I am sure this has been asked before, but I went through about 6 or 7 pages of threads and didn't find it as a topic starter.

I have a 2007 (have had it since Jan 2008 bought it new), and have about 14000 km on it (about 8700 miles). A friend of mine who owns a tuner shop told me that in the break in period (which he said was about 10,000 km or so), I should rev it good and drive it "like I stole it", so the apex seals can be conditioned well (or something like that). So I did this. I then started driving more sanelyeven putting it in true automatic mode (I have an auto transmission) for long stretches, which really boosted the fuel efficiency.

When I got my car out of the shop for its 2nd scheduled maintenance visit, I was talking to one of the service managers who told me that I should continue to drive it hard all of the time, or else I would start having problems with the engine. Is this true?

He also said that the rotary engine is prone to flooding, which is why when you need to drive the car momentarily (ie if you just have to move it to let someone out of your driveway), the engine should not be shut off immediately, but be left to idle for a few minutes. Is this true too?

When I was breaking it in, my "hard driving" was just letting the car rev higher before changing gears. I would typicallykeep the revsin the 3000 to 5000 rpm range.

So.... there are my questions. Hope to benefit from the collective experience of the forum. ;-)

 

I have a 2004 with a re-built engine from the re-call. I have 18,000 on the rebuild.Mine is a standard shift transmission. I drive in heavy South Florida traffic on the South Florida Turnpike to and from work. I keep my RPM's down in traffic around the 2000 to 3000 RPM range. However when I pass through the last toll booth the traffic opens up and I redline the engine at that point. I work in a sparsley populated industrial park with great winding streets where I exercise the cars handling and hit the redline again. The power of my motor is great and have followed this habit for two years. I think if you redline it daily it blows out the what I gather when in heavy traffic. I redline it every time I drive the car, including trips to the store, Blockbuster etc.
Love my RX-8!

 

Forgot to mention, join www.rx8club.com. Best forum with many answers and great pics of members cars.

 

It is a very good forum, and is dedicated to the rotary's.I am a member there too, though I don't own an RX-anything.
I hope you don"t give up on us over here all together though.