Well...it's very cold for Virginia, anyway, and this is probably the coldest my RX-8 has had to deal with since it was built. Last night it got down to -13C, and today when I started my car it was still -10C. (I don't have the option to park in a garage, btw.) The engine cranked pretty slowly, because the battery was unhappy with the cold, but once the engine caught, it revved to 4000rpm and stayed there for about 15 seconds before slowly revving down to 1500rpm. I never touched the gas pedal, I only held the clutch open. Is this normal, or is there some sensor or something that's getting ready to fail?

 

Normal. The ECU has several alternate post-start profiles based on how cold it's starting, they just aren't commonly seen.

 

Yeah, what he said.

Just give it time for the oil to heat up, then slowly let out the clutch and start heating the transmission oil (or shifting will suck). Give her several minutes to warm up. Then go easy for a bit. The oil coolers are not your friend when it is this cold...

 

Orangeville, Ontario, Canada last nite -37C started up first crank this morning but the tailpipe dripped black water during warm-up. Who needs seafoam? Carbon I guess? Tonite only -20C after this week my 8 will think it's balmy. Will not have my lift till next fall so my 8 sit outside for the worst winter I can remember........ and I'm old!

Wind Chill Last Nite was -48C, I don't think any rotary is suppose to run in these temps.

 

-29°C in Toronto, ON - mine hasn't been enjoying the cold! I knew I had a week coil to begin with but she wouldn't start in the deep, deep cold. $800 later for plugs, wires and 2 new coils she's decided to warm up to me again!

 

Next time change them yourself and save. Oem coils are $240 and you can get other brands from autozone for far cheaper, plugs are about $80 and you can get a set of ngk wires for $25 or oem for around $70. So for all oem you are looking at about $400. If you go with off brand coils, ngk plugs, then the ngk wires(oem basically) you are looking at $220 not including using some of the coupons you can use. Right now autozone has a deal where they send you a $25 gift card for every $100 you spend so you would get $50 back. Changing all of those is very easy and as long as you do 1 plug/wire/coil at a time you don't have to worry about mixing up their positions.

 

my car takes a decent amount of time to heat up and start giving me some heat inside the car. Definately not a newer american car

 

Except we don't have Autozone in Canada! ( and it's -23°C outside which kinda limits working on your car!!!). Normally I order parts online but winter makes us lazy.

 

Cool. I suspected it had something to do with keeping the engine running right after a cold start, but I'd never seen *any* engine idle at nearly half its redline just because it was cold, so I figured I'd better ask.

It didn't do it again when I started the car to go home from work, but we'll see if it does it again in the morning. It's -12C right now.

 

I have to agree, you are old. lol

 

Do you mean that I will need to hold down the clutch for a couple of minutes while I wait for the vehicle to warm up? And then slowly release the clutch to warm up the transmission?

 

I don't see why you should have to. Just leave it in neutral if you have it sitting there warming up.

 

That's what I do. Get in, start it up, leave it in neutral and get back out to brush off the snow. By the time I get back in the first bar is either out or on it's way out.

 

My RX-8 doesn't warm up NEARLY that fast. I can drive a mile to the freeway and the redline will still be at 5000rpm.

 

Anyway, I have a different problem to deal with now; it seems when my battery was replaced last year, the tech mangled the positive battery clamp trying to get it tight enough to not slip. So I get to replace that, and of course that's the clamp that also has the power-steering tap on it, to make things more complicated.

 

When Gravey says "brush off the snow", he is referring to 24+ inches of snow on the 8. That can take a while

Both clamps can disconnect from the terminals that the cables are bolted to, so you only have to replace the clamp end. Means getting the right part, but not complicated to swap.

 

Fair enough about the snow.

The clamp did appear to be removable, but just replacing it doesn't solve the problem that it's slightly too large for the battery terminal.