just got back from the track... on a trailer.

[EstoMax]

hey everyone

so yesterday i went to pacific raceways on a trackday and half way through the day it appears i blew a rod bearing.

anyways heres a short story if u care:i was coming down the back downhill going into turn 3a on top of 3rd and as i was slowing down and went to grab 2nd my car dies all of the sudden (like something caught or something..) and steering lock goes on so i roll straight into the grass ahead. anyways right after that i start the engine and drive off.. i hear a wierd noise and drive off the track to pits.

heres the aftermath:pulled valve cover all is good there. checked compression all is good in the cylinders (175, 170, 165, 180). car idles ok, up to almost 2000 rpm theres no noise really and it idles fine. over that it has a clackidy clack ( i got a sound clip ill upload that here )http://media.putfile.com/engine_noise

so yeah here i am with my daily driver with what appears to be a blown rod bearing. great freakin game. and to top it off the day b4 the track day i got a 2cm diameter rock chip (crater) on my windshield.

on a good note heres a flyby when my car still ran.http://media.putfile.com/marko3

SO HERES THE MAIN PART: i need a replacement ka24de. I think the easiest thing to do is to just drop another guy in there.. unless u got a different plan. that way i can take this one apart and see what caused the problem maybe. what i think is that these engines suffer from some oiling problems, cause a few ka-t's blew up under speeds

Thanks for reading the long thread/gripe,

Marko

[swwifty]

Sorry for your loss.

I've never heard rod knock personally, but that could be it.

What was your oil level at? Is there any long sweeping turns that could cause have caused the oil pickup to lose oil for a few seconds?

[TheOne]

it sounds more like valves are hitting, i had that same problem with the engine that came with the 240sx that i bought(i too though it was rod knock, and i knew about the sound before i bought the car, it was cheap), aparently the oil pump was dying so it would loose pressure sometimes, that same knocking at the same rpm would come, when i opened the engine the bearings and the pistons were fine so my next though was the head, i really believe its the head cause as i said the pistons and rod bearings were fine, i turned it over by hand and there wasn't anything strange with the piston move.

also on mine it was so bad that after the car would get to normal temp, it would stall at stop lights.(all the time too)the engine had ~185k miles when the oil pump died.

[EstoMax]

really...

well the thing is we pulled the valve cover and checked compression.. it doesnt make the noise when u crank it for compression or when its idling..

thats real wierd. if its the oil pump then that should be replacable

okMarko

edit: how would i determine that the oil pump is bad btw?
Modified by EstoMax at 12:06 PM 8/19/2005

[TheOne]

a oil pressure gauge should be able to. on mine whenever i would cold start it, the upper timing chain would slap against the side timing guide and make the dreaded timing chain rattle cause i guess the timing chian tensioner doesn't get enough pressure when it starts up, also i would sometimes hit ~6k rpms and the oil light would come on for a sec(by that time...well the sound came on, car still ran fine but had that noise).

i also didn't notice anything bad when i pulled the valve cover but when i saw how the bottomend looked i could really say it wasn't that the problem.

[EstoMax]

where can i wire in an oil pressure gauge to? because i really need one haha.. light only goes on at 5 psi.. when i first start the car it stays on for about a second

also... how did u access the oil pump? any pointers would be great, im looking at the FSM but it doesnt tell much.

i just pulled my bumper/support/headlights off so theres more room to work with under the front of the car

[TheOne]

the oil pump is attached to the front cover, if you see behind the crank pulley there's a crank seal, around that area is the oil pump which to get into you have to remove the front cover and a bunch of other stuff.

and yeah it does sound like bad oil pump, but since you are allready gettin the valve sound you may not be able to fix it.

[EstoMax]

is the front cover removable with the radiator/fan/shroud in the engine bay?

[TheOne]

nop, to remove the front cover you need to remove the mechanic fan assembly which most likely requires the fan shroud to be removed, also i believe the oil pan has to be removed because of the oil pickup.

[EstoMax]

well i got the fan shroud and radiator out of the way so that gives me more room.. ill get the mechanical fan next. but i still think i should do an oil pressure check to see if the pump is failing first lol.

any idea how to go about that? is there an oil pressure sender built in that i can tap into?

[TheOne]

yes the oil pressure sender unit, it is usually tee'd off for turbo oil lines, its right next to the oil filter.

[SonyPete]

Yea I just got finihsed getting my engine rebuilt from a bad rod knock and yours sounded very very similiar to mine, thought my enigne was a 22RE

[s14 2510's]

I have a 91 de in the same boat that I need to get fixed. Sounds like a rod bearing.

[95_240]

I had spun a rod bearing in my car also. If you pull spark plug wires one at a time and it stops knocking then that means your bearing for that piston is most likely to blame. I did this on my car and when I checked the number one rod it was very loose on the crankshaft. I was able to replace this bearing with the engine in the car but if it is the number 2 or 3 bearings you might have to pull the engine i am not sure cause im getting another engine and those bearings werent knocking.