Fully built motor went dead for no known reason

[crashcourse]

OK , here it is i fave a fully built s14 sr20det well minus valves and crank as for everything else you name it. Im on my way back from watching a mustang drag meet when i see the black mustang club 100 deep getting on the interstate and what do we love about having an import (come get some domestics).

So I slow down when i see two bikes gaining on me . I have been wondering how it would stand up against a CBR 600RR so here was my chance they get behind me the guy throws up his hands and I put it in third and tap the gas doing around 40 he gets next to me and we hit it .

My turbo was not doing what it needed to in third so I raked it down to second the bike fell back to my rear quarter . When he realized he was up against a monster he also downshifted to second on my door from 45 to 6000 rpms in 5th we went guessing 150 or so (he let out first) something just felt wrong (scared) from having so much bad luck this year after tearing into the motor .

So 30 min away from my house I get home no issues water temp stayed fine and no my dumbass does not have a oil pressure gauge but the motor may have had 2000 miles on it and 4 oil changes and two blown headgaskets later so its been down more than its been up air/fuel high 10s while racing bike was trying to get the bugs out of that get home park it thats that .

The next day I felt that I needed to check my plugs so I pull them and they look great beautiful air/fuel nice marshmellow middle to lighter tip and black at the base.

The next mornig was going to drive it to work I started let her warm up a little like always . Then leave for work 1.5 miles from my house acts like somebody pulled the life support went dead tried to clutch jump it and nothing happened and again in second and the tires actually lock up so what do you think ohhh **** my engine is done for locked up i pull into the next available driveway to see if i can sort this out .

I sat for 5 seconds before well lets crank it and see what happens it turns over hey great its not locked up 3 times later its off and running again no issues ..hmmmmm wtf I make it to work shut it off go in do my thing at work and run over to my friends shop to have them change the oil when i notice way too much shaft play in the turbo needed a rebuild again .

I drive it to my worksite after the oilchange which showed no signs of foulplay in the motor get home still no issues i pull the turbo, get the rebuild back few days later got some new plugs installed started it up ran great ,drove it around for an hour or so going through my air/fuel giving the motor a good work out, but mind you i have set my revlimiter to 7750 just in case i didnt want to go overboard with the revs and guess what a 1st 2nd and working into a hard driven 3rd she does the blblbrrr wanting to shut down again it doesnt it stays going for me get home wondering wtf again fresh oil fresh turbo fresh plugs pretty sure no electrical issues .

So the next day i get in it to drive it to work gonna check compression not thinking that could be an issue but just to see how it measures up.I pull out of my driveway like a 80 year old woman that does not even know where the gas pedal is it shuts down before i make it to the end of my street 5 houses down in a neighborhood it took 20 min to get it started back finally made it went to work the hell with it .

Get home with the compression gauge and 136 was 1,2,3,144 on 4 so im good hmmm why was 4 144 looked at the plug just a little more black than the rest lifter fail? pulled the valve cover found metal and a dry head at cyl4. The further to the front the more oil I had let it sit for a month .

Well lets see i have frsh oil i want to see what the hell was going on tried to crank it and it jumped time let it sit finally push the thing in my garage and messed with it this past week thinking maybe the cam squirters were plugged up from the turbo metal cleaned them tried to retime it and still no compression If anybody has any ideas as to why drop me a line so it doesnt happen again.... Thanks

Modified by crashcourse at 8:14 PM 1/11/2008
Modified by crashcourse at 8:28 PM 1/11/2008

[Hijacker]

Can I get you to punctuate that or give me cliff notes? One giant paragraph like that hurts my head in more ways than one and it'll make reading easier, which will help us help you better

[karmakaze]

i tried to read that but it makes me head hurt.

i hope you build engines better than you type a paragraph. but if you don't that could explain your problem.

[T-rev]

if it dies on you and restarts its not a mechanical issue, its got to be an electrical issue.

[crashcourse]

I may have a block for you me and my friend have 3 S14 motors two are good one spun a bearing and piston tapped the head but block looked to be ok..

[crashcourse]

Sorry guys, I was busy at work today and started typing . I have been kinda sick about the engine, and didnt realize how much I had typed...

[crashcourse]

I really hope well hoped I still have no compression to this day . Well it started to really act up the last drive of an hour It started to miss and would hardly drive ... felt as if the crank was warped but thinking thats not really likely..

[austins240]

WTF is going on!?!?!?!

i can't tell if you are asking questions or.....

maybe your keyboard is missing some "buttons" lolbbqwtf

[tripleJs15]

I may have a block for you me and my friend have 3 S14 motors two are good one spun a bearing and piston tapped the head but block looked to be ok..

I need a s14 blacktop block, i'm in nashville

[crashcourse]

Im sorry I didnt realize I was writing an english paper . I am simply stating what has happened with my car. I guess what i should have said is (my car is not running) and ideas . I have went over the common issues, I am just wondering if anybody else has seen or heard of this issue..

[crashcourse]

I will ask what he will take, if he does want to get rid of it.

[elgarvo616]

maybe its because you built a botor, not a motor.

[Hijacker]

maybe its because you built a botor, not a motor.

That was my bad >.> I took his caps locks off the title and didn't realize I misspelled motor.

[austins240]

no, not an english paper because not everyone speaks engrish well plus run on sentances with fragments of stories metal shavings and other things in your post make red it hard to read. has it been hard to reading this post its only what two sentances and i even added more punctuation.

NOTES:

sorry to the rest of you, that was hard for me to even type.

OP, if you don't see what i'm talking about, google should have some good add-ins for you.

i always like to help, most of my posts on NICO since i joined are just that. but people can't diagnose what they can't read or understand.

[Hijacker]

I sat on this issue for a bit during lunch and I'm having a difficult time nailing down a potential culprit.

From what I gathered, you said the motor jumped time at some point. If that's the case, bent valves would explain your lack of compression.

I'm starting to wonder if you have a bad oil pump that's pumping just enough to keep the bottom end lubricated and not activate your dummy light. I've seen one instance of a pump pumping enough to not light up the dummy light, but couldn't pump enough to lubricate the rod bearings. That could explain the lack of oil in the head. It could also explain a timing jump as the tensioner works off of oil pressure.

The problem with diagnosing built motors is that things can fail on them out of order of what would be expected with OE parts.

[crashcourse]

Yes , I have also thought the oil pump .But you are right I feel the valves are gone now because it jumped time . Its just been weird how it all happened. All I did was race a bike I did a swap for a guy the beginning of last summer with an s14 . The same thing happened to him except his #4 cylinder slapped the head the bearing was gone..

His head looked real similar to mine did but I really wanted to rule that out . You know if you have ever torn into these motors the oil pump is first on last off .

[crashcourse]

sorr

no, not an english paper because not everyone speaks engrish well plus run on sentances with fragments of stories metal shavings and other things in your post make red it hard to read. has it been hard to reading this post its only what two sentances and i even added more punctuation.

NOTES:

sorry to the rest of you, that was hard for me to even type.

OP, if you don't see what i'm talking about, google should have some good add-ins for you.

i always like to help, most of my posts on NICO since i joined are just that. but people can't diagnose what they can't read or understand.

sorry man I was in a hurry and just wanted to tell my story ...and ask the rest of my nicoholics for help

[Hijacker]

I did a swap for a guy the beginning of last summer with an s14 . The same thing happened to him except his #4 cylinder slapped the head the bearing was gone..

His head looked real similar to mine did but I really wanted to rule that out . You know if you have ever torn into these motors the oil pump is first on last off .

I've never seen nor heard of a failed bearing causing the piston to make contact with the valves. Only a failed rod/rod bolt, mistimed motor, stuck valve, or really bad valve float should cause that to happen.

Either or, you haven't seen metal shavings in your oil yet, so you can put spun bearing down on your list of possible problems, but that pump sounds awefuly suspicious from what I'm reading. To really put a possible pump in persepective, pull your cams. If there's little oil in the rear of the head, then the cams should have chewed up the journals a bit.

[crashcourse]

Thats what I am afraid of . Here I go again cams, oil pump, valves,and who knows. It has acl race bearings in it but just to be on the safe side I think I am definitely gonna check them.

I plan to be pulling it this weekend again. It doesnt take long for me now.Its just the money I have put in this dang thing, and here goes another thousand. I just wanted to make sure it was an oil pump, that was my first thought but needed more causes.

[austins240]

it does sound like your cams got chewed up at CYL#4 as hijacker said.

you would see a higher compression number if the exhaust valve isn't opening as much.

make sure the oil squirters (tubes above the cam lobes) are free of crud. also, the bolts that attach them to the back side of the head is where the oil passage into the block is. that needs to be clear.

your timing chain will bring oil up to the head and splash it around and may LOOK like you had oil pressure but in reality didn't.

if you blew your turbo, no oil in head etc, i'm going to go with the oil pump. also, make sure the oil pickup is secure and sealed properly. my friend had his SR built by a shop. it wouldn't build pressure, found out the shop didn't tighten the oil pickup bolts and was just sucking in air.

you can check that easy enough by taking off the lower oil pan.

[crashcourse]

Yeah, I actually cleaned the cam squirters a week ago, when I tried to put it back in time.

Do you have any idea how many times the engine should turn over before you get pressure to the turbo. I tried to purge the line to try to get any debris out . It seemed like forever before it purged .

I did one other thing, probably not that long before the issue (one week) if I had to guess. I had to restrict the volume to the turbo. It was burning oil and I wanted to make sure it was not the engine. So, I put a reducer in the line. I have wondered if the pressure releif is maybe the initial culprit and now there are more issues.

[austins240]

still doesn't sound like the cam squirters were working. that reducer is needed for a BB turbo on anything other than stock lines. the oil is fed into the turbo from the block, then drains out of the turbo housing into the oil pan. shouldn't affect your oil pressure in a bad way.

as far as for how many times it need to turn over, it's random. if you were indeed burning oil through the seals on the turbo, then you should have SOME pressure. IIRC, the dummy light switch for oil pressure is set to 5psi or so. way too low.

might be a blockage in your head in the passages that lead up to the cam squirter bolts.

turning the motor over with the valve cover off and actually watching the squirters work is all i can suggest. but that will get messy quick and you'll get oil everywhere if they do indeed work.

don't start it w/o the valve cover, like i said, the chain will fling oil all over the place.

[crashcourse]

I got cha. I have been turning it over with the valve cover off.Im trying to see but really cant . I cant tell if my valves are not coming to the top and seating all the way .

As far as my reducer went. I have a - 4 fitting and the oil was seeping by on a fresh rebuild. So, I put a .030 or so homemade reducer in untill I got my nitrous jet in . The guy actually said .050 but thats all I could do in the meantime.

At Nopi this past year, I asked the guy from Garrett and thats what he had suggested. My turbo is a journal bearing Garrett t3/t4 60 trim. My turbo was fresh as of Nopi Atlanta, engine was too.

I hooked up my boost controller on a Wed trying to adjust it up where it was supposed to be running (18psi ) . It was only running 13psi or so . I just put my limited slip in on Wed night .The next morning on the way to work,I decide to see how the limited slip works, when 1st, 2nd, and 3rd had no traction to give me looked down at peak boost and 28.5 psi later blown head gasket.

I spent all Thursday night tearing down just to throw a new head gasket on it to make it to Nopi I did and got 3rd in custom ..

sorry I know that was off topic but it was a good story.

[austins240]

that's nice you got an award.

as far as the reducer, go with what the turbo company said. i don't remember exactly, but i think mine was supposed to be .040 (GTRS, yes a real one).

you will probably need a friend to crank it over for you to watch for the oil squirters, almost impossible to do it by yourself.