WARNING: Howto destroy and engine in 1500km's. Be careful who u trust. [PICS]

[Weq]

So guys, i dont know if u have followed my rebuild or not but last month i something real bad happen to my engine.

Lets play, Spot whats wrong?









Rebuild consisted of:
CP 9.0:1 pistons
Eagle rods
Cylinders bored and honed to 75.5mm
OEM gaskets, pumps and bearings all around
usual crank linishing etc.

Ok so this engine has 1,500km's on it. Not pretty huh?

First thought would be the tune was off! My reply, i ran a wideband since 0km's. It was street tuned for perfect A/F's from 0km's by a reputable tuner (i'll let him name himself if he wants too).

The backgorund:
About 2yrs ago now i tried installed a cam into my engine. It was all going well until i incorrectly torqued down the cam caps. After this i had to pull the head off to get new cam cams line-honed. While the head was off i deiceded to get 'the works'. New crower valve train, post and polish and ur standard rebuild. New gaskets and seals all around. Everything honed,bored, checked.

After receiving the head back i installed it, standed her up and everything was fine. Well after i replaced the headgasket again because it never sealed properly, it was fine. Well apart from a small amount of smoke on de-accleeration, it was fine...... Fast forward a few weeks and under 200km's done. I go to take the car to the tuner to re-tune her for the new cam and on the way my idle goes funny. Wierd i pull over and notice oil leaking from the exhaust manifold gasket area.. Weirder... Pull the braker cap and dipstick out and notice puffs of white smoke - ringlands gone.

Fast forward to decembder 05. Machinest and mechanic put new bottom end with my 200km old topend. Re-install engine. Few other mods (new turbo kit, injectors, clutch, hondata etc). I broke the engine in for 1000km's. Never over under 3000rpm for the first 200kms. Change oil, never over 3500 till 500km's. Take her onto the highway and it starts overheating after 10minutes. Never overheats around town... Change oil, never over 4000 until 1000km's. NO boost at all during this period. Install a new 70mm dual core radiator. The whole time i still noticed the small amount of white smoke on de-accleration.

After 1k, mechanic readjusted the valve lash because he thought it sounded a little 'loud'. The car hasnt overheated since aven after a small 20minute highway run so i think its all good. Take car to the dyno. Puts down 142kw @ 5500rpm on 9psi - clutch starts to slip. Puts down 167kw @ 5500rpm on 16psi - clutch still slipping. Engine never overheated on dyno or street tune runs. 90c at idle, 93'c in boost.

Get car back with intension of sorting out clutch issues. Take car for a thrash on the weekend, fine all night. Next morning idle bounces a bit and its a bit tempermental. THink nothing off it, we will fix it next time its on the dyno.

So i am thinking sweet, lets take the car home, back to canberra. I prepare everything, hook the laptop up to monitor the engine and head on my way.. After about 1.5hrs of driving at hiway speeds, i notice the engine temp starting to creep. I have had real bad overheating problems before so i know exactly where my temps should and shouldnt be. I pull over in about 10minutes at the next service station. As i slow down the temps rise very quickly. I turn on the heater and its cools down quickly. I check the overflow and its bubbling like mum's hot soup. Radiator is 80% empty. Fill her up and limp it another hr at 100km's/hr. Finally make it to canberra, check the water, hasnt moved. At this point im thinking the thermostat is ****ed since it was sitting for almost 8months.

For the next week i randomly take her out random runs. Im very easy on her. James (BLKCRX) is in town so i take him for a run. Do a few runs on the street and he verifiys the tune is very safe - comments the motor should last for 'years''. Few days later i do a 1-4th run at the track and it overheats by the end of the second run....I get very disapointed and prepare for the worse.

Take the car home again to Sydney. Have exactly the same issues. The car would just boil the coolant like the radiator wasnt doing its job. Blows most of the coolant out and i can garentee it formed hot-spots where the temp prob didnt metre. The radiator is now bubbling and frothing like a hooker o.d'ing. Headgasket is gone.......

Leave the car for a week after this. Come back home and start her up - now its sounding like a WRX. I decide to drive it to the mechanics to see if he would warrenty his 1500km old headgasket. 1 minute up the road the car starts to smoke like a MOTHER ****ER. BIG plooms of WHITE, dense WHITE smoke on de-acceleration...

*breath* Thats the first half of the saga - i will post the second part of the saga after dinner... Dont worry, it gets better Any guesses on what went wrong !!!

Oh i almost forgot, this is how the head looked after 1500km's.






PART 2

[ProECU]

Thats a tough one to call.
Hard to tell from the photos, but appears cyl 1 sleeve looks cracked.
There is also some coolant residue on those pistins which supports the cracked pistons.

It also "looks" as though the piston to wall clearance is a bit on the excessive side but this might be due to the cylinders going out of round from the crack.

I'm going to go with the Heat generated from power @ 16psi is excessive for stock D-series sleeves.
You hinted in the title to be careful who you trust, I suspect someone you know has taken your car for a nice drive without your concent.
Too much boosting for prolonged periods.

Am i right?

[Weq]

Kinda of the right track, but not quite there

This is how the engine looked after the highway trip. I forgot to mention, on the highway i NEVER boosted. -10--25 vac the whole time. The engine temps slowly rising the whole trip, to the maximum of 97'C when i stopped and refilled the coolant. I never heard it knock. Knock was what my mechanic and engine builder blamed.

Sorry if the pics are bad, i should re-do them. Take a close look at the intake valve releifs. Spot the rings?

Also, d-series sleeves are fine at 16psi. They have held 25-30psi before racing, 20psi daily.

Lastly, i spoke to alot of ppl, and showed alot of experienced people. Everyone had a different opinion. Thus, an engineer was enlisted to disassemble and diagnose clearences/build defects.

[todaek9]

omg, the side piece of the piston is cracked and are those valves bend!?...guess Cams were not set right from the start. And definately, it's been over boost...the whole thing was not installed properly as well. PLus, the engine was pretty fried up...i reckon that you should go back to the shop, ask him what happen to it. If you got everything from that shop and installed by them, you should have a fair reason of why. There is also some engineer test report to certify what is wrong with the engine, causes and all. if it's not your fault, you might wanna take some action, If you got your reciept.
still.

but one more thing, did you take out the head yourself and take those pictures???

[todaek9]

and also, what did it smell like???

[Weq]

sorry mechanic took the engine apart because i thought it was a stadnard headgasket replacement... and i wanted it under warrenty. lol

Bottom end, head and engine were built and assembled all by different places. tuned was another place. I didnt want to cut corners everywhere and wanted everything done by the best ppl i new and trusted.

Smell? it smelt of oil. All the time it melt like oil.. oil was being burnt from day 1. I used 3l of oil on the trip up and down to canberra. Also the problem has been determined and cuase found. I will post up later, but i want people to post what they thought happened first

Lastly coolant on the pistons was residual from when the head came off. There were no obvious signs the headgasket had been breached - this observation was made by online performance (NOTE: they are an independant 3rd party not involved in any build or problem.)

edit: AS pictured, head still had the CAM inside.

[Bowzer]

What did you use to control your boost? also what was the A/F tuned at up top? im with Evan, pistons running tad bit hot... hot spots causing pre-ignition resulting to detonation... Did you consider sanding the sharp edges on your forged pistons to reduce the chance for hot spots/detonation?

What injectors where you running appears the other cylinders have more carbon deposits and the one with the busted ring landings have less, faulty injector perhaps? Could be misleading as well once water enters into the combustion chamber and mixes up...

Your lucky the chunks from the ring landings didnt destroy the head ... Sleeve the bastard next time

[2MPRSS]

my guess is that it was ur heater that ****ed up everything, hapend to me,it ate up all my radiator fluid and sprayed it all in the interior, closest thing to what has hapened to ur car and mine but u said have a guess so i did but CHI came to the rescue with a big bucket of water hehe tell us bro what really hapend,what did online say about it after u droped ur engine off there? it did look preety bad after all that efford u put on that engine

[Weq]

Bowzer: Injectors were RC750CC's. Funnily enough, they were flow tested/cleaned before i put them in because of an unrelated issue. All injectors checked out a lil above 750cc in flow rating

On the same note, isnt it interesting how only 1 ring burnt up. ANd the chucks of pistons passed sucessfully out of the head and THROUGH THE F*CKING TURBO without damaging a single thing! All valves were unharmed and so was the turbine! Most of the chucks of pistons were found rattling around just before the cat. My therory is they were liquid at the time they left the engine. Thats one HOT piston.

edit:

The pistons were covered in a carbon/water mix, they look alot worse then they are. All piston tops were unscored and no pitting was observed. Plugs can be seen insude the chambers. No damange was observed.

[todaek9]

I reckon that you should take out the sump and see is there anything lose or not or about to be gone. And also, check your fuel pump as well. a sudden stop of fuel may cause alot of problem as well, esp in high rev.
If i were you, start checking all those really Tiny things that you think is running well. and also, if you don't mind, can you post a picture of the Cilinder head (front where the outlet's are, not close up)

All Turbo honda's, must have a "release pressure" site by drilling a hole in the cilinder head and something fit to it if i'm not mistaken (not too sure how to put it in words), because i've seen afew, and all of them did that. but drill where, i'm not really sure.

Bowzer: Injectors were RC750CC's. Funnily enough, they were flow tested/cleaned before i put them in because of an unrelated issue. All injectors checked out a lil above 750cc in flow rating

On the same note, isnt it interesting how only 1 ring burnt up. ANd the chucks of pistons passed sucessfully out of the head and THROUGH THE F*CKING TURBO without damaging a single thing! All valves were unharmed and so was the turbine! Most of the chucks of pistons were found rattling around just before the cat. My therory is they were liquid at the time they left the engine. Thats one HOT piston.

edit:

The pistons were covered in a carbon/water mix, they look alot worse then they are. All piston tops were unscored and no pitting was observed. Plugs can be seen insude the chambers. No damange was observed.

[Weq]

Part 2:

So the mechanic pulls the engine apart and see's all the holes in the pistons. conversation went like this:

Mech: "first thing i did was check the head to see if the valves were touching the pistons. it didnt look like it. So i rang up my engine builder and explained it to him. he said that his seen it before, kids bring engines back a week later with holes like urs. it was detonation. the tune was shit. u cant go running all that boost without premium fuel"
Me: "i always ran BP98. it has a full tank it in now, 98ron."
Mech: "Well what about ur fuel system. sure u had big injectors in there, but a stock fuel pump cant cope with them. it prolly leaned out on high boost"
Me: "Umm it has a brand new pump. flows 255lph, good enough for the power i was making, its good enough to outflow the stock lines"
Mech: "WHat about the timing? did the 'tuner' check the timing"
Me: "Yeh the first thing we did was time the engine."
Mech: "Well it knocked its head off. nothing else too it. My engine builder has been doing this for years, he hasnt messed anything up. THe piston to wall is fine, nothing is out of spec. not OUR fault. Now how much u gonna give me for pulling the head"
Me: "Ur asking me to pay for repairs to my 1500km old engine? lol, sue me"

Anyways so i took the car home, pull the engine out, orded new pistons and shiped it, and my spare engine and EVERYTHING else off to another reputable builder. I left everything assembled so i could could organise the engine to be professional stripped to find the cause of the problem.

Few hours go by and i get a call. "Hey did u realise u had piston to valve contact? Take a look at the pistons. Did the builder check the valve clearance with vtec locked in? This cam is pretty wild compared to stock and with a shaved head and decked block, u should expect it..." ...... Umm no he didnt, he told me many times 'all i did was get the bottom end rebuilt and slapped the head ontop. I didnt even take off the dizzy. i did nothing wrong..." Right..

Problem #1: Piston to valve clearance. Valves were mashing the pistons during vtec. Maybe the problem was enhanced by his 'tighter valve lashings' he did to quiten the engine down.

So a few days go by and i get another call from the engineer. "Everything else on the bottom end checks out ok. I couldnt really accuratly measure the piston to bore because of the wear."

So the bottom end gets rebuilt. Well actually i trashed most of the bottom end (cylc etc) cause it overheated so many times and the deck has sunk 0.008". So the old bottom end is rebuilt, new bearings and seals all around again.

Few days more go by and i get the low down on the head. Apparently the valve guide clearance was way over spec on 8 valves. 4 valves were not even holding compression properly at all. The engineer was surpirsed it made any power at all. All valves were straight though, and nothing was bent. Head since has been completly rebuilt and all new guides right around.

Problem #2: Valve guide clearance. THis in turn caused the piston to valve clearance to come out of spec and piston to valve contact occour on the vtec cam. Another by product of this was oiling down of the pistons. The guides leaked oil into the chambers. This caused both hot-spots to form at the sharpest and thinnest points (the intake valve releifs), along with overheating the pistons causeing piston to wall contact, which in turn we THINK cause all the overheating issues. It probably also reduced the octane of the fuel down to 86 or lower causeing knock which probably finished off the overheated pistons. Bowzer made a great comment - Yes the new pistons will be modded to reduce hotspots occouring. I have also gone with weicso pistons this time. The reliefs are a little thicker and they come coated for less expansion.



This is how the car sits atm. Just waiting on a few parts from the US.

[SKREMN]

sorry to hijack
This is my engine fully rebuilt and this happend after 3500 with no boost and no tune
it had ctr pistons and cams
i had overheating problems also and got the head gasket redone after only 100k's coz it blew and mixed water and oil all up
this lasted for a short while and then boom all finnished
the car allways used up water