing wrong with the vehicle.

 

My experience is, it'll let you go to 2nd at less than 72mph, and fuel cut in 2nd is 82mph (80 at redline). (indicated speed with stock wheel/tire diameter).

And duplicating the problem with a tech along for the ride is about the only way you're going to get most dealers to do anything about it.

 

https://www.rx8club.com/series-i-tech-garage-22/flash-news-flash-92625/

beers

 

5 hour update on this, i was driving around for over 45 minutes and the car started acting up again. i quickly took it back to the same mazda tech and had him test drive right away.

no acceleration in any gears, loud pinging noise and very violent glub glub glub glub in idle.

he is going to do more tests tomorrow but he thinks its the cat converter, he says that it might be melted or something like that.

i got a loaner car for now and tomorrow he is going to check it out.

 

Congrats. The hardest part is over now

 

are you the resident drunk?

according to what I've noticed at one drink per post and a join date of 1-20-2004 you have had 2674 drinks which in your profile is 3.03 beers per day. but in your post you don't say beer you say beers most times which is leading me to believe at least 2 beers per post so that means you would have at least 6 beers a day. and that is on the boards alone. doesn't count what you do away from the forum. and sure that might not be much but it also doesn't mention what size of beer you ar edrinking. it could be litle 12oz cans or up you might be drinking 40oz beers.


sorry just giving you crap as that sticks out everytime you post. is it s a siggy or something you manually type everytime? do you work for mazda also? you just seem to have too much info at times

 

define drunk?????

i dont have a substance abuse issue if that is what you a wondering about....

if you read my profile lots will be exposed...

beers is almost a trademark of mine.... it is like good by for me.... or as the english say cheers....

and the fact that you notice make it worth doing....

as to the quanity.... your estimites would be on the LITE side. i am a professional... do try this at home....

also a rarely drink beer anymore, food alergys.....

and no i dont work for mazda.... just seem to be in the right place at the right time. and am trusted.

pm is a good thing... but then you know that....

that cover it?

yes i have to type it in does not take that long...

this one is just for you...

rums

see not so working..

beers

 

dont hijack my thread

 

I've got a 2005 RX-8 w/ AT, and I've been getting the 'marbles in a blender' sound at full throttle above 5K on my most recent tank of gas. I've only heard it a few times, and whenever I did, I immediately backed off the throttle until the sound stopped. I suspect it was detonation. Do I need to be worried about damage to my engine?
I plan to put some octane booster in tonight; hopefully that will take care of the detonation. And, hopefully, no harm has been done...