KA-T failure; resurrection?

[RedSubdivisions]

title sorta says it all. lolAnyways, down to the basics!

I decided to take my chances and KA-T my 240. the motor had 176K on it and she had above 170 psi across the board (I was fairly surprised). That was a good sign. my oil pressure system was working pretty well and I figured, "s***, why not go for it?". My motor was pretty healthy and she took a beating whenever I threw it at her. I always ran 93 octane, Mobil 1 synthetic oil at every 3K mile oil change, and seafoamed every once in a while to keep the carbon deposits out.

my setup was a T3/T04E turbo, 555cc injectors, and my BikiROM ECU to tune it with (I find out later it's not really all that easy or fun to use). well, everything went well up the point where the turbo kept blowing out oil....pretty much to the point where the downpipe was filled with oil. The car would idle like absolute garbage and it would smoke like a chimney stack (on top of the huge fuel smell). well, the physical setup of everything went well, but what I didn't get was why immediately on the first startup the car was smoking and idling terrible. I figured it was a tuning issue. after long hours and many weekends (as well as nights off from work) I decided to convert the car back to stock and KA-T when I had a daily beater.

in the process of converting the car back to stock, I noticed the car wasn't running right at all. a lot of smoke came out still and it was a completely stock setup (PAIR box removed as well as EGR blocked off), so it puzzled me. I changed the oil and the amount of fuel in the crankcase amazed me; at least a gallon of gas was in there. so at that point I knew something was clearly wrong. my car had been sitting at a friend's house during this process and I got her limping home. on the way, the car would buck terribly and smoke quite a bit as I drove it. I got her home and left her there until I had to get her towed; I knew she was on the verge of death.

I towed it to a local shop and after an inspection (and the gas in the crankcase), they suggested a rebuild. the fuel sitting in the crankcase already got at the main bearings. on top of that, my piston rings were shot and I'm sure the fuel wreaked havoc on everything else in the engine, so I have learned my lesson: know what you're doing.

I wish I would have learned the easier way and taken my time, but luckily my engine is still salvageable and is on its way to being resurrected. the damage isn't as bad as it seems, but any 240 that isn't driveable isn't a good thing, so that's the pessimistic view on that. lol

any input as to what could have caused such a failure? maybe something simple like the PCV taking a s***? I'm not completely clueless as to what it may be, but I'm obviously no ASE mechanic. I'm gonna rebuild the engine, especially after this catastrophe, but it's nice to know if anyone else has come across this?

[WDRacing]

Sounds like you had an injector leaking or stuck open. I can't think of how else that much fuel would get in the sump.

Glad you're sticking it out though.

WD

[RedSubdivisions]

Sounds like you had an injector leaking or stuck open. I can't think of how else that much fuel would get in the sump.

Glad you're sticking it out though.

WD

thank you kind sir. Infact, I plan on going turbo again later on down the road (I already cut the holes for piping and whatnot) or maybe even take a slight interest in SR, who knows...I don't wanna be biased towards one motor (although I love my KA, hence me getting it rebuilt lol) . But the one day that it did run, I was running off wastegate pressure (which was like 4 lbs lol), it pulled very nicely.

if the injectors were stuck open, then that would have meant my car going into limp mode, correct?

[joenismos15]

Man i know how that feels had mine down for almost a year and it killed me! Gl getting your baby up and running! it will be worth it in the end!

[WDRacing]

I don't think it would go into limp mode from a stuck injector. But it is possible...

I'm going back to NA myself. Just for a little since I'm swapping my blown setup out...big hole in the block makes it hard to keep oil in her

Eventually I'll being going with boost again. But I also want to do a V8 swap sometime. You'll never catch me putting a smaller motor into a car...so SR20's really aren't my thing.

WD

[RedSubdivisions]

I don't think it would go into limp mode from a stuck injector. But it is possible...

I'm going back to NA myself. Just for a little since I'm swapping my blown setup out...big hole in the block makes it hard to keep oil in her

Eventually I'll being going with boost again. But I also want to do a V8 swap sometime. You'll never catch me putting a smaller motor into a car...so SR20's really aren't my thing.

WD

Yeah, I was that way for a while; I wanted to stay true to the 240's name of having a 2.4L. it's not something I've seriously considered, just food for thought. My girlfriend isn't too fond of the idea of me going turbo again, but I'm the type where I won't stop until I find a solution. it's a burden, really. lol

I'll post up pics whenever I find my camera so you guys can see how it went.