Symptoms of cracked ring lands?

[Chris28]

Alright, I'm back to smoking in boost. I don't think it's the turbo, it's practically brand new. I don't think it's my oil return line, it's -10 AN and isn't kinked, though it's not a very downward slope. When I upped the boost to 13 psi on the dyno the dyno man who happens to have a t3/t4 ka24e in a Hardbody said he heard it detonating up top, so I should back off the boost. I did, it's back to 8 psi right now.

It hasn't smoked at all since I put the new turbo in, this just started today. I don't even know when it started, there wasn't any odd noise or anything, I just started smelling it and a friend who was driving behind me said there was quite a lot of blueish smoke coming out whenever I got on it. It overheated last weekend when my fans took a crap, maybe the combination of it overheating and detonating on the dyno messed something up?

Also, my logs from the dyno pulls showed my timing at 20 degrees throughout the rpm range. Can I send someone (WD lol) my logs as well as my .bin for them to look at? It's an EFI tune, everyone says he has timing at 14 in boost but according to my logs I've been boosting at 20 degrees, and that means cracked ring lands.

I'll be doing a compression test as soon as I can get my hands on a compression tester, mine's at home and I'm in Raleigh (if anyone local has one I'll rent it for a day or something haha). Aside from compression testing, is there anything else that would tell me that it's my ring lands? Or maybe I'm overlooking something as to why it's smoking? Thanks a lot.

-Chris

[ghx407]

Aside from compression testing, is there anything else that would tell me that it's my ring lands?

Smoke coming out of the valve cover breather is a good indicator of cracked ringlands.

Let's hope it's something else...

[WDRacing]

My email is my profile, I'll also pass it to Easy, he's actually the guy you'll wanna talk to. He does his own chips all the time.

He should pop in here and see this, I'll IM him the link.

[trackslut240]

loss of power, a miss at some rpms, takes forever to catch higher speeds past 80mph, those are what i remember from one busted ringland on #4 cylinder.

hows your oil level? disconnect lower return line on level ground and see if oil comes out of pan. i saw your return setup and it seems much better than your first. hmmmm...compression test will expose the culprit. i dont think my motor smoked with a busted ringland...or did it..

[eazye2000]

Well, you can run 20* of timing until like 5-6psi with 92-93 octane I do believe. I've not done it in some time though. It does sound like you got some cracked ringlands. They typically don't do much at idle, or even light throttle. They usually only act up when you boost and blast air and fuel into your crank case. Thus the smoke and such.The whole underside of my car is covered in 10w-30 Mobil, I've been there...I'm not familiar with your build. You still on a stock motor? If not, you should be able to get away with some detonation here and there as long as it's not prolonged. Stock pistons with not be so forgiving. One good detonation and they are toast.

One quick question. Do you have a wideband? Is the smoke being misunderstood as fuel? And what kind of turbo? My ball bearing garretts don't mind a 90* bend in the return line. Never had an issue. I use a restrictor though.

I've not thought this out totally. Let me ponder on this for a few.

[Jay97240Sx]

Smoke coming out of the valve cover breather is a good indicator of cracked ringlands.

Let's hope it's something else...

Im getting smoke from my valve cover also, wastegate line flew off and i saw 22 psi b4 i backed off.

[Chris28]

Well, you can run 20* of timing until like 5-6psi with 92-93 octane I do believe. I've not done it in some time though. It does sound like you got some cracked ringlands. They typically don't do much at idle, or even light throttle. They usually only act up when you boost and blast air and fuel into your crank case. Thus the smoke and such.The whole underside of my car is covered in 10w-30 Mobil, I've been there...I'm not familiar with your build. You still on a stock motor? If not, you should be able to get away with some detonation here and there as long as it's not prolonged. Stock pistons with not be so forgiving. One good detonation and they are toast.

One quick question. Do you have a wideband? Is the smoke being misunderstood as fuel? And what kind of turbo? My ball bearing garretts don't mind a 90* bend in the return line. Never had an issue. I use a restrictor though.

I've not thought this out totally. Let me ponder on this for a few.

Problem is I ran 15 psi once while setting the mbc. It was for like 2 seconds and at pretty low rpm, but on the dyno it spiked to 13 psi and my injector duty cycle went to 100%. It definitely detonated up top for a few seconds.

Engine is totally stock, only thing I've done is taken off the valve cover. I do have a wideband, the smoke is definitely not fuel. If anything it shows that I'm running a bit lean, but it's because of a torn downpipe gasket pre-sensor. When I had my exhaust all fixed normally my afr's were perfect.

Turbos is a t28 from a Pulsar GTi-R. It's basically a non ball bearing version of an s15 t28. The return line is downhill all the way, it's just not straight down. I had to go around my engine mount.

I got rom editor and nemysys running on my laptop earlier, I'll go over to my car tomorrow and grab the .bin for you to take a look at, if you want to. In the mean time, mind if I email you my data logs?

I guess more importantly, can I limp it home? It's about a 200 mile drive, I can stay out of boost. I've sourced a freshly honed block and new oem pistons for cheap, but I'll look around for some cp pistons, and if funds permit I'll look for rods as well. I'll check my oil level tomorrow, but I burned a whole lot more oil with my previous turbo so I'm not too worried about oil consumption. If fuel is leaking into the block past the rings, however, then I'll be worried.

Either way I'm not going to jump to conclusions until I do a compression test. I still might grab that block and other stuff I found on craigslist, just to have a spare engine to be building.

[Jay97240Sx]

If u take it easy u should be alright for the drive home. I have been driving my "smoking valve cover" for over a month back and forth to work in and out of boost with no problems, it just feels down on power and fills the cabin with the smell of hot oil and smoke when i get on it.

[eazye2000]

I would say if it runs good at idle and off boost, you can drive it. Just keep the oil level in check, and smell it to see if there is a bunch of fuel in it. The cracked ring lands wont let that much more fuel into your oil. They usually crack in like 20-30 degree pieces and not all the way around. You can e-mail me whatever. All my info should be in my profile. If not, it's e_appie (at) hotmail.com

[Chris28]

Alright, thanks for the replies. I actually found a rebuilt (15,000 miles ago) KA on craigslist for pretty cheap, I'll go ahead and scoop that up. Next time I'm home for more than a weekend I'll swap the new KA in and keep boost way down, in the mean time I'll rebuild my current block with forged pistons and shot-peened rods so I'll feel comfortable when I up the boost. Man, I need a DD.

Eazy I'll be e-mailing you later. Thanks a lot for the replies everyone.

[Jay97240Sx]

Alright, thanks for the replies. I actually found a rebuilt (15,000 miles ago) KA on craigslist for pretty cheap, I'll go ahead and scoop that up. Next time I'm home for more than a weekend I'll swap the new KA in and keep boost way down, in the mean time I'll rebuild my current block with forged pistons and shot-peened rods so I'll feel comfortable when I up the boost. Man, I need a DD.

Eazy I'll be e-mailing you later. Thanks a lot for the replies everyone.

Im doing the same thing right now bro, the engine i bought goes in next week, and the old one gets built. Im getting some stuff from this site;

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors...%3AIT

[Chris28]

I'll probably get forged pistons when I get around to rebuilding this one, but I don't think I'll go for the rods. I'll see if I can get my stock ones shot-peened, that combined with arp bolts and they should hold up to the power I plan on making.

I really shouldn't have turned the boost up on the dyno. I guess I found the limit for stock pistons with 20* of timing and 13 psi haha. I'm sure the tiny 370cc's maxing out didn't help either...

[WDRacing]

Stock rods are shotpeened from the factory.

If anything, I'd swap the rods. Time and again they have failed before the piston when tuned correctly.

A forged piston will tolerate some extra knock but not as much as you guys think. Plus the rings themselves can become the weak link if the motor detonates.

It sucks that the ECU didn't pull timing out on boost. I'd be more then pissed.

Invest in a knock light this time Chris. Well worth it IMHO.

WD

[Chris28]

So rods are the way to go you say? I'll probably go with those then. I'll definitely invest in a knock light as well, it's a good idea.

Once I grab the .bin I'll be contacting EFI to see what's up. How does the ECU know when to pull timing? It's not like it can sense boost, or can it? I'll see if I'm throwing any codes while the consult cable is hooked up, maybe a sensor failed and that's why it didn't pull timing. The only way I can think of pulling timing right now would be based on what the TPS reads, but I've never looked into tuning myself so I wouldn't know.

Thanks for the info. I thought I was doing things right this time, I guess not. Third time's the charm, right?

[Chris28]

WD and Eazy, you both have mail.

[WDRacing]

The MAF measures the volume of air that passes by it.

Will check out the .bin tomorrow. Could be you made that much power because your timing was so friggin ramped up...lol. You're probably closer to 250

[Chris28]

Haha thanks man. Eazy explained it in a bit more detail in his e-mail response, and yeah that's probably why I made so much power. Timing FTL.

[eazye2000]

Timing FTL!?

I bet you made a crap load of power when it happened. Just sucks that it probably was the straw that broke the camels back.

I'm going to check the tune again tomorrow. I have to swap it into Xcel and look at it closer. The compare button in Tuner Pro doesn't change the scale, only what's in the cells, so it throws crap off. Been working on a project lately, so I've been busy. I do apologize.

[Chris28]

Timing FTL!?

I bet you made a crap load of power when it happened. Just sucks that it probably was the straw that broke the camels back.

I'm going to check the tune again tomorrow. I have to swap it into Xcel and look at it closer. The compare button in Tuner Pro doesn't change the scale, only what's in the cells, so it throws crap off. Been working on a project lately, so I've been busy. I do apologize.

Haha yeah if it was the straw, then yeah it is for the lose!

No problem man, take your time. You're doing me a favor, don't apologize haha. 297 rwhp on stock maf did seem a little high, I guess it was timing haha.

[WDRacing]

Just some food for thought Chris...

If you had a really simple water injection system you could leave the tune just how it is and run 15 psi all day. Just a single nozzle, pump, pressure switch, lines and a reservoir. I'd be more then happy to assist with the parts selection and tuning.

*teaser*

Got a present in the mail yesterday, look for a build thread coming soon

[Chris28]

Water injection scares me, mainly because I just found out what it is about a month ago when talk of it started appearing in this forum haha. I've thought about it, but I don't want to rely on water/meth to keep my engine from blowing up...yet.

I'll think about some more, if there were a way to turn it on and off as well as switch tunes from the injection tune to a normal tune with the flick of a switch I'd do it, but I'm far too careless to attempt something that intricate right now. On a drag car yes, but a daily driver that sees moderate to heavy road course use I don't think it's a good idea.

Maybe you can sway me towards it, but I kind of see it as e85. Sure you can run more timing with it and make more power, but I'd hate to have to plan routes based on where e85 pumps are.

Now that I think about it, I could have a dual setting boost controller with low boost set at 7 psi and have high boost include some sort of injection system all while utilizing the same tune... Not yet, not yet haha.

[WDRacing]

The last part of your post was getting to the point. You run 2 different boost levels. One for a daily driver and one for the track. Water injection will allow you to run around 8 psi more as long as you have the fuel to support it. So with the flip of a switch you could have another 100whp. What's not to like about that?

Quite being a puss

[Lonismos14]

Hey chris i just bought a efi tuned ecu off of someone how do i tell its legit.

[Chris28]

There should be a sticker on it that says EFI Specialists on it. Other than that there isn't really a way to tell without pulling the .bin from the ecu and checking it out.

[Lonismos14]

How do i pull the .bin? there's just writing on the ecu with a majic marker that says the specs, but there would definitely be a sticker. what does your chips say?

[Chris28]

You need a consult cable and a program like Nistune. I don't know what "chips" you are talking about.