White deposit on dipstick
November 28, 2008
A white foamy deposit on the dipstick is normal at times and is said to be due to condensation. It needs no action. It should not, however, be present on the oil filler cap.
How to install JDM Clear Corners
November 27, 2008
Comparison between the front of the Mazda and JDM parts.
Comparison between the rear of the Mazda and JDM parts.
The set I got (off eBay) came with a set of blue lights.
To get access to the corners, you need to remove the 4 fasteners shown here (you are looking up into the wheel well from the floor). Insert a phillips screwdriver and turn 1/4 turn to pop out the caps, then give them a good tug. The actual markers have a single screw and a tab (see earlier picture) to release the rear edge. The front is just slid in a slot and pulls right out.
One difference between the markers is that the JDMs have a bulge that sticks out a bit, where the Mazda ones are flush.
This is a time-lapse shot using the stock bulbs.
This is a time-lapse shot using the blue bulbs
Article from : www.gerhardstein.net
RX8 tech tips: starting, driving and stopping
November 24, 2008
Quick tips - DRIVING THE RX8 - OIL TIPS
Quick tips - STARTING AND STOPPING a RX8 - Tires Pressures - DSC tips
RX-8 heated mirrors
November 21, 2008
Parts are relatively inexpensive for this job. Parts that may be necessary are:
FE02-69-1G7 LT. HEATED MIRROR GLASS AND HOLDER $24
FE02-69-1G1 RT. HEATED MIRROR GLASS AND HOLDER $25
FE02-7-190B LT. DOOR HARNESS $133
FE02-67-200A RT. DOOR HARNESS $116
(Prices are from Mazda South). The only items I purchased were the heated mirrors for the driver and passenger sides, and decided to fabricate my own wiring harnesses. Harnesses from the doors to the mirror are not available without replacing the entire mirror housing, which is prohibitively expensive. If you fabricate your own wiring harness, make sure to use at least 20 gauge wire to support the 10 amps that the mirror heaters are fused for.
DISCLAIMER: I do not work for Mazda. The stuff you will see below is not Mazda-approved and will most likely lead to voiding parts of your warranty, and may lead to damage to your automobile, including but not limited to turning it into a smoldering wreck if you mess something up like the wiring. My RX-8 may be significantly different than yours and hence the stuff below may lead you to a different outcome than I arrived at. Please do not attempt the stuff below unless you are confident in what you are doing, as I am sure to have accidentally left out many details necessary for proper completion of this job. Please consult the Mazda Wiring Manual and Mazda Service Manual for your car for more information.
Heated Mirrors
My RX-8 had a good portion of the heated mirror wiring in place, including the necesary fuse in the fuse box, and all chassis and passenger door wiring.
Compairson of the non-heated (top) and heated (bottom) mirrors. On the bottom mirror you can see the wire traces similar to a rear-window defroster. This is the heating element for the mirror. The white goop on the back of the top mirror is a lubricant of some sort that was factory installed. I transfered as much as I could to the new mirrors. Note the two white “blobs” on the right side of the heated mirror with the metal tabs sticking out. These are the connection points for power.
Factory shop manual drawing showing a simple schematic of the wiring for the mirror heater (left) and the connector in the door that the motors for the power mirrors (B, D & F) and heaters for the heated mirrors (A & G) attach to. This harness runs from the door into the mirror housing. Unless you have heated mirrors, you probably only have the power mirror wires (B, D & F) in your door-to-mirror-housing harness.
Passenger Side
The passenger side for my car was relatively straight forward. Power for the heated mirrors was pulled all the way through the car and through the passenger door. All I needed to do was install the heated mirror glass and make a short wiring harness from the glass to the appropriate wiring harness in the door.
I first removed the old mirror glass by carefully pushing the inner edge into the housing as far as it will go, then pulling the outer edge carefully to “pop” the mirror off the three posts in the housing. After removing the glass, the mirror housings are relatively easy to remove. After removing the door’s interior panel, you will find 3 black screws behind the tweeter. After removing these screws, the mirror housing will still hang in place on the door, as it is held in place with a plastic tab toward the upper corner of the housing. I broke the tabs on both the driver and passenger sides trying to figure out how to remove them, so you are on your own here. I was able to glue the tabs back on, but there is no way for me to know whether they are doing their job (which appeared to be only to hold the mirror housings in place during assembly).
After removing the mirror housing, it is relatively easy to snake two pieces of wire through the housing following the same path as the power mirror wires.
This is a picture of the mirror housing back on the passenger door. The black and red wires I pulled through for the mirror heater are visible, with pink quick-crimps on the ends which will attach to the metal tabs on the mirror.
This picture shows the interior of the passenger door. The new black and red wires coming through the door were crimped to pins and inserted into the factory power-mirror harness connector (white rectangular box just below center). See the earlier schematic of the pin-outs on for this connector. My car already had power up to this point.
Driver Side
The driver side was a bit more of a challenge. When I decided to try this, I only checked the passenger door to see how much work it would be, and assumed the driver door would be similar. In my case, the driver door did not have any of the heated mirror wiring, so I needed to pull the wiring from the chassis into the door, which added a few hours to the job. The physical mirror installation is the same as the passenger door, so I will only show the additional work for the wiring harness in the driver door.
This picture shows the driver door wiring harness between the door and the chassis. The white and blue connector (to the right of and above center) is the connection point for the door harness to the chassis harness. This confused me for quite a while, as I could see the proper wire running from the fuse box toward the driver door, but it never came out in the driver door. Turns out the power was only run to the chassis side of this connector and not into the door.
Close up of the connector between the door and the chassis. The trick here to separate the connector is to pull the blue part toward the interior of the car at the top, which will release the connector.
This is the back of the door-side of the connector. The red arrow shows where I added a wire to bring the power from the chassis-side connector into the door.
Red circle shows the tab I added in the connector for the power. I used a Molex-style contact. It was not exactly the same as what Mazda used, but was close enough to work in the connector.
For ground/common, I attached to the black wire in the power window harness using a quick-splice.
This is the driver door after surgery. As with the passenger door, I used Mazda’s connectors to relay power through to the mirror.
Testing
It took a couple of days before we had another good frost for me to test the mirrors. They are actuated by turning on the rear window defroster. The mirror became warm to the touch, so you should be able to test your mirrors just by touching them instead of waiting around for a frost.
Installing night lights : RX8 foot lamps
November 21, 2008
The first modification came less than a month after signing the paperwork for the car. I hadn’t even made the first payment yet. This mod was to add the Mazda Night Lights (Foot Lamps) (Mazda part number F151 V7 050). Total install time was about 2 hours, including disassembly and reassembly of the car. If I were to do it again, I could probably do it in less than an hour (much of the time was spent learning how to take the car apart). Over all, the instructions included with the kit were quite good. My only complaint was that it was not obvious where they recommended installing the driver’s-side light.
Electrical harness attachment. This picture was taken from the driver’s side floor looking toward the outside of the car (the edge of the body can be seen in the upper left of the picture). The two large rectangular black plastic pieces on the left are the fuse boxes. The electrical install included two 3M in-line splices (wrapped in black electrical tape, just below and left of center), an in-line fuse holder (white cylinder lower center) and a timer (grey box just above fuse holder). The fuse holder, timer and the excess wiring harness are wire-tied to the main wiring harnesses in this area.
Driver’s side lamp install. This picture was taken from about the same location as the above one, but with the camera tilted up at about a 75-degree angle looking up under the dash (the bright white on the left side of the picture is sunlight coming in the open door). The Night Light is the red/yellow illuminated piece below and left of center. The lamp is attached with two-sided tape. For orientation, the handles above and left of the lamp are the trunk release and hood release. This was as close to the recommended posistion I could get it. If I did it again, I would suggest maybe moving it down a bit so it is not so blocked by the trunk release.
Wiring harness running across the driver’s floorboard, over the hump to the passenger side. Black foam tape was included with the kit.
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Passenger’s side lamp install. The long rectangular grey plasic piece in the center is what the glove box is attached to, and the large white toroidal piece is the blower motor/fan. This picture was taken from the floor in front of the passenger’s seat looking up slightly. Lamp is barely visible, being attached to the back side of the glove box support and just peeking under the lower edge.
6-second time-lapsed picture of the driver’s side after install. Moving the lamp down further (as noted above) would probably increase the amount of illumination in the footwell.
6-second time-lapsed picture of the passenger’s side after install.
Article from www.gerhardstein.net
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