>>13737518Ignore the haters. It's a good GT car - the only real ding against DD'ing is a horrific fuel economy in traffic. If you can live with that it's perfectly cromulent.
Just be aware of a few things:
1: Early (Pre-06 especially) RX-8's left the factory flashed to use too little oil injection under low load, like cruising. It still uses very little at motorway speeds, but these used none at all. Which meant a fairly rapid death for the engine. The Oil injectors woud clog with carbon and when they did, even a PCM reflash didn't solve the problem because the whole system was basically clogged. Which is why a lot of owners took to premixing 2-stroke into the fuel. It's good practice and it burns well.
2: They have weak ignition coils. Because so many people moaned about the price of RX-7 coils. They go bang after about 30,000k. If it's a leading coil, you'll know. If it's a trailing coil, the first warning you'll have is a dead catalyst. Or dead engine if you don't rev it too hard. A lot of early cars with solid engines were given replacements of the whole shortblock as a panacea, when the actual problem was simply ignition. Fitting D585 coils with a dwell remap is the single most effective modification you can make to one of these cars.
3: Mazda remanufactured engines are shit, put together by monkeys. Which is why so many cars are on engine 2 or 3..... the reman's died hard and fast. And were expensive. Most sensible owners looking for an engine rebuild go to a specialist.
4: Engine rebuilds here normally go for around 3,000. Compared to double that for a Scooby WRX, or any other performance car. A good rebuild will last for an age.
5: The real weakness in these engines is the stationary gear bearings - the oil pressure at idle is very low. A failed bearing can behave a lot like a loss of compression as the rotor bangs around the chamber, tearing shit up as it goes. Switching to 10W40 mineral oil supposedly prevents this. .
