So...
My RX-8 is not getting driven at all but it is sometimes moved out to the street when space is needed.
My question is can the rotary engine be hurt with short drives?
As in starting it, waiting for coolant gauge to show its warmed up and then parking it again?
Dont want to hurt the engine but if the car is not being driven am I hurting anything?

 

You certainly want to warm it up before shutting down to preclude flooding.

Short drives hurt all internal combustion engines, and possibly moreso rotaries, as they don't get sufficiently warmed up (oil temp, not just coolant) to preclude carbon deposits.

It doesn't appear you're doing it so often tho' to be significant. Folks that have like a 3-5 mile daily commute are the most affected.

 

Damn I have a 5 mile commute to work everyday.......hope nothin goes bad

 

Just take her out once in a while and show her some love. Get the engine nice and warmed up, drive at an elevated RPM to pick up exhaust gas temps and redline her a bit.

 

Sounds like me, I have a 10 mile commute down one single road.

On my way home I always end up in manumatic mode for the last 1/2 mile and just let is rev high and then give it the red line treatment on the home stretch.

I always go easy on it for the first few miles of the trip as well.

 

Silly RX-8's! I can get in my RX-7, start it, shut it off after a few seconds, and then start it right back up again any time I want. No flooding issues!

 

...as I do in my RX-8.
Hi-Power, 27000miles, MOP, Mobil-1 0w-30, and maybe the main reason for avoiding flood is the Optima Red TOP+5Farad condensator and more grounding.

 

yea,

me to. but with a rx8. with the old style starter. they offered me the new one, well if it aint broke.

115k miles.. somehow no floods. i drive it like any other car. i start it and drive it.

i start it and back it out of the garage shut it off and wash it.

i would like to have a try to flood my 04 rx8 day for money..

i would be up huge..

beers

 

me too and I have added issue of cold (rx7) plugs .
How do people do it Swoope ?

 

Never flooded except breakdown guy did I think when coils went. As after new coils/plugs and wires put on mechanic could not start it, nearly started but battery went down on him. We had to tow start it with big cloud of white smoke lol. I was told the prevent. measure was put in to stop it flooding when I bought the car??? Then I was told alot of things lol.

I always let her warm up a few ticks before shutting off, car has been in for respray of wheel arches etc and where the back doors rub the sill paint off. I am sure they did not let her warm up much as they would not have thought of the uniqueness of the rotary and it started ok for me when it was ready. They did put a few miles on it suppose taking it for a spin

What is the proper definition of flooding?

 

my rx-8 breaks down every block, need to push it for a block before I can restart it again.

I got so pissed off that I kick it nice and hard.

but then it turned into a Robot ! Almost **** in my pants !

It called itself Autobots and there are a bunch of them on the roads ... and the reason why he cant move every other block is because there are too many n00bs on rx8club.com, and that pissed it off and flood itself every block or 2.

 

Thanks for all the replies...
yes even the robot guy
It gets driven about once a week, and gets a full rpm run too... just to ensure carbon does not affect it
I usually warm it up a bit, move it, wait a few secs then turn it off... and do the same when it comes back inside the garage, although i warm it up longer then.
Oh yeah, never had a flooding problem here either...

 

Fixed!

 

I think part of it has to do with where you live...with pressure and temps and such. Cause for the first year my drive way was a grass spot and I'd start my car move it 15 feet and park it. Never had a problem with flooding...I even had a girl that I taught how to drive a clutch and she killed it several times and never once did it even get close to flooding. Of course this was all when it was still stock...only thing I had on the car was a throttle body spacer at the time.