So in typical fashion; I'm starting this before I've picked up the car. My oldest is about a year away from getting her license so I figured we would get something that she and I can make an actual self motivated automobile out of by then. While it won't be "her" car it will be her car.
We will hit the road at 4:00 am tomorrow heading for N GA to pick up the car and bring it home. I will add pics as we go. She IS excited!
Wow Rx8 as first car! Lucky and congrats!
what colour?
Black, auto.
pictures of when the previous owner; thank you very much HoserRacing, got it
Thank you for saving me from this exact father/son project. Good luck with the car!
In reply to Brett_Murphy (Forum Patrón) :
Ha, it is looking to be a fun one!
Started out at 4 am Saturday morning leaving NW Ohio for the beautiful state of Georgia. Apple Maps had it at 8:15 drive time. Made good time into Kentucky
but not to far past the 75/71 split traffic stopped. We sat for two hours moving about 1 mile in that time.
A semi had run over a car which enveloped all three lanes so we sat. It opened up and we were back on the way, traffic sped up after so cruising 85 made pretty good time.
Saw some cool cars on the road
Then a quick stop in Lexington to empty bladders, tip off gas and get breakfast ( my children are enamored with McDs breakfast) we were back on the road.
A good looking Fox
then jumped off the interstate near Cleveland Tn and rolled back roads in. Saw a car rollover after they missed a curve but with a dolly it isn't the easiest thing in the world to turn around so by the time we got back to it there were four other cars there so we kept rolling.
sorry for the bugs, lots of windshield time but we weren't stopping to wash the truck!
met David at the bottom of his drive, living on a mountain must be fun and he led us up. He had already pulled the car out so we just pulled in backed up and he tugged it on with a tractor. Cinched it up, shook hands and got back on the road. Stopped for lunch and recinched the straps
This is where a groundhog poked his head out and ran away, sorry to displace him so far from home. the nose has been impacted a few times but doesn't look to be damaged
after that we stopped for gas, drinks and food but otherwise cruised home. Averaged 17.1mpg round trip which was pretty dang snazzy pulling a car up and down those hills. Ran it through a car wash to blow the lichen off of it and pulled in the driveway at 11:35.
The car is unknown, the mech that it came to David from had tinkered with it but not been able to start it so we will start to diagnose ASAP. Probably not today have a nieces birthday party and some prep work for work tomorrow. Any rotor heads want to start throwing out ideas I'm not above hearing them. Have read quite a bit about the hard start causes so hoping it's an easy one but not holding my breath.
Too cool!
First, start with a known good, fully charged battery.
Try to crank it, then pull the plugs. If the plugs are wet, take out the bottom ones, leave them out and crank it with the fuel pump fuse disconnected and the throttle pushed all the way to the floor (throttle pushing might not be needed, but what I did with RX-7s). You can add some ATF or engine oil (about a tablespoon) to the lower spark plug holes, hand tighten the plug back in, crank it some more, let it sit for a while to give the ATF or oil time to disperse, pull a plug, crank it, add more oil and repeat. Oh, use a towel or something to catch all of the gas and oil that will be spewing out of the spark plug hole. It can take several cycles if it was really flooded. Google RX8 engine de-flooding procedure for more details, I may have something wrong since I'm going from memory. MANY "no start" cars are just flooded. You might also want to disconnect the cats prior to this. This procedure is rough on cats. Expect billowing clouds of smoke when it finally starts.
Fuel issues are standard, same as any other car.
The coils on the 2004 were known to be crap. 2009 and later coils are better. Having spark isn't the same as having enough spark.
The starter was upgraded to provide more oomph. 2004 stock starters can barely start a healthy car.
Clean the MAF sensor. It can't hurt.
I'll add, do a compression check. It might not tell you Mich with the car sitting for awhile and it being a cold engine. If it has no compression on a rotor or 2 parts of the rotor, that is rebuild time.
If it's flooded, compression numbers will be low, but it should still show something.
Thank you gentlemen, I pulled it off the dolly last night.
I needed the dolly so I can pull the 300d up to the garage tomorrow to start stripping it so I pulled this where I wanted it, hooked it to the CE and drive out from underneath it. Worked pretty well. I won't work on it til weekend probably even though I took today to Monday off, need to strip the w123 and have a ton of stuff with the new house going on so might not have time.
remember that time there was a black rx8 on a dolly there? is your wife having flashbacks?
Patrick (Forum Supporter) said:remember that time there was a black rx8 on a dolly there? is your wife having flashbacks?
Un poquito! She was ok with yours so that's why I jumped on this one. She has weird prejudices against certain cars that "look" like something a certain person would own; like say, my brother lol.
And just noticed I must have drug the front splitter off of it somewhere between GA and here. Whoops. Gonna need one of those at some point
The joys of towing. "I swear it was there when we left" or "what was that?" "I don't know keep driving"
Someone was probably surprised to come across that on the interstate
I went out this afternoon and reassembled the engine compartment and threw a new battery in. Then I cranked it over just to see and it sounded like it wanted to start.... then it did!
so not real sure what the deal is, I ran it up for a bit just to check everything out; the intake boot is ripped, the three plastic elbow that are supposed to be installed are not so the vacuum lines are just waving in the air, the air box is broken (I think a gorilla who had never seen clips took it apart). The plugs appear new, the coil packs appear new. I still want to check compression just to see where we are but I was giggling a bit when it fired up and sounded dang good!
Nice! That's kinda what happened to me. Reattach some things and see what it sounds like cranking and it started on the who knows how old gas
Maybe a flooded engine cleared with time sitting? Now I'm off to search for no start RX8s.
I'm totally following on this one. I've never owned a rotary but want to!
In reply to chandler :
Too cool! Can't believe it started so easily after sitting out there a year! Glad to hear it, can't wait to see the progress y'all make on it!
And look what just popped up on the side bar today : https://grassrootsmotorsports.com/articles/tech-tips-mazda-rx-8/
It came up in my searches when we first talked about it, it appears the starter for the auto is the same all the way through?
I ordered some parts from a wrecked car in Illinois, air box, intake boot and maf since the ones on the car are all jacked. I did drive it around the yard with my daughter and it doesn't want to idle in gear but with all those vacuum issues that isn't surprising at all.
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