Cams killed my motor?

[Devilsfutbol17]

My car was idling, cruising and WOT just fine on E85 with a 16g. The head gasket was just replaced last summer and had 155psi compression across the board. I park it for a few months. Then I make the following upgrades:

1. 272 regrinds
2. Shimmed the lifters
3. HX-35
4. T3 TS manifold
5. Custom o2 housing
6. 4" intake pipe
7. 90 OFH with cooler
8. A/C delete
9. New radiator
10. Radiator temp sensor put in place of A/C temp sensor on Thermostat housing
11. 6-puck sprung clutch disk

Now my car idles like shit. I don't even considering it an idle really. Every time I try to ground the timing connector, it stalls. Cruising is just fine, AFRs in the 14.7 and everything. WOT is just fine at wastegate pressure of 1 bar, no knock and 11:1 AFRs.

Compression tests showed all cyclinders around 130psi and a wet test showed all the number improving by around 30psi. Leak down test showed between 60 to 40% escaping and the air was heard whistling in the oil cap. Also the spark plugs had a little bit of oil on them and under the oil cap it was milky looking.

I'm thinking this means piston rings, but how and why did this happen just after making these upgrades? The only thing that I can think of would be the cams or the shims on the lifters.

 

[bryanwheat]

I would get some adjustable cam gears and degree the cams.

 

[Devilsfutbol17]

So your saying the rings might not be bad?

 

[92AWDHX40]

Anything is possible, but no way of telling could be a number of things.

 

[BogusSVO]

The rings could be slightly stuck in the pistons, from letting the car sit.

Getting it up to op tepmp, and load the rings, a a fresh oil change may get them to unstick.

 

[daren_p]

Seems to be normal that compression dropped from adding aftermarket cams, & ~25psi sounds about typical, going from stock to "272" cams.

Also , adding oil to do a wet test doesn't doesn't typically work correct with our cars as the pistons are usually dished, so the oil just sits on the top of the piston, upping compression.

 

[3kgt2nv]

As a check swap back in stock cams and see if it fixes it. one of the problems with regrinds is they are not as exact as cast or machined cams usually.

 

[BogusSVO]

As a check swap back in stock cams and see if it fixes it. one of the problems with regrinds is they are not as exact as cast or machined cams usually.

Untill he gets the leak down problem fixed, swapping cams will not do a thing for him.

40-60% leak down, and heard out the VC/oil filler cap is rings.

 

[Devilsfutbol17]

The rings could be slightly stuck in the pistons, from letting the car sit.

Getting it up to op tepmp, and load the rings, a a fresh oil change may get them to unstick.

What do you mean by loading the rings? Before I did the any of the tests, I just let the car idle up to operating temps. Should I go and drive it for a minute or two as well before I do the tests? I have recently changed the oil since adding all of the stuff that I did, it probably has 2 miles tops on fresh oil.

Untill he gets the leak down problem fixed, swapping cams will not do a thing for him.

40-60% leak down, and heard out the VC/oil filler cap is rings.

Agreed. Since this looks like rings, the car is gonna get parked until I can get it rebuilt, which unfortunately won't be for probably a year or so. Granted I didn't do any testing prior to installing all that stuff, I just don't get how everything could have went so downhill.

Thank you all for the replies.

 

[GRAVEDIGGER]

Yes, take it for a drive. Get it into the boost a little and then let off, while leaving it in that gear and let it slow down with engine braking to produce maximum vacuum. That might help unstick the rings, if that is your problem. Try to do that at least a few times first.

 

[BogusSVO]

Yes go drive it, get it up to op temp.

Get on a safe road, do a 2nd gear pull at moderate boost 7-12psi, and decell in gear, do this a few times.

One of 2 things will happen, the rings will come loose and your compression/leak down will come back in line, or they will still be stuck and you will have to go thu the bottom end.

 

[daren_p]

What do you mean by loading the rings? Before I did the any of the tests, I just let the car idle up to operating temps. Should I go and drive it for a minute or two as well before I do the tests? I have recently changed the oil since adding all of the stuff that I did, it probably has 2 miles tops on fresh oil.



Agreed. Since this looks like rings, the car is gonna get parked until I can get it rebuilt, which unfortunately won't be for probably a year or so. Granted I didn't do any testing prior to installing all that stuff, I just don't get how everything could have went so downhill.

Thank you all for the replies.

Go for a drive, get the car properly warmed up & then get into boost, that will load the rings.

Edit: Too slow

 

[Devilsfutbol17]

Okay I am going to give that a shot tonight and see if it works. Thanks again for the help.

 

[2slow4now]

My dad had a little econo car he bought that had sat for a long while. We got it to start and drove it home. He changed the oil and it started doing very similar to this. We really didn't want to tear it down just to fix stuck rings so we just removed all the spark plugs and poured Marvel mystery oil in the cylinders and let it set for a week or so. Whatever crap that was sticking the rings must have gotten dissolved because after we drained the oil and siphoned the "mystery oil" out, cranked it a few times to pump the remaining out the exhaust without the plugs hooked up. It cleared it up. It did smoke like a mofo for awhile but after that it ran fine and he drove it to work for a couple years with no problems.

The only thing is that was a POS car with no boost or even power for that matter. I know a few guys that say to put tranny fluid in the cylinders to loosen up the rings. I have never done the tranny fluid thing so ???

 

[Devilsfutbol17]

Nothing........ I still got around %60 leak on the test out of the oil cap. I don't know what caused this, but it has already frustrated me too much. It cruises SO NICELY, it just doesn't make sense to me. It pulls like a F****** TRAIN!!! But has terrible leak down test and won't idle.

Its pretty much done, its going home to the fiance's house and under the car cover for who knows how long.

If anyone cares to check it out, I attached a log of on the way to the grocery store with it tonight. I did a hard 2nd, 3rd, and 4th gear pull just at halfway through the log. Thanks for the ideas gentlemen.

 

[obsidian]

I'm betting cams.

 

[redyute1]

Yeah that may sound stupid but for the hell of it I say swap the cams to stock and see what happens.

 

[kchaazz]

Regarding your compression readings and idle trouble, its simple, your compression is down and your car wont idle because the cams you put in havent been degreed and you have too much overlap. Many people dont degree their cams, but you can get adjustable cam gears, advance the exhaust and retard the intake cam a degree at a time until your motor is pulling good vacuum (18- 22) and your idle will be steady again. Do a compression test after doing this and see where youre at. Here is a link to some good info regarding this:
http://www.dsmtuners.com/forums/cylinder-head-short-block/361516-cam-test-i-will-dyno-test-delta-hks-272-delta-k272-bc-272-cams-2.html#post152119389

 

[ramsack]

Why would cams leak compression into the crankcase? No matter how much overlap mis-degreed cams have, the compression will never leak into the crankcase. It will leak into the exhaust or intake. He's also doing leakdown tests, not compression tests. The air is going past the rings.

 

[kchaazz]

^^ Of course the cams arent leaking compression into the crankcase, I wasnt referring to the results of his leakdown test at all, only to his compression test results (130 psi) and the poor idle condition which is being caused by the cams. The only thing that has been changed is the cams; the car ran fine before that, though the motor has probably had some blowby the entire time, and he wasnt even driving the car before performing the tests, only letting it sit and warm up first, so the results could be a bit off anyway...

 

[redyute1]

Agreed

 

[Devilsfutbol17]

I think I will try swapping my cams in next weekend. I'm really eager to see whats under the valve cover after pulling my PCV valve and seeing these metal shards on them. I also wonder what might sitting in the bottom of my oil pan.

 

[pats16valve]

Are you sure none of the valves aren't hanging open from the shims under the lash adjusters?

 

[SonySlave]

Put a real set of cams in the car and I guarantee you that your car will transform back to the way it was. Re-grinds seriously suck balls. They idle like crap and never perform as well as their real counterparts. Also, changing valvetrain geometry by adding shims and whatnot has never seemed like a very good idea to me. I know from personal experience that re-grinds aren't worth it. I ran a set of Delta 280 re-grinds with shims, etc. and my car idled like absolute garbage no matter what I did... including degreeing them. They also gave me a very odd power and torque curve. Very inconsistant. So I did a little experiment and swapped in a set of legitimate HKS 280s (what the Deltas were based on) and voila! the car idled normally and my power/torque curves were smooth as silk, and I didn't even need to degree them!

Now I know that there are going to be a ton of people saying the re-grinds are great and people have made tons of power, blah, blah, blah... I'm giving my personal experiences and my experiences are shared by many locals here with DSMs. If you would like my opinion, if you want a good "272" cam, get a set of GSC S2s, FP4Rs, or Kelford 264s and never worry about this kind of crap again.

 

[Lofty]

I JUST ran into this problem and got it diagnosed tonight.

Check your lifters, on my new rebuild I didn't bleed mine and I didn't even know about how important they were to check however almost all of mine were seized and not compressing enough and causing ZERO compression on the whole motor.

I had no idea why. I would look at lifters, but I agree with degreeing in the cams as well.