Ludejim
10+ Year Contributor
- 63
- 10
- Apr 28, 2010
-
Centennial,
Colorado
Hello dsmtuners,
First I'd like to say that I have never posted here before, nor have I hesitated so much before actually posting in fear of being flamed or told to do a search or just to screw off. After actually reading through hundreds and hundreds of posts, I do feel more confident in the knowledge that I have gained, and have come to realize that everyone on the forums is actually pretty cool and willing to give advice.
VEHICLE BACKGROUND
I bought an Eagle Talon TSi 1993 and 1/2 (7bolt) with about 93,000 miles on it. The car was clean and unadulterated (untouched) except for a BSEK, and a 16G. When I first got the car I put a WB O2 on it, external dump tube, new down pipe, IAT sensor, oil catch can, boost control solenoid, and ECMLink to help manage the tune and the additional sensors. I did a boost leak test and found about a million leaks, so I did the taboo vacuum line removal, ran the boost leak test again and found that the only leak remaining was in the throttle body, so I rebuilt the throttle body and to my surprise no more leaks, yay! After that I found my idle nice and steady (it was fluctuating all over the place prior to the BLT and throttle body rebuild) and tuning the car suddenly became much easier. From there I only had 2 other problems, I had excessive blow by (dip stick was shooting out), and the knock sensor was throwing of the timing really badly up until about 3k RPM. I used ecmlink to prevent the Phantom knock and yet again I found tuning to be easier, although I had a little voice in the back of my head telling me that the knock sensor was going to be an issue.
PROBLEMS STARTED
I got a little over zealous and starting pushing the turbo harder and harder. On average my driving was allowing the turbo to build about 16psi, but when I wanted to a little faster I was able to push it to about 21 psi at most. I think the main issue was the boost control solenoid was strange to setup in ECMLink, as it allows you to change the amount of boost that is built at certain stages of a pull. Also keep in mind I was running Speed Density at the time which makes tuning a little more difficult.
BIG PROBLEM
So driving down the road one day I started to hear clanking coming from the engine bay. I had no initial thoughts on the matter when it was happening because I knew very little about internal engine parts, but after reading the forums and seeing pictures, I think I have come to a conclusion about what is wrong, and I just wanted anyone's or everyone's opinion on the matter.
First thing is one of the bearings. This bearing was not spun, but it looks like it was mashed to the side. I am not sure if it is supposed to have two sides on it, but i think it should. This is the first thing that caught my attention when I was taking apart the engine, especially because I found some shards of metal in the oil pan, that were similar in size to the lip on this bearing:
Either the main bearing was being starved of oil, or the crankshaft was being thrown around in its cradle. I have read of oil squirters being clogged and that causing problems with pistons, but I don't think that an oil squirter being clogged is going to cause oil starvation of the main bearing, if anything that would increase the amount of oil being provided to the main bearing. And actually the main bearing is not the only bearing that has excessive wear, which leads me to believe there was excessive play in the crank... Crank walk anyone... I think I know why ECMLink came with that little red cable for the clutch bypass
you can point an laugh, its ok.
Main bearing for the crankshaft clearly wearing down:
Rod bearing on one of the pistons close to the main bearing of the crankshaft, again clearly wearing:
There seems to be only one other thing that I find strange, and that is with the rods. Two of the four piston rod combinations allow the rod to move freely, and the other two are fairly stiff, although you can still move them, it just takes a little bit of force. When I was logging with ECMLink I did start to notice pretty high intake air temps and sometimes high coolant temps (coolant temps around 213 which I thought was normal, but others may say different and intake temps sometimes as high as 103.. yikes). I imagine this was probably caused by heat soak from the side mount inter cooler. It also seems the head gasket was on its last leg because when I took the head off there seemed to be some evidence of coolant mixing with oil (potentially caused by overheating as well). The only other thing that I could think of was I never saw the passenger side radiator fan kick on, but the drivers side would come on to cool and then shut off on a regular basis. I'm not sure what else would have caused the high amount of heat within the engine. Is overheating a good diagnosis as to why the rods seem so stiff around the piston pin???
This is one of the rods that is kinda tough to move back and fourth. You can also see with this rod and piston the play from left to right is substantial, I am not sure if that is normal:
Also here on the same rod/piston combo, it looks like the edges are cleaner than the rest of the piston, Im not sure if that if from getting to hot, or if that is from the blow by that I was explaining earlier.
Other than that, my block and head both look like there are in good condition to be rebuilt. Valves, guides, and seals were all in good shape. I don't know if I can trust my own opinion about this because I have never had an engine torn down like this before, but based on the appearance of the parts and the fact that the valves don't seem to be bent, I can hope they are all OK. Also when taking off the timing belt, all of the timing marks lined up really nicely so it didn't look like the belt had jumped a tooth or anything of that nature.
Here is a picture of just one for the bores, but all of them look like this. I think it was good that I stopped trying to start it and drive it around when I did, other wise I may have been less fortunate:
First I'd like to say that I have never posted here before, nor have I hesitated so much before actually posting in fear of being flamed or told to do a search or just to screw off. After actually reading through hundreds and hundreds of posts, I do feel more confident in the knowledge that I have gained, and have come to realize that everyone on the forums is actually pretty cool and willing to give advice.
VEHICLE BACKGROUND
I bought an Eagle Talon TSi 1993 and 1/2 (7bolt) with about 93,000 miles on it. The car was clean and unadulterated (untouched) except for a BSEK, and a 16G. When I first got the car I put a WB O2 on it, external dump tube, new down pipe, IAT sensor, oil catch can, boost control solenoid, and ECMLink to help manage the tune and the additional sensors. I did a boost leak test and found about a million leaks, so I did the taboo vacuum line removal, ran the boost leak test again and found that the only leak remaining was in the throttle body, so I rebuilt the throttle body and to my surprise no more leaks, yay! After that I found my idle nice and steady (it was fluctuating all over the place prior to the BLT and throttle body rebuild) and tuning the car suddenly became much easier. From there I only had 2 other problems, I had excessive blow by (dip stick was shooting out), and the knock sensor was throwing of the timing really badly up until about 3k RPM. I used ecmlink to prevent the Phantom knock and yet again I found tuning to be easier, although I had a little voice in the back of my head telling me that the knock sensor was going to be an issue.
PROBLEMS STARTED
I got a little over zealous and starting pushing the turbo harder and harder. On average my driving was allowing the turbo to build about 16psi, but when I wanted to a little faster I was able to push it to about 21 psi at most. I think the main issue was the boost control solenoid was strange to setup in ECMLink, as it allows you to change the amount of boost that is built at certain stages of a pull. Also keep in mind I was running Speed Density at the time which makes tuning a little more difficult.
BIG PROBLEM
So driving down the road one day I started to hear clanking coming from the engine bay. I had no initial thoughts on the matter when it was happening because I knew very little about internal engine parts, but after reading the forums and seeing pictures, I think I have come to a conclusion about what is wrong, and I just wanted anyone's or everyone's opinion on the matter.
First thing is one of the bearings. This bearing was not spun, but it looks like it was mashed to the side. I am not sure if it is supposed to have two sides on it, but i think it should. This is the first thing that caught my attention when I was taking apart the engine, especially because I found some shards of metal in the oil pan, that were similar in size to the lip on this bearing:
You must be logged in to view this image or video.
Either the main bearing was being starved of oil, or the crankshaft was being thrown around in its cradle. I have read of oil squirters being clogged and that causing problems with pistons, but I don't think that an oil squirter being clogged is going to cause oil starvation of the main bearing, if anything that would increase the amount of oil being provided to the main bearing. And actually the main bearing is not the only bearing that has excessive wear, which leads me to believe there was excessive play in the crank... Crank walk anyone... I think I know why ECMLink came with that little red cable for the clutch bypass
you can point an laugh, its ok.Main bearing for the crankshaft clearly wearing down:
You must be logged in to view this image or video.
Rod bearing on one of the pistons close to the main bearing of the crankshaft, again clearly wearing:
You must be logged in to view this image or video.
There seems to be only one other thing that I find strange, and that is with the rods. Two of the four piston rod combinations allow the rod to move freely, and the other two are fairly stiff, although you can still move them, it just takes a little bit of force. When I was logging with ECMLink I did start to notice pretty high intake air temps and sometimes high coolant temps (coolant temps around 213 which I thought was normal, but others may say different and intake temps sometimes as high as 103.. yikes). I imagine this was probably caused by heat soak from the side mount inter cooler. It also seems the head gasket was on its last leg because when I took the head off there seemed to be some evidence of coolant mixing with oil (potentially caused by overheating as well). The only other thing that I could think of was I never saw the passenger side radiator fan kick on, but the drivers side would come on to cool and then shut off on a regular basis. I'm not sure what else would have caused the high amount of heat within the engine. Is overheating a good diagnosis as to why the rods seem so stiff around the piston pin???
This is one of the rods that is kinda tough to move back and fourth. You can also see with this rod and piston the play from left to right is substantial, I am not sure if that is normal:
You must be logged in to view this image or video.
You must be logged in to view this image or video.
Also here on the same rod/piston combo, it looks like the edges are cleaner than the rest of the piston, Im not sure if that if from getting to hot, or if that is from the blow by that I was explaining earlier.
You must be logged in to view this image or video.
Other than that, my block and head both look like there are in good condition to be rebuilt. Valves, guides, and seals were all in good shape. I don't know if I can trust my own opinion about this because I have never had an engine torn down like this before, but based on the appearance of the parts and the fact that the valves don't seem to be bent, I can hope they are all OK. Also when taking off the timing belt, all of the timing marks lined up really nicely so it didn't look like the belt had jumped a tooth or anything of that nature.
Here is a picture of just one for the bores, but all of them look like this. I think it was good that I stopped trying to start it and drive it around when I did, other wise I may have been less fortunate:
You must be logged in to view this image or video.
