The headlight is working again. After taking off the front bumper and removing the driver’s side headlight, I had to completely disassemble the headlight itself to change out the ballast. The ballast itself was accessible via a panel on the bottom of the headlight, but the part which plugged in to the bulb wouldn’t fit between the reflector and the body of the headlight. I needed to remove the lens off the front, which was mainly secured by silicone sealant.

No more power steering again. must be a loose connection of some sort. Sounds like soldering is required.

The power steering started working again today!

Power steering quit today. The steering warning light on the dash came on.

Going down the onramp onto US60, I was getting on it … hit redline in first gear, shifted to second, continued at full throttle. Power dipped, the check engine light started flashing! I let off the throttle, and the check engine light stopped flashing. Seems to be running fine now; probably a misfire. It’s time to replace the spark plugs anyway …

After leaving the Phoenix International Auto Show, the RX-8 wouldn’t start! We went and had lunch, then bought jumper cables. When we went to hook up the jumper cables, we realized the negative battery cable was loose! I didn’t do a good job re-tightening it after trying to fix the headlight. I returned the jumper cables. I’d like to buy a trickle charger someday.

The driver’s side headlight stopped working. Oddly, for a brief time it worked sometimes but not others. Without stopping to think, I ordered new headlight bulbs. Once they arrived, I removed the driver’s side wheelwell and reached in to change the bulb. [caption id=“attachment_19298” align=“alignnone” width=“224” caption=“reaching in through the wheelwell”][/caption] [caption id=“attachment_19299” align=“alignnone” width=“224” caption=“I disconnected the battery before starting this.”][/caption] [caption id=“attachment_19300” align=“alignnone” width=“224” caption=“Behind the warning panel: The plug with the NASA-looking cable is connected to the now-infamous ballast”][/caption]

Bought a wheel on ebay to replace the wheel I hit with a curb. I also ordered some new Dunlop Direzza Sport Z1 tires yesterday. The current wheel looks bad but is still functional, so I intend to keep it, with the tire on it, as a spare. hopefully I can get a large wheel bag to put it in and keep it in the utility room, out of the heat, so it won’t get dry-rotted.

Last Thursday I was getting on the highway, accelerating gently up the onramp, w hen I heard a loud “Pop!”. Then the car had no power and the tach started slowly sliding lower and lower. The battery light flashed once. Then the check engine light came on and stayed on. By this time I had coasted to the shoulder. Turns out I had lost at least one apex seal in rotor #2.

Now it’s happily back in the much-roomier garage. the rest of the stuff in the garage will be going soon.

bought an extra set of wheels with factory bridgestone potenza RE040s. can’t decide if I just got some tires for cheap for the street, want to put race tires on the extra wheels, or if I should re-sell them and just get some nice tires to use for both street and autocross. I ended up selling the wheels and tires individually on ebay for a tidy profit, and using the proceeds to buy some Dunlop Direzza Sport Z1 tires.

Replaced the gas cap. the seal wears out after a while and starts causing the check engine light to come on. It was only $16 online from the sponsors of rx8club.com

Got some Michelin Pilot tires installed for autocross

Installed an Audio Link in my car. this adds an ipod dock connector in my glove compartment. It keeps the ipod charged, and also pipes the music through the cd change connector on the back of my head unit. The car thinks the ipod is a cd changer! (which has cd with thousands of songs on them) the steering wheel controls will change tracks, and the head unit itself can select between the first 5 playlists on the ipod, as well as fast forward and rewind within a song.

had a persistent leak of some sort. Turns out it was the transmission input seal (took two trips to the dealer to diagnose it though). seal replaced under warranty.

My car passed the dreaded engine recall check; just got a PCM flash and the leading spark plugs replaced. since I had just replaced them recently, I complained, and they gave me two brand-new leading spark plugs for free!

Replaced all four spark plugs myself. got a 12” ratchet extension for this job, as well a 5⁄8” spark plug socket and some anti-seize. Simplest way to do it is take off the driver’s side front wheel. Best known price for the RX-8 spark plugs Thread about changing the spark plugs

I put 32,111 miles on the tires which shipped with the car from the factory. They were Bridgestone Potenza A030s, the size was P225/45ZR18. These tires seemed to be too small for the wheels. The new tires are Kumho Ecsta SPTs, in size 245/40ZR18. These seem to fit much nicer, and look much better, plus I get an extra 20mm or so of tread width! The old tires had a treadwear rating of 140, the new ones have a treadwear rating of 320!

I just changed my oil myself. this was my 8’s third oil change. the first two were performed by dealerships (1st by the dealership I bought it from, second by a highly recommended dealership). I didn’t jack the car up at all. the crush washer I removed from the oil drain plug had been painted black! it must have been the factory crush washer. so two different dealerships must not have bothered to replace it.

Right after a wash and wax

Pictures of the engine.

Drove up to canyon lake, took a few pictures.

The stock tire seems to be too narrow for the stock wheel. The stock tires are Bridgestone Potenza A030 at P225/45ZR18. Once they are worn out, I plan to go to P245/40R18.

Met up with Rotary Car Club of Arizona at the Pavillions Car Show

Got to the gas station within a few miles of the low fuel light coming on. The gas guage was not quite to the empty mark. 13.519 gallons were required to fill up. That means when the low fuel light comes on, there is about 2.4 gallons left in the tank.

First autocross [caption id=“attachment_29” align=“alignnone” width=“300” caption=“At the line”][/caption] [caption id=“attachment_33” align=“alignnone” width=“300” caption=“Lean to the left”][/caption] [caption id=“attachment_38” align=“alignnone” width=“300” caption=“Looking ahead”][/caption]

Re-wired the foglights so they can be turned on as long as the accessory is on and wired in the Valentine 1

Got the car on the SCCA corner scales. The gas guage was two ticks above the 1⁄2 mark. My best estimate, taking into account the amount of reserve fuel still in the tank after hitting the empty mark (2.5 gallons) is that I had about 10.3 gallons of gas in the tank. (it’s a 15.9 gallon tank). I took everything out of the car, including the floormats, but left in the factory-supplied air compressor (the corner of the car where the air compressor sits was still the lightest!

Picked up the car, blew off work and went driving for the day.