Coolant loss on FD - noticed on car viewed today

[Adriansturgess]

Uhmm... Starting to sound more promising. Hope the coolant pressure check shows everthing OK. If you can get a bit more reassurance on that then sounds like it could be worth taking the gamble.

It always used to be a real no-no taking an RX7 to a mazda main dealer.   :Nono!   I guess the RX-8 has obliged them to get a little more familiar with things rotary and they should surely be capable of this kind of work, but I would still be cautious and goto a rotary specialist for more seious stuff!

[lockwood77]

Uhmm... Starting to sound more promising. Hope the coolant pressure check shows everthing OK. If you can get a bit more reassurance on that then sounds like it could be worth taking the gamble.

It always used to be a real no-no taking an RX7 to a mazda main dealer.   :Nono!   I guess the RX-8 has obliged them to get a little more familiar with things rotary and they should surely be capable of this kind of work, but I would still be cautious and goto a rotary specialist for more seious stuff!

Agreed! Wouldn\'t dream of letting them do any actual work on the car, but as you say, you\'d think a compression test is no longer beyond them with plenty of RX-8s about (crosses fingers...)

Any half-decent garage should be able to do the pressure check (my old man was regailing me with a tale of his home-made radiator-cap-with-valve contraption he used to use for radiator system checks!) - the key is to see if the leak can be located (hopefully in a simple to get to, cheap to fix place!)  If the pressure drops but no coolant hits the floor, the message would be quite dark... (Tell me if I\'m wrong!)

[Martiny]

Its is sounding a bit more promising. I hope they find an external leak !  To top once every 3 weeks is not all that bad, either.

[lockwood77]

Well, the car is booked in at Pip\'s next Tuesday morning for compression and coolant checks, which I\'ve said I\'ll pay for. :Thumbs-up

Jamie is being a real star about it all, bless \'im. Really happy about this, will likely give Pip a bell and see how much extra it\'ll cost me for him to have a look over it in totality.

Hopefully it\'ll be a simply sorted leak, the comp test will be heading for even 7s and I\'ll be well on the way to FD fun!

[Adriansturgess]

Here\'s hoping.  :cool

[Joeh]

the plastic screw in the bottom of the rad was the reason for my coolant loss may be worth checking

How can I fix this, mine is the same, are there replacement ones?

[alexb]

Your mazda dealership should be able to get them no problem, mine (Wrights) has got me several bits over the years, rad cap, ast cap, coolant level sensor etc. Or try Jimmy\'s for a 2nd hand one if you like.

[m4drx]

really curious to know what happened with this......

any luck fella

[lockwood77]

Well, it turned out it was a leaking hose I think - however, I\'d decided not to jump in by then and bought a DC5 Integra Type-R instead.

I may be back soon however, as my 30th is looming and a man of that age needs a suitable toy...

[m4drx]

how is the integra?

[lockwood77]

Awesome for a front drive car!

243bhp from the mods, fast road setup and a few little extras make it very nice indeed - just passed its MOT today and a lovely 90 miles back from System-R at Warrington.

Spec: http://www.itr-dc5.com/gallery/showprofile.php?uid=450
Pics: http://www.itr-dc5.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6581 (from the guy I bought it off).

I had two DC2s over five years before, so I pretty much knew what I was getting! The DC5 is a bit bigger and slightly less involving, but it is clearly faster (in my state of tune anyway) and grips just as well if not better with the fast road setup. It\'s also much sexier to look at!

I will do something to the brakes as I feel they can be improved (four-pot Brembos not all they could be, just like on my Evo VI), but other than that I\'m happy with it now - much more power through the front wheels would just be unusable, especially at this time of year.

[Jit]

oh dear Ian....told you so
Im getting tempted back to DC2 ownership tho....

[lockwood77]

I don\'t think I would want to go back to something so under-powered now - the lack of torque becomes very clear once you\'ve spent a bit of time in more powerful cars and it makes the majority of driving (i.e. not on full throttle) so much nicer.

They are immensely chuckable and sublimely engaging, but the DC5 is only a whisker less so and the pros outweigh the cons for me.