Hey guys, here's my ordeal...

Basically, all of a sudden, my motor decided not to send any oil up to the head which created this god awful loud noise from the lifters, cams, and basically everything up in the head.

We pull the motor out and started to take it apart to clean, deck, hone the block and clean, shave, and do the five angle valve job on the head as well.

After a month of prepping and putting it all together, yesterday was the day to crank the motor for the first time. I cranked the motor and she started right up on the first try. But my nightmare returned with the same loud lifter noise from the head. We immediately cut the engine and took off the valve cover to see if there's any oil. It looked bone dry.

Some of you may be thinking oil pump but I've replaced that along with the rebuilding with this motor. I'm getting a healthy reading of 70~75psi of oil pressure at startup.

We've looked all over the internet and the fsm and came conclusion to this:



I'm getting oil to the turbo, oil filter, and reading 75psi of oil pressure at the location where the old oil pressure warning sensor used to be. From examining at the fsm diagram, at the main gallery, the oil branches to: 1. block 2. head. Now if you branch off to the head, there's a check valve just before getting to the head and the lifters.

The fsm says that the check valve is built-in to the cylinder block. I'm guessing that it's not serviceable and must to swapped with another block...

I hope this isn't too confusing. Can you guys help me out with this? Has anyone seen anything like this before?? Please let me know as soon as you can.... I need to get this thing running within the next week

If you put your headgasket on backwards, it will create this problem.I really can't see why there would be such a massive blockage that would prevent oil from passing through to the head. If you used silicone as a gasket for the oil pump did you use too much? Main Bearings put on backwards? These are the only ways to create this type of mess. Other than the things I've mentioned, oil should flow freely to your head if you have that much oil pressure.

Dee

Light rtv was used only where it needed to be on the oil pump. I don't see how the I could have put in the headgasket the wrong way. I've verified every hole before I mated the head to the block. I see your point though.

Have you seen what this check valve entails? Am i going to have to replace the block?

You got email, Boostboy

check valve is loacted in the top face of the block, intake side, between 3/4 cyl. basically consists of a ball that is retained vertically from top by a brass restrictor. it stops oil draining from head oil galleries

Thanks for your input.

We tore it all down yesterday. Thank god we had a spare block... While teardown of the motor, we wanted to see if the block was sending any oil up to the head while the head of the motor was completely off the block. So we left just the block and the starter and cranked it. To our disappoint, not a single drop of oil was coming out of the block. The oil pump was pumping very well since the turbo was getting plenty of oil. This is the first time we've ever encountered anything like this. Ka's sr's or rb's do not have this "check valve", right?

I'm looking at the block right now and i don't see the brass restrictor that you are talking about. I just see a tiny little hole maybe a 1mm diameter. Maybe the check valve isn't something you can see??

Yes. When we cranked the bare block to see if any oil would spew out all over, we did not see a single drop coming out of there. The turbo was getting plenty of oil tho...

thats it... remove that restirictor and youll find the ball under it

probably have crud jammed in it. I drilled the plugs out of my block to allow me to clean all the galleries. I will have to tap the holes fore pipe plug to seal it back up but it's worth it to know they are unobstructed. I did the same to the crank galleries.

Well I could have taken your advice but I had another block laying around so we're just replacing the block now. The block is from the n/a ca18de. I know that I'm not going to have oil squirters for the pistons but I should be fine since race cars don't have oil squirters anyway. Better lubrication to the head right? Also, the n/a block doesn't have the nipple for the oil cooler so we're trying to find the right fittings for the oil cooler now. damn adapter fittings... they're close to impossible to find...

you better make sure the oil supply to the turbo is clear. The gallery runs from the relief valve under the oil filter across to the port for the turbo feed line. The NA of course has no turbo so there will be a plug in there. Junk could collect under the plug over time and still block the passage even after you pull that plug.You might try blowing it out from the oil filter side with some compressed air.

UPdate!

Well we swapped all the parts to the new n/a block today. We placed the bare block and just attached a starter on it. After few seconds of cranking, we saw a healthy jet of oil shooting out of that check valve. Thank God.

Turbo line was getting plenty of oil coming out of there as well. I tried to take some pictures but hands were too messy.

Wish us luck for tomorrow!