On a new motor you always use heavy and non synthetic oil. I also think it's a good idea to use a magnetic drain plug, and a magnetic filter.

Synthetic oil by itself will not cause this issue. Breaking-in a motor on synthetic oil will make it difficult for the rings to seat (and even this ignites a HUGE debate) and may cause ring-sealing issues down the road.
Sounds like very little, if any, machine work was done when this motor was assembled...but that is only a guess.

So you blew up two motors, the same way? This is what doesnt make sense to me. I was gonna say maybe it was the way the motor was assembled. But that isnt the case. Since the motors came apart the same way, and you got the motors from different people. My conclusion is that you did something to make them come apart. Like over revving the engines. Thats what makes the center bearings come apart. So what did you rev to? There is no way two motors from two different people could explode the same way. And i call bs on mobil 1 oil causing this. Not possible.

If you don't beat the shit out of them they will last. I know the second motor you are talking about and can say it is not because anything was wrong with the motor. It is because of how the motor was treated. Whether it be from hitting the rev limiter countless times, lack of oil, shifting from 3rd to 2nd instead of 3rd to 4th etc. There is no other explanation for it.

There is *NO* way that damage was caused from synthetic oil. Unless by synthetic you mean no oil. Just because it's synthetic doesn't meen the oil is going to fail indefinately. It's oil and I'm sure the engineers at Mobile One didn't design the oil to completely deteriorate and stop working when it was in a sports car.

I used Mobile one when I installed my turbo kit and the boost spiked to 13psi. My fuel set-up can only handle 8psi. The motor is currently still in my car running like a champ. My car even ran out of gas on the dyno and there's no damage still. So I would seriously doubt synthetic is the culprit and the guy at Slowboy who said that could've come up with something better.

What I don't understand is, why wasn't a leak down or compression test done to the motor BEFORE it was bought? Or check the plugs to see how it was running for the time it actually had been running before you bought it. Did you or Dustin do this at all? That way you know for sure and looking around oil in the pan isn't going to tell you all that much.

Are you running an external oil cooler?
Shavings from the first could be in the lines and contaminated the second, also buying a motor someone else did is never a good idea, i learned this first hand, but i was in Iraq and could not do any research.

Look in your bag of receipts that came with the car.

The crankshaft was a STD polished. From SBR. It was also cleaned profusely.
So were the bearings - STD ACL. All were plastigauged twice. Because they took a standard crankshaft, and then polished it. It naturally removes a small amount of material. This allows one to set up an almost perfect clearance 'right out of the box'. Assuming you are running towards the looser side of stock clearances. Which is what it was. Stock spec is .0008-.0020. It was set up at .0020. Which is normal for an engine that will see rpm above the stock redline. The reason it was checked twice is because on first lay, it was just about perfect. And just like your luck. Nothing is that easy. So it was done again. JUST to be sure.

This engine made it far past assembly. It was driven from this time last year to August. Broken in, and survived 2500+ miles. It withstood 25 psi and made 3XX whp. It was daily driven. The oil and filter was changed multiple times without any sign of debris - as you keep saying it was a dirty motor. It was sonic-cleaned by a professional machine shop previous to assembly. Taped off, and then painted to prevent corrosion. Then blasted out again with solvent JUST to be sure. It was bored WITH a deck plate and the ARP's that were to be used. To Overbores specifications. I know the owner (Mark) so I had him call the machine shop and tell them where we had discussed it needed to be for piston to wall clearance. He is the one who INSISTED it had to be bored with a deck plate due to fluctuations in bore when the head is torqued down - since Mahle does run a much tighter tolerance than a typical forged piston. I am not so self righteous that I presume to argue with Overbore. They have been using Mahle in 4G63's longer than almost anyone. The machine shop I used USED to do all of SBR's machine work previous to them getting an in house machine shop. So they are familiar as well + they cut with diamonds not stones. And it showed. Everything went together perfect.

I never said I polished anything. Do not post what "he said" unless you are going to put exactly what I said. I did say when doing a std std w/polish it is best to try to find a crank that is slightly bigger than stock spec so that when they polish it out. It will remain very close to stock spec. This gives you greater control over clearance and makes assembly a much simpler process. Boone spent an afternoon in the machine shop hunting for a perfect specimen for the motor for me. As I had been thru 5-6 other cranks that would polish just under where I knew I needed to be.

I spent weeks and weeks picking people like Marks brain, and others JUST to be sure. This was different than the typical Ross/Manley combo I am more familiar with and I wanted to be absolutely certain of everything. So I asked until they were sick of me.

The plugs were white because you got the car with 450s not the 950's that were in it.
It had a stock tune on it, but due to the cams you were probably seeing 15-16 psi.

Which is just about where the 450's call it a weekend.
I said take it easy. But I cannot constantly mother every minute detail after the fact. Eventually there is a line where my responsibility ends and yours begins.

This does not change the fact I am horrified the motor came apart. Sad, disgusted, and I genuinely DO feel bad about it. That car and motor, was my life for the 3 years I owned it. I sold it to someone local because I wanted to be able to see it again. If I was trying to shlup some pos together. I would have put it on eGay. And washed my hands of it.

It was never my intention to sell the car - EVER. However life changes when you get an Evo. If I had the time, I would have pulled that motor and put the car back to stock. And kept the motor. I did not have the time. It absolutely killed me to let the car go at all. To see this happen makes me even sicker. For you and I can't help it. My car.

I am not going to fight with you about it. Things have already been said - that probably shouldn't have. But please know I devoted 6 months of my life and everyone else I could call - talk to - and other wise annoy. Making sure it went together right.

Wouldn't the metal shavings be from the cylinder walls coming from the process of breaking in your motor?

meliketoball said:

Wouldn't the metal shavings be from the cylinder walls coming from the process of breaking in your motor?

Click to expand...

the shavings were form the bearings, regardless the engine was way past break-in

What he is describing, and the small amount of fine metal dust from break in are two VERY different things. There was almost no particulate in the oil by the third oil change. (200 or so miles)

I even ran the oil thru a strainer to check it.

On the first change. There was fine metal dust from break in. (50< miles) Barely any the second time (100 miles) And almost none the third time. Maybe 5-6 flecks smaller than a grain of sand. This is when I pulled the pan to give things a thorough check at my buddies house.

I saw the center bearing and its peeled. The shit looks like it had no oil. Its just scraped off like you took a ginsu knife and peeled it layer by layer. Of course this crap then blew thru the entire engine. Wiping out the rest of the bearings... the oil pump... the shit got up into the head... wiped out the cam caps... cams... it almost looks like it got shot up by the squirters and trapped in between the pistons and got drug down the walls... Its almost a 100% loss.

The head was a 1G ported head with 1mm o/s valves... BC springs/ret and BC 272's. Fresh mag/bronze guides. (less than 10,000 miles on it) SBR did all the machine work, and they did a fabulous job. It shit up an easy $1500 in just the head. I had run the head on the 7 bolt motor in the car before. Then completely pulled it down and cleaned it and reassembled it for the new bottom end. I added the cams, adj gears, and spr/ret.

If you start adding it up dollar for dollar there's alot of money here that ended up in the toilet.
Its enough to make you sick. It made me sick, and I'm sure it makes him sick.

This is like the WCS for any engine. And I still don't know exactly why it happened. Or in what order exactly it failed. Or a clear why.

IMO it couldn't have been the mobil one either. As I had run the mobil 1 after about 1500 miles and changed it again shortly before I parked it. Around 2500. Maybe closer to 3000. At this point I was still being very wary because well, christ. I had $5000 in an engine almost. It almost made me neurotic. And I still had nothing to tip me off there was a problem. Oil was still coming out clean.
No particulate.

He gets the car and bango. She dies soon after. Now I know it was fine. But I look like a total ass to this kid who has had the car maybe a month. Worst feeling in my entire life. I know I covered all the bases but tell that to the kid with a blown up motor? Again. Worst experience of my life. And I'm sure its now his too.



And I'm still not clear on the what went first. Its makes me absolutely insane. I just want to kick babies. There shouldn't have been ANY major problems.

DONT KICK THE BABY!

But seriously, we used to build engines at the shop I work at, and for this same reason of liability.
Who are you to know if someone will beat the hell out of it? or not!? and it still fail?
Tight right/left handers that starve the oil pressure? (been there!x2)
Hey, at least the xfer case is ok.

IMO, something got into the engine from the last one. Run an external oil cooler? Use the old oil filter assembly?
What was reused from the first engine to the 2nd? ANYTHING that touches oil in the first engine should not have been reused unless cleaned.

He wasn't being clear when he posted this. He bought an entire running car. Not a motor. He had plans to pull the engine from the second car - and put it in the awd. Rebuild his other blown engine and put it in the fwd. And have two.

So nothing was transferred. But this motor got destroyed the same way as the other one.

First one was a fresh 6 bolt rebuild. Dead / 200 miles

This one well broken in and not remotely stock. Low mileage <3000. No problems. Dead <200 miles.

Both died the same way.

Nothing interchanged between the cars whatsoever.

Asmodeus said:

Nothing interchanged between the cars whatsoever.

Click to expand...

Just sounds like bad luck to me..

I find it curiously ironic how Asmo fails to mention how the motor had an oil leak when he sold it to the kid.

Blitzeclips said:

I find it curiously ironic how Asmo fails to mention how the motor had an oil leak when he sold it to the kid.

Click to expand...

Actually had you taken the time to read his posts in the other thread you would have noticed he clearly stated he told him but let me throw it up for you just to save you the trouble

Asmodeus said:

On top of that I told him point blank 5-6 times NOT to buy the car. He needed his other car fixed, not another car with minor issues to fix. The car had no power steering and an oil leak at the oil filter housing. Despite this HE decided to buy it. Just showed up with a check. I still tried to talk him out of it - being the terrible person I am. It wasn't what was best for him.

He bought it anyway at a reduced price with the issues mentioned above.

Click to expand...

Blitzeclips said:

I find it curiously ironic how Asmo fails to mention how the motor had an oil leak when he sold it to the kid.

Click to expand...

He did, in the other thread...

Asmodeus said:

On top of that I told him point blank 5-6 times NOT to buy the car. He needed his other car fixed, not another car with minor issues to fix. The car had no power steering and an oil leak at the oil filter housing. Despite this HE decided to buy it. Just showed up with a check. I still tried to talk him out of it - being the terrible person I am. It wasn't what was best for him.

Click to expand...

For anyone thats read Asmo's buildup threads and posts over at Talk, you see that he knows what he's doing. For all I care Asmo could have poured metal debris into the engine and sold it to the dumb kid, it's buyer beware when you're purchasing a car.

90blacktsiawd said:

Actually had you taken the time to read his posts in the other thread you would have noticed he clearly stated he told him but let me throw it up for you just to save you the trouble

Click to expand...

Yeah. That's the other thread. He listed about every possible thing that could go wrong with the car in a 20 paragraph format and didn't post how it had an oil leak. It's one vital sentence in a looong list of things. That's what is ironic.

Also how old is this kid? sounds to me like user error.... and inexperience x2

Blitzeclips said:

Yeah. That's the other thread. He listed about every possible thing that could go wrong with the car in a 20 paragraph format and didn't post how it had an oil leak. It's one vital sentence in a looong list of things. That's what is ironic.

Click to expand...

I dont see the irony myself. If he told the kid up front there's an oil leak and the kid wasn't intelligent enough to take care of it or at least check on the oil level frequently knowing it was leaking then it's his own fault.

I'm not trying to be a ####, but the leak is not the sellers fault. Thats a pretty basic question that the buyer should have known to ask. Even if he did ask and the seller lied about it, the buyer (or his mechanic) should have seen the oil on the outside of the motor when he was putting it in AND he should have been checking the oil level and looking for spots on his parking spot. Thats not rocket science, its common sense.

Again, not to be a dick, but you've toasted two motors in a very short amount of time. Either you have no real idea what you are doing or you keep taking too-good-to-be-true deals. First off, I dont believe for a second someone would spend the cash on a full OEM Mitsu rebuild just to sell it <100 miles into the break in. How often did you change the oil? Either the previous owner knew there was a problem and took you, or I bet you didnt change the oil or change it enough... the break in period is an extension of the machining process, the metal is supposed to wear together and this will cause fragments to break off into the oil. The filter cant catch all of it especially if you dont change the oil as much as you should, and the more of those particles you've got floating around in there the more chance you've got for catastrophic failure. As for the next motor, it evidently made it 3 years and 2500-3000 miles with the first guy... either he also took you or his perfectly good motor self destructed because of something you neglected or did after it came into your posession.

Regardless you need to stop blaming this "curse" and beefen up your part buying skills, your car knowledge, how well you take care of the car, or a combination of the three. Believe me man, I've had my fair share of shit break, blaming other people wont get you anywhere especially when the next time comes.

90blacktsiawd said:

I dont see the irony myself. If he told the kid up front there's an oil leak and the kid wasn't intelligent enough to take care of it or at least check on the oil level frequently knowing it was leaking then it's his own fault.

Click to expand...

had the same thing happen to a friend while back,oil leaks and did not check the oil for a month or so!

OUTCOME:SPUN BEARING AND THE ROD WAS ABOUT WELDED TO THE CRANK!

I have read over all these threads. Here and DSMTalk. If this was the guys first motor that he blew, it would be one thing. But this is number two. Not only is it number two, but two motors dead EXACTLY the same way. Now, either we have two people who went out to set this kid up, and make him look really bad, and if thats the case good job. Or we have a kid who is doing something drastically wrong.

Blitzeclips, you have said yourself, lets hear the other guys side of the story. Well one its out on this board, and he didnt say in that thread that two guys gave him jacked motors. Im sure the kid has read over these posts, and wont post because he knows, deep down, he screwed these motors. Now, either this kid is you, or you know him personally, or your just out to cause an argument. Which seams to be something you do.

On one had here we have a respectable DSMer on the boards, and on the other hand we have a new kid to the boards. That does not make the senior member automatically right, and the new guy wrong. But it does give a sence of character. Now, from what I have gathered, and I don't know him at all, Asmodeus is an asshole (take no offence, its not a shot at you), but an upfront guy all the same. This other kid has had time to come in, call Asmodeus a lier or what have you. Which he hasn't, maybe thats because Asmodeus isnt lying.

With all that said, Blitzeclips, if the person who blew two motors isnt you, leave it alone. You have said your piece, and by continuing your argument, your making yourself look bad, and people are going to be less and less likely to take your word for anything.

The car was sold as is - with an oil leak. It wasn't hidden. I went over the entire history of the car. Power steering crossover line was leaking so I clipped the belt to keep the pump from burning up. It needed about $100 in parts and some labor. Labor - I did not feel like doing. So I sucked it up and sold the car for alot less than I wanted. Threw in a ton of extra parts. oem hood, the entire AC system, OEM manuals, an extra ISC motor, alot of the reciepts from the car. He was here for 6 hours while we packed his truck full of parts. The whole time I told him everything. Then he drove it 20 minutes out to a buddys house to get the AC stuff he wanted. And back, and thru town without any problems.

It wasn't "hi - here's your car" go get F'd.

I covered everything over and over and over.

I sent him the original listing that explains everything the car had - and what was wrong with it. Before he even came to get it. And I listed EVERYTHING.

I am SICK and tired of people trying to find new ways I'm such a terrible person here.
I spent an entire day getting him up to speed on the car.

When you bought your DSM's how many of the previous owners did that for you?
He's not saying anything because he isn't questioning this. Only Blitz is.

I even got him the part numbers for the parts the car needed to fix the oil leak. And pwr steering leak. Its hardly hiding things when you tell someone THIS IS WHAT YOU NEED TO FIX IT.

I only came on here to help describe what was done to the motor so that he could ask for help figuring out what caused it. I am absolutely done with this now as it is just another excuse to crawl up my ass about how I'm a liar. None of this garbage has any place in this thread. He wants to know what happened so it doesn't happen again. And your so busy on your goddamn anti-Asmo holy war you're going to get it locked before anyone can help him. Your now ####ing him over too.

Cause you can't quit stirring the pot so he can get help.

Hi,
I have answered this question about why it failed. I have answered it about 200 times. Near the end, I think I twisted it into, "because the elephant fell off the roof." Basically, because I got tired of answering the question over and over again, I needed to change it up to try to laugh about it, rather than strangle someone.

Here's the scoop. unbiased... I could care less, to a point. The only reason I am here is because I do care about my work, and my reputation. I do have a very good reputation, and take pride in my work. Otherwise, I wouldn't be sorting through technical posts at 9:45pm on a Friday night. I fore-go having a life, to make sure I get things done correctly. I just happened to stumble across this post and the other one. ...interesting read to say the least...

AS I understand it:

First, Sprocket2005 bought a Honda Civic. The car was really decked out. It needed a better fuel delivery system on it, as they didn't do any mods to it, after adding a turbocharger, or a supercharger. I can't remember which, it isn't important. He was quoted for $7000 in parts and labor to correct the super-lean engine. Then, he finds a 97 talon tsi that he wants. The car was located in Detroit, MI. The engine was bad, and was a 7 bolt motor. Locally, Sprocket2005 found a 6 bolt engine that was in known running condition. Rather than have the 7 bolt motor rebuilt, he took the 6 bolt engine up to Detroit and as a condition of trade, (straight across trade a $21,000 civic show car for this 97 Talon TSI) they were to rebuild this 6 bolt engine for good measure, as it's exact internal condition was unknown.
The 97 was towed home, and was driven and modded. At this time, Sprocket aquired DSMLink, and had a brand new Turbo and a few other things installed by Asmodeous. I had briefly heard, at this point, that the car was acting up. After this, I get a call that he had taken the Talon up to his shop, and was going to change the mashed oil pan. This is when he found long metal shavings in the oil pan, pulled the thrust bearing, and saw that it was torn up.
Shortly after, I got a phone call from his father, saying that he had bought a second car with a well built engine. I was told it had some other minor issues, and was only fwd. He asked me if I would be willing to do an engine swap between the 2 cars. He wanted the well built engine to be removed from the older fwd car, and put in the newer awd car. It was figured that it would be cheaper to buy the car, swap the engines, putting the bad engine in the older car, and selling it as a tsi project.
First, I pulled the engine from the older fwd car (asmodeous' old car) and then I pulled the engine from the 97 talon. I did not pull the pan back down on the 97 talon engine to witness the bearing and crank journal damage, personally. I did note the extremely smashed oil pan, and the smashed pick-up tube which he had removed. Chrysler/Mitsubishi generally frowns upon smashed oil pans and smashed oil pick-up tubes. Without doing a complete tear down, I cannot say 100% for sure what caused that engine to crap the bed. What I have said, and remain unchanged about are 2 major facts.
1. The car was bought in trade for another car, as a condition of the trade, a friend of the guy was supposed to rebuild the engine. There was some confusion as to time-frame during the engine building. Sprocket2005 was already in Detroit with his truck and trailer, and the build/installation was not complete. (rush? fast-n-dirty rebuild just to get the car gone? who knows... we weren't there)

2. The oil pick-up tube was smashed, because the oil pan was smashed into it. (I'm sure you can figure out what this might mean) Asmodeous was the one who pointed this out to Sprocket2005.

Now, for Asmodeous' former car engine, I tore the engine completely apart, and I can say with 100% accuracy what caused the main bearings to fail. Lack of oil. This was confirmed by my machine shop. My machine shop has been building specialty racing engines since the 1950's. The machinist/owner, who confirmed, has 51 years experience with machining/building race engines. End of story.

Some of the other things I have found:

-Main cap bolts, when removed from the blind holes, had 1/4" of machining debris/oil stuck to the ends. The only way this could get in here, was before the bolts were installed. Just one of these tiny bits of metal, if gotten into the oil system would have been enough to destroy any bearing surface.

-Cylinders 2 and 3 were leaking into each other at the head gasket.

-Rust pitting on the block, on the cylinder head mating surface. This surface did not look like it was machined properly. Again, this is photographed, and confirmed by my machine shop.

-Debris above the oil control rings, below the bottom compression ring, on #3 piston. Debris was large enough to totally negate the possibility that it could have gotten there by passing the rings from either the top or bottom.

There's a bunch more... finger tight camshaft bearing caps, loose bolts on other major assemblies, rtv in places where there shouldn't be. There are a few dozen different things that were bound to fail on this engine. I don't know the guy who built this engine. I am not saying he is inept. I am just saying, this is what I found. I know mistakes happen, and everyone has a different deffinition of what "clean and meticulous" means. Also, levels of workmanship seem to go right out the window on these 4 cylinder cars. Attend an "import" show at "Cars At Carlisle" and then attend the "Corvettes At Carlisle" show. You'll see a difference in the workmanship in general. There are always exceptions to both extremes, but in general, see what you see. Personal taste is one thing. IF you want a purple and blue motor in a silver car, go for it! I am not going to judge anyone for that. BUT, if you do a poor job of painting the purple and blue, then I am generally not going to expect your mechanical tidiness to be much better.

I am not going to argue with anyone, and I am certainly not trying to pick a fight, but I am pretty aggrivated over this whole situation. I have been building engines for 16 years, and owned my own restoration/bodyshop for 8 years. Before that, I was a certified Ford technician, and a heavy equipment mechanic who has rebuilt engines ranging from Briggs&Stratton 5hp units and Shindawa 20cc 2 cycle engines, to Cat 3208's and IH DT466's that go 600,000 miles between overhauls. I didn't come here to read all this crap and get annoyed. I came here to look for specifics on the 4g63's

This will be put to bed, when I am done building this engine. It sucks. I didn't want to be involved in this long drawn out saga. It seems to be one thing after another with this car. Now the cylinder head needs a bunch of work done... bent and pitted valves... destroyed valve guides... scratched cam bearing surfaces...
When will it end?