Thanks, keep driving and having fun. I have driven over a million rotary miles since 1973, total street and track ,in seven rotary Mazdas and loved every one. Back when I lived in Queens, NYC and then on Long Island it was my RX4 and my first gen RX7 that were my daily drivers. Still driving my 2008 40th Anniversary Edition RX8 . Bought new back in 2008, it was my daily driver at one time for several years, along with my 2008 Mazdaspeed3 GT. But now my modified and upgraded 2008 40th Anniversary Edition RX8 is my weekend and fun time driver, and is insured as a classic car for $50K. I drive my 2000 Mazda Protege' ES (bought new back in 2000) and 2008 Chrysler Minivan as my daily drivers. Cheers and best to you.
Another fellow 40th anniversary rx8 owner eyyyyy. I lucked out and was able to find the full mazdaspeed kit (genuine) and my word it turns heads and I am the original owner and my word...the grin on my face when I drive it is still there.
@@ericdong5292 a huge list including Mazdaspeed CAI; KoyoRad radiator upgrade with low temp thermostats, Racing Beat coolant hoses; low temp oil cooler thermostats from Rotary Performance; RX8 series two fuel pump upgrade; upgraded starter, upgraded water pump; BHR higher performance ignition coils and wires; BHR strengthened clutch pedal assembly; Petit Racing closed coolant system upgrade; performance cat with mid pipe from Rotary Performance; new clutch; Mazda Reman Renesis Engine (under warranty); Sirius/XM satellite Radio; Continental Extreme Contact DSW 06+ High Performance All-Season tires; Ceramic Pro 9H ceramic coating, plus all the extra stuff you get with the 40th Anniversary Edition and more. Cheers
I know this is 8 months old video, but you seem so excited and genuinely happy about your car and that in itself made me happy. Even when things seem kind of bad in life, the lows and highs, you and your car and your journey in life means a lot. When you share yourself it's a pure and good thing.
He’s seriously not kidding about the gas, i have quite literally watched my 2014 RX8 swallow an 1/8 of a tank just from maxing out the rpms on each gear once a week on the interstate to clean out my engine from build up. I owned a Chevy 454 and I literally went through less gas in the truck.
Gratz on your 2 years, I just got 8 years on mine, and boy has it been a journey... you DEFINITELY lucked out with yours, I bought the lime amongst the lemons LOL... one extra thing you can do to your RX8 is get an oil catch can; will help in case of oil burps; as for running regular instead of premium, will it work? yes... will it damage the motor? yes... unless you like driving around like a granny and not pass 3k RPM, because the higher the RPM, the more it will tik-tik-boom if you run regular gas. You're on the good path to keeping the motor alive for a lot of miles, considering how few miles you have on it, and already doing all the major things to try to keep it running, it should serve you well. There's still a handful of things you can do to improve it (fuel pump mod, headers, braided brake lines and higher DOT fluid, etc.) before going into other heavy mods. One thing I can say for certain is sway bars are cheap, and they made a HUGE difference on my RX8... I'm at the limit of my tire width, I really need to get away from the 225's, but wheels are expensive and I don't want to cheap out. Keep an eye out on the brake calipers too, those tend to seize and they don't make them new anymore, you'd have to get remanufactured ones. Last I checked Powerstop still sold some, unless you plan on getting a different brake kit (Wilwood, Brembo, Ceika)
I bought my RX-8 in 2004, drove it to 80,000 miles, after 10 years. I never had any major issues! I warmed the car up for 5 minutes every time I drove the car.
I have had my RX-8 for 5 years now the only things that have died on it was 2 batteries 1 alternator 1stater motor and 1 cooling fan motor the first 3 year it lived as a bone stock car on year 4 i decided to go ahead and refresh everything and now is a Renesis Hybrid (RX-8 everything besides housings those get swapped how RX-7 85 ones) after the rebuilt and Fully balanced and Bridgeport engine i have put 10k milles on it upgraded coils to ls3 ones and mishimoto radiator 0 issues and no overheating on heavy traffic so I'll say that's as reliable as a car can get.
Are you running the hybrid NA? im currently in the progress of figuring out my own hybrid NA build, any numbers on gained HP etc after swapping to it? Things to look out for etc?
@@sirhamsteralot3977 I'm running it N/A, the car is on a Reflash tune so the gains aren't as good as if you swap the ECU i was told by my tuner that i gained about 30HP but i have a AEM fuel pump, K/N filter (on original box) you can actually lose power if you use a cheap pot filter i have a custom manifold that you either have to buy a pre-build one or modify the original one to fit the hybrid setup so i went ahead and got the whole exhaust system done to 2 1/2 inch with 1 resonator otherwise you'll hate the car at highway speeds. Thing's to look out for you'll have to also buy the oil injectors for the housing or block them and run a Sohn Adapter i personally bought then and pre-mix 1oz per gallon of fuel. If you have anything expecific you like to know reply.
@@Chavez96PR Thank you! are you running the exhaust manifold with the original exhaust ports plated off? or do you have all the original ports + the new peripheral ones flowing? I have seen both variations and am personally planning to go with all open because NA. The plan is indeed aftermarket exhaust first w/o a cat to improve flow and then an aftermarket cold air intake to improve it on that side. Did you end up raising the rev limiter any? or are you still on the stock 9k rpm? (assuming you were using the 6 port). I probably have more questions but ill keep it somewhat short ish for now :)
@@sirhamsteralot3977 I'm running the exhaust manifold with the original exhaust ports plated off with Studding & Dowel Pinning, rotors are balanced and gaped to run RX-7 apex seals the engine if left N/A could technically rev to 10K but I haven't re-tuned after break-in since the plan was to get a adaptronic ECU and a turbo and start running E85 but is good enough for me as is since I'm still daily driving it (work is just 5KM away).
This is especially true in the colder weather, think 0F, but just because your coolant is up to temp doesn't mean your oil is up to temp. My truck has both sensors integrated and when the coolant gets up to temp, but the oil temp is not even close to its normal levels.
Have owed 3 RX-8 and never had a engine issue. Used revision C coils, premixed, changed the oil every 3K with full syn oil, 93 octane. Can get 22 to 23 on the highway and 17 mpg in town. Never flooded one, never had a check engine light come on.
@Rxjeikun yup it's so good! I got grand touring has thicker soft top and put kilmat sound deadening everywhere. Makes it better on freeway that with the good bose sound system. If you wanna drive top down year round can for most part a/c and heat are very strong
I never had any problems with my rx8, (well, I bought it with a busted electric steering rack but after I fixed that) I installed a sohn adapter and used rotory premix with it. Trouble free for like three years.
Man I love these cars. The BIGGEST thing I think you can do for this car, or rotaries in general is go e85. Burns cooler, cleaner, and when this car already gets horrible MPGs, who cares about the loss? The cost difference might offset it. Some more power is a good bonus. The number one killer of the internals, is carbon build up. And because the car burns oil by design, and redlining it will only get rid of so much carbon over time, e85 will clean it, lube it, better emissions, and it wont produce carbon in the irons. People say it's corrosive, but that's because its hydroscopic, like break fluid, it absorbs water. So you won't want to store the car with a tank of e85, or have it sit for very long. You will HAVE to drive it, and use the fuel, and occasionally use a tank or two of normal gasoline if you're not going to drive the car very often for a period of time, plus gasoline is a great detergent. So running like 70-80% of the time on e85 and then having a few gasoline only tanks here and there, I think, would really really help these cars. I regret selling mine, but I ran that ratio, and of course you still need a proper pre mix routine, and it was fantastic. 50k ish miles, and only problems were electrical, or due to my own negligence and/or laziness
I have a 2005 RX8 as my summer/fun car. They are enjoyable, not going to lie I’ve had rotaries before (a couple FB rx7’s) but I have the intentions of putting a LS3 engine in my car when the engine fails. It will get around the same mileage and twice the power.
I'm an FC owner but it's been down for years and I miss driving it so much. Long story short, blew motor, rebuilt motor myself, and can't seem to get it to spark. So here we are today, I'm looking at swapping an Rx8 engine into my FC. I myself personally don't like how funny the Rx8 looks but it's slowly growing onto me.
If failing to start press gas pedal 5x then clutch 1x does magic at starting hard to start engine do all this while engine is off and key out ignition did it today was broken down outside a electrical tv shop very nice employees gave me this tip
Is the oil injection pump functionality monitored via OBD? If not, what regular checks does Mazda or the RX-8 community recommend to ensure the pump does not fail?
It is, if I recall correctly, you'll get a flashing CEL for failing omp. Can also check your oil level if you have stock omp, cause it should be consuming your crankcase oil
Hey man! I’m buying an rx8 very soon and was wondering where you got your SOHN adapter kit as it will be one of my first mods. Having trouble finding one. Would appreciate the help!
I did the conversion of Dollars to Pounds and Gallons to Litres. As that's what we use in the UK.. you got 55 litres for £41 😅 that's mega cheap. That would cost us £85 in the UK with our prices. Think you might be overestimating your fuel costs there bud 😅
I remember daily driving an '06 RX8, think it was the 192bhp version, around 10 years ago. Back then it killed my wallet I drove 100 miles a week to work and back and I had to fill up a tank every week. Definitely not one for us Brits.
Hey man I’m new to the channel and I have been watching your videos about the rx8 and I’ve been wanting to get one for my first car I actually found one on OfferUp for like 3k it has 100k miles and he says the only problem with it is that smog comes out should I go for it or not😭
Well 60 or $70 a day on gas doesn't seem unreasonable in a city where a small apartment cost $4,500 a month. I mean you've got to be making at least $250,000 to be living in New York City in the first place.
I’m curious as to if my rx8 is burning more idemitsu than others. Could you please let me know how long it takes you to burn half the sohn tank capacity?
Thinking about getting an automatic 2004 rx8 for 4.2k. it has a lil over 100k miles and has a vacuum leak. Is it worth it? Its the only rx8 i can find with a max 5k budget
I actually had a shop do lol Generally not very hard tho, especially not for the coolant one, you do have to cut a hose and plug in an adapter to run the sensor but that's about it. I wouldve done it myself but car was already in the shop for a coolant leak 😅
So the omp by default, pumps your crankcase oil into the combustion chamber to lubricate the apex seals, the sohn adaptor reroutes where the omp draws the oil so you can use clean 2stroke oil instead of the dirty crankcase oil, you'd also wouldn't have to worry about burning crankcase oil anymore since you have a separate reservoir of 2stroke for the omp. (You'd also wouldn't have to worry about using synthetic oil anymore cause it's not being burned) The sohn doesn't change the fact that the omp isn't sufficient enough on its own to lubricate the apex seals, just where it's drawing oil from. So you'd still have to premix to ensure your apex seals are getting that extra lubrication. You COULD also just delete the omp all together and premix at a higher concentration, that'd work too, but you'd better make sure you have a bottle of premix every single fill up or engine go boom
Hey man i'm yet to get a temp gauge installed and am generally pretty pad antic about pushing it before its warm but, i was wondering how many minutes it takes for your rx8 to warm up enough to push it hard, cheers from New Zealand, braaap
Honestly haven't been counting the minutes but right now in the winter, it's taking about 10-15ish minutes before the coolant past thermostat reaches full operating temp for me. I just keep it under 3k until it's fully warmed (Sometimes I get to work right as it's done warming up, which suck 🙄)
Ahh awesome thank you dude :) that gives me a rough enough idea as to how long i should wait, i usually leave it for 5 minutes before i even move it 🤣 Bugger, its definitely not fun when you have to move it for parking or something cause ideally you wanna run it for that long Appreciate you
One thing to consider as well is that even when the coolant temperature has reached operating levels, the oil temperature might still be too cold to push the engine hard. There is no oil temp gauge or sensor in the stock rx8 so you'd have to install a gauge kit. I've been looking at getting one and they are pretty pricey lol. I usually just let the coolant temp get to 180F(checking with an obd2 scanner) and then start driving. That usually takes 7-10 minutes. I then drive it normally for another 5ish minutes to let the oil further warm up, 10 if it's cold out. Then I pretty much accelerate full throttle every other turn lol.
It all depends on your journey I guess, but as someone else mentioned, the coolant may get up to temp but the oil takes a bit longer, ideally you want to hold off driving hard until the oil is up to temp . I fitted a Mishimoto oil sandwich plate where the oil filter goes, and a cheap-ish oil temp gauge that I fitted in one of the cabin air vents, it came with the oil temp sender, and that fits straight into the sandwich plate 👍
Also.... It's probably best to just start & drive the car straight away,oil pressure is pretty low at idle, so it's actually better to just drive rather than letting it sit idling whilst it warms up.
Theres still a few I have saved on marketplace 😂 But that's true, that's why I'd highly recommend anyone buying them to compression test first. Takes a lot of the fear away
This guy talks about how the bad reviews are wrong and it starts perfectly hot and cold and has no rotary and compresion Problems but the car only has 38 tausend miles on it.... Ira litteraly a new car man. The problems start at 65 tausend miles. Your only half way there. You got a new thing. Of course it works fine. Its like saying "i sont know why everybody is saying taht the old iPhones Work slower and the battery dies extremly fast on it. Idk what they mean my iphone 13 works totally fine" of course it does Because its still new. People talk About iPhone 10s and 11s
some times healthy warm start depends on the starter motor. mine have serious problems and in mazda test another oem starter and work bad aswell, and charge me 100€ for the test. stpd mfs. i just bring the car home and purchase a higer power starter and never had any more problems. mazda house suck for rx8. ony 1 guy knows about rotaris and also flood my car and i have to be 1h deflooding it there to be able to go home. i got a 15min diagnosis and them take 2h of work. shame mechanics
Yea most mechanics even at the mazda dealers nowadays don't know much about the rotary engines. Gotta do your own research, but for sure starter and ignition plays a big part of hot starts too
It would be better if you rew swap it, more power from the same engine and better response. RX8's by themselves are worthless with how bad the engine is, the fact that it's less reliable than the rew tells you all you need to know.
That's definitely on the table when the time comes. But I do have plans on getting a FD in the near future. Low boost renesis would be fun too, lots of examples of them around 250-300 reliably. Would be the easier route and street legal, not as cool as a rew swap tho 😂
What’s the point of the premix in the gas tank in addition to the sohn adapter? I thought the point of the adapter was to make it so you don’t have to premix 2 stroke oil in the gas
The adapter is just replacing thr source of the oil for the stock omp, from crankcase oil to a clean 2stroke. It doesn't make it so it inject any more oil than stock, which why premix is required. Alternatively, you could get rid of the omp system entirely, and only premix 1oz per gallon
The oil injectors are located in specific parts of the rotor housing and inevitably end up lubricating some spots more than others, as evidenced by the wear pattern seen in a lot of renesis engine teardowns. It's worse in the series 1 because it only has 2 oil injectors compared to the 3 in the series 2, which leaves it with even less coverage of the housing surface. Premixing ensures that the rotor housing will be coated in oil and protected from wear because the fuel itself is lubricating the housings. You can definitely premix too much though, especially if you don't drive the car at really high rpm regularly to burn off all of that oil before it forms carbon deposits everywhere.
@Rxjeikun versatuner can adjust your omp. Log how your cars are running, tune it, or have someone remote tune it based off logs. Also good to premix Just in case ompissues pop-up.
I've really been wanting a 2004 Mazda RX8 we had in 2014 before my sister was born, it really got me into loving cars more and my dad flooded it cause he wouldn't let it warm up and so my grandpa taught me to work on that for my first car to work on and I fell in love with it. This was so nice seeing that actually caring for the car and just doing normal maintenance shows its a GOOD CAR! I want one so badddd
I wonder if the gas mileage also has something to do with extreme stop and go in New York. I dont know much about RX8s. Watching your videos is a great insight on RX8s. I own a Mazda 3. No near compared to owning an RX8. Other then some non car people getting my car mixed up up with the RX8.
I am someone who has an 8 for my daily and a FD for my weekender. It’s my second rx8 (regretted trading my original rx8 for less fun daily’s, including a Miata) and I’m just starting to modify it from bone stock. If you’re ever in central tx and want to drive a tuned FD lmk. Rx8 makes a good daily for a gearhead but yeah if you’re putting a lot of miles on it maybe not.
I had an NB2 but I’ve driven every generation, had the experience to drive an ND on track + NC autoX. I think the ND2 is within spitting distance performance wise compared to the RX8. Better Mpg, more reliable, yet less special. You’ll feel it, and maybe only after you sell your 8 will you really miss it like I did. I really appreciate that rx8 ownership kinda forces you know what’s going on with it. Rotary ownership can feel like a curse but it’s more of a blessing IMO to be mechanically in sync with your car. I don’t think the ND prices are worth it for what they are, comparing to other used cars, but I guess they’re starting to drop. Rx8 daily + FD weekender is the right move. The sensible choice with cars isn’t always the right one. ND is better than the rx8 on paper, maybe smarter than an rx7 FD on paper, but not as good as either because it will never have the special sauce.
bro is living my child dream, Iam a 96kid and I always wanted a Miata, but as I got older, miata gets rare, and more and more expensive. Now it costs my 1year salary .. and we all know the costs of buy is just a "entry free" :D .. So now iam saving for RX8 now knowing if making my dream come tru (sort of, still rx 8 aint miata.. 😪 ) I hope i have a lot of fun for all of people like me and i hope ur miata is still happy smiling :D
I have dailied an Rx8 multiple times, but living in the UK means fuel costs are sky high. Mine has a prototype engine that can run over 30mpg. Hopefully the upgrades ony engine should hit the market this year.
@@dylansnively5516 Modded the housings, my own design. Built the first one in 2020 during the lockdowns, then tested it in several cars. Could get even better MPG but I'm still using the factory ECU and they run very rich. Will probably remap the next one.
