What was your issue?

I'm leaning towards it being a headlift issue. As it was only pushing coolant from the overflow on his high boost setting, 18 psi. This was a fairly common problem "back in the day", prior to L19 head studs. Unfortunately, a local shop is using arp 2000 studs in their built VQ and said they would be fine for this build. Since L19 studs were out of stock when this motor was built a few years back, the arp 2000 studs were used. A compression test was done prior to tear down and the numbers were good.

As far as getting the oil pan to timing cover sealed, I'm not overly concerned. We'll be meticulous. Others have been able to get it sealed with the engine in the car.

 

I've done it on 2 cars now with the engine in place. Putting that front timing seal on was no problem at all. I put the bottom in first then tilt the top into place. Never had a single leak from it.

The hardest part of doing it in car was getting the header bolts out. Other than that it wasn't an issue. I stripped the whole front clip off the car to get access to everything. The core support comes off with only a few bolts. Without taking the core support off I think it would be a nightmare.

 

Here are some pics of it out. The second one is dark but you can see how much room there is to work with that lower timing cover mount.

 

Welp... we ended up pulling the short block, long story short pistons are done.

I was cleaning the carbon off the piston tops and noticed a a very small crack at the top ring land of cylinder 1's piston. Ended up pulling the block to disassemble it and see what the other cylinders looked like, they all have some damage at the top ring land area, this piston's probably the worst.

 

im not here to say I told you so....... but I told you so.

Welcome to the rebuild of the build club. We're a poor @ss group

 

High comp build coming?

 

sorry man

I would not recommend high compression - chance for detonation goes up.

 

Thanks rcdash, appreciate the condolences.

Right now, I'm thinking about getting another set of off the shelf 96mm Wiseco turbo pistons and refreshing the block... heads are already back from the machine shop too.

Although, I'd really like to have some closure and figure out what went wrong before I spend another dime on this car.

 

Based on what I see on your heads and now pistons, I believe you had very high heat at the top of the cylinders. If you developed an air pocket around the top of the cylinder cooling jacket you could have detonation from the heat without any tuning failure. I chose Evans coolant for this reason. It does not boil in the same way that water does. Less heat carrying capacity, but I think it would have prevented this. When my fans failed following an airstrip run, I think I got coolant temps close to 300 degrees (while idling!) but with no deleterious consequences whatsoever.

 

So, all six pistons actually had similar damage, this was just the first to have a crack form, but all of them had some damage at the top of the piston, if heat was the issue wouldn't the damage have been confined to the cylinder with the air pocket? FWIW, I've never had this car overheat, even when it was pushing coolant.

Thanks for the input btw!

I'm already dead set on running Evans post rebuild too

 

how was this car tuned?

fuel used? E85?

if all cylinders had the same issue, I would have to say fuel/tuning related

 

ive switched mine to evans. what are your normal temps now? I am seeing 190-192 most times. when I come to a stop, or sit at a light it will aproach 200-204, fans kick on and temps reduce to 185-188 and level off at 190'ish. my AC and heat all work as they should.

 

The car was dyno tuned at ProEFI, most recently about 10-12k miles ago when I installed a flex fuel system. Since then the car's been running E85 almost exclusively.

 

My fans are PWM controlled and start to come on with coolant temp at 192. I don't think I've ever seen it go over 200. Oil temps over 200 also trigger them full on, and that is usually higher temp than coolant temp when pushing the car, so coolant temps usually bottom out around 185 and oil temps hover in the low 200s when at high rpms.

 

my oil temps are always in the low 200's once warmed up. my fans though don't kick in till water temps get to 200.

 

Build number 2 underway...

Rev up core
Wiseco 9.5:1 compression 95.5mm pistons
K1 connecting rods
ACL WPC treated main & rod bearings
ARP main studs
ARP L19 head studs
HKS head gaskets
Dynosty cam sensor plugs

 

And it's back!

 

Hey congrats on the car back together.

I just thought I might add a little bit. Copper head gasket spray really doesn't do anything other than make the customer happy. I have never experienced a situation where the copper head gasket spray will prevent a leak. Either you have true surfaces and correct torque and pressure, or you don't.

Good luck, and watch that ignition advance. Beautiful setup.

 

I thought I read you said you had good compression on the motor? Did you do a leak down test at the time, if so how did it look?

 

Haha, it's getting there! The engine's about 70% done as of right now, hoping to have it wrapped up this weekend.

Yeah, since I ended building a new motor with newly machined surfaces I decided to pass on the copper spray.

Thanks! Definitely going to talk to my tuner about ignition timing.