New engine and preventing oil leaks.

[AL92]

I did a new engine but apparently its fubar now at 4000 miles. So doing another one or rebuilding it .
Anyway I had numerous oil leaks on the new motor. I used new gaskets of course but think it was a topline kit or something not oem for most of them. I even did my oil pan three times ,a new oil pan not warped .First with gasket that came in the kit. Then with permatex gray,then with mits rtv. It leaks still. Also many places are leaking by oil filter housing,etc.
I put most of the gaskets on dry. Someone said to spray them with gasket sealer or something. I torqued things to spec but possible some bolts came out I used blue loctitie on most every bolt. Should I use red or put lockwashers under most bolts?My engine did seem to have a lot of buzz and loosen up bolts. It was a 2.4 with no balance shafts and was not balanced but had a fluidampr and had poly inserts front and back.
I am going to balance things this time around. Debating puttting balance shafts back in there but really don't trust the things.
So you smart mechanics is there something to spray the gaskets with so they quit leaking all the time. I think mostly the problem is the paper gaskets. I am so sick of having oil all over my driveway from this car. Why do dsms use so many darn gaskets. I swear the gaskets are like 10 times what is in my v8 chevies.
More gaskets the more places to leak.And leaks might have killed my engine as always had to add a quart every two fill ups.and it didn't burn any.All leaked and seeped out of hte motor!

 

[timawdtsi]

Al, I just pulled my motor out of the car for install of new ams and other stuff, and have absolutely no leaks coming out of ANYWHERE other than the non OEM oilcap.
Al gaskets were installed DRY, no spray and all gasket surfaces were cleaned with brake cleaner prior to the install.
On the block side by the oil pump I made sure to clean any part of old gaskets off 9Used very fine brass wheel on drill)
Oil pan way Ultra-Grey RTV, and allowed to cure for 48hrs before any oil was added to the motor. I also did the gasket sealer on the pan, lightly tightened down the bolts, waited 2hrs and torqued the bolts to required spec.
Do the new motor proper, balance it, and have it built by a COMPETENT engine builder.
A competent builder would not have built the motor with no balance shafts without balancing the motor.
I too have lost a motor due to an incompetent build, it sucks but it makes you do things proper the next time.
Use OEM mitsu gaskets, take your time, and cleanliness is paramount to the sucess to an engine build.
Make sure the builder uses assembly lube when building it up, imperitive to protect alll the engine parts on startup.
I packed the oil pump with Vaseline for startup, Pulled the MPFI fuse to crank until oil came out of the turbo drain tube, comnnected it up, dropped in the fuse, and started the motor.
Don't use red locktite on bolts, you will never get anything out without snapping bolts on things like the oil cover etc...
Just think......Mitsu can build them without leaking from the factory, you bash all the Mitsu parts, how many DSM's have you heard of spinning a bearing with 4000km on the motor when they were new?
How many people did you hear about bringing home new cars and having them leak oil?
The factory did not have magic gaskets, or magical assembly practices. I just spent a day watching Honda assemble motors, no gasket spray, fairy dust or special parts, no leaks, just cleanliness, precision, and following set protocol's

 

[AL92]

Hm ok Tim. I don't think my gaskte set was mits think topline. I tried their oilpan gasket first. It leaked huge.I then used gray permatex still leaked pretty bad and lastly mits rtv and it still seems to weep. That stuff was not cheap. My engine was clean as whistle when put things together it was just machined. I think those topline gaskets are garbage.Not sure I followed what you said about gasket sealer in your post. You used grey rtv but gasket sealer???? clarify please.

So how do you pack the oil pump. you just fill it up with vasoline. Doe the vaseline dissovle away no problem. I primed engine with my impact,on the stand even once.
Its premature I think to say I spun a rod bearing. Buddy who is pretty smart seems to think I have broken crank. And that would not be assembly that would likely be simply 2.4 cranks break. If it is broken crank then eagle forged will go in next year or whenever can afford to work on this car again. It is going to be awhile as since taking it apart again going to do tre or shep trans,dss axles, 4 spider diff and the new crank and whatever other parts need all at once. Possibly put in twin disc clutch my new clutch is slipping like crazy unless its broken center diff or something.

I have had many dud mits parts. The new therm was a dud!! that could have hurt the bearings from three overheats. I shut off car instantly each time but still. Three overheats is not good for things! I have had several mits balancers fall apart at random miles in my cars. That is not very impressive and I still say building an interference engine for whatever reason is stupid,stupid stupid. How many have we seen balance belts break and wipe the belt, or the balance shaft bearings burn up and hurt things or tiiming belts snap or jump for whatever reasons. I predict within maybe even 5 years you won't be getting any mits parts at all. They will discontinue nearly everything. Then we will be forced to buy jobber gasket kits and timing tensioners.The car was not even 10 years old and already hearing that discontinued word far far too much.
Oh well I still like ok love my dsms but serioiusly my v8s don't cause me one tenth the hassles of my dsms. My v8s I can count all the gaskets on one hand in the engine. And most of the newer ones use resusable gaskets in lots of areas. The 4g63 might be good engine when it works but it has many weak areas. Main one being interference.Some engineer should be smacked side of the head for that design.

 

[TimG]

I've used topline gaskets on more then one occasion (5+ rebuilds and 5+ topline kits) and have never leaked a drop of oil on any engine rebuild.

 

[gsxtacy]

AL-

hey man, I have been here for a minute(DSMtuners) so I feel obligated to speak as well.
These cars were engineered to EXACT tolerances, and if one of those tolerances is outside of "servicable spec" it usually boils down to part failure or mechanic install failure.

4G63/4 oil pans do not have a "gasket" from the factory...At All. The seal is provided by a FAT seal of oil resistant Black/Grey RTV to the inside of the bolt holes on the pan rail, with both mating surfaces Clean and Dry....the oil pan bolts have a Torque Spec.

I have hand built a few 4G63's and can attest to the meticulous tidiousness these engines require....But all things aside they can be built to be durable as well.

I hammer the crap out of my 98 6 bolted 2.0 everyday 20+ psi on a 6152e, and just logged a 820 mile road trip with no problems.

Best of luck man, just step up the research a bit.

 

[AL92]

The oil pan was off three times and used new pan the last time to make sure no warps. I used first topline gasket, it sucked, then gray rtv left to try overnight torged to spec and put on with the bolt holes in manual thing. it leaked bad. Then third time with mits rtv pricey stuff and left overnight and still leaking a bit. And pretty sure other gaskets are leaking there is puddle on the driveway,losing a quart every two tankfuls of gas. Always fill and check but it was annoying. Engine is fubar anyway now so its coming out. I will use all mits gaskets this time around. mits or toyota rtv on pan. Not sure what on bolt theads like sending units and stuff. Teflon tape seems to fall apart any ideas there?
My v8s don't have more than maybe 5 gaskets total and most are resuseable. I can sit down and list them. Someone really messed up on this engine. It can make good power with forced induction but why would you build an interference engine to start with? ASking for trouble sooner or later. In a few more years from what I have seen from the parts support you will have to buy jobber tensioners,tensioner pulleys, timing belts,etc.
Mits is already discontinuing a large amount of essential parts for our cars. See how easy it will be to maintain them when you have to use crappy topline gaskets and other crap parts. And mits exact tolerances isn't that impressive. Balancers that fall apart at random mileage,balance shaft bearings that eat themselves and take out the motor..noisy lifters in the 1gs and their phantom knock retard problems likely from the lifters not really sure had to use programming to get rid of the knock in a few of my cars.

Don't get me wrong .I love the dsms to death and they are huge fun..when they work!!
And they can be reliable ...sometimes..and I do maintain my cars. I currently have 4 dsms. Course none are actually running right now. Well some are but not too good or you couldn't actually drive them anywhere you could maybe back them out of the driveway!!

 

[Ravenous]

I am not 100% certain but the oil pan should not leak that much oil... especially in the driveway. I believe at standstill the oil rests below the edge of the pan so it shouldn't leak on your driveway that much. My big problem seems to be the turbo oil drain tube. I can't get that POS to seal to save my life. It is currently my only major oil leak after a complete rebuild and it is only leaking about a quart every 2k miles.

On another note, I had a major oil leak prior to rebuild (approx a quart every 500 miles) I attributed it to a bad oil drain seal, a bad oil pan seal, and it appeared that the front crank seal was leaking. After pulling it apart for rebuild it was actually a loose water pump bolt and just the oil drain tube. Crazy....

 

[steel_3d]

The oil drain tube is probably leaking past the bolts, not past the gasket. I had the same problem, teflon tape on the bolts didn't even help. Eventually I smothered the bolts in rtv and left the excess that squeezed out around the bolt heads, and let it cure. Seems to be fine now. Oh, I also sprayed the area off with brake bcleaner beforehand, without that you're probably not gonna do much good.

I used copper spray on all my gaskets, and haven't had one leak yet. Maybe not necessary, but it gave me extra peace of mind. Used it on the composite head gasket as well.

On the oil pan I used a mitsu gasket, rtv on the pan, and copper spray on the block side of the gasket. I tightened the oil pan bolts hand tight with a socket and extension. No wrench. The last thing you wanna do is overtorque the bolts, they'll easily dent/warp the sealing surface if you have that soft thick gasket under it. They really don't need much torque. As a matter of fact, I tighten my valve cover bolts the same way, extension in hand. Never had a leak yet, and no risk of cracking the cover.

 

[absolute_DSM]

Copper spray on the water and exhaust gaskets do wonders.