What were your fuel trims before you started tuning the AFR map and IGN map?
I guess what I'm really asking is what injectors are you using and how do you have the scaling/latencies set?

 

It's actually normal for the oil to smell like Ethanol. If you have a bunch of actual fuel in the oil, the oil will be very thin compared.

A healthy 03-05 4G63 at operating temp should be in the 160-175 region depending on cams. Did you test it cold or at operating temp?

I hope it is just something valve train related. How do your plugs look?

 

Im no tuner but I was also under the impression that going past MBT and getting greedy takes a toll on your ring landings and what not.. Which very well could explain the e85 in your oil as well as your low compression results. I would most likely think its something related to cylinder pressures rather then poor oiling spinning a bearing if its has serious audible knock.

 

Could be both...but unlikey. The fact that the car has even compression, but looow, is weird. On all the cars I've ever worked on (VW tech), I've never seen a car with equally low compression on all 4-6 cylinders. A cylinder leak down test would really be appropriate in this situation.

 

Equally low can be the method or equipment used to test in some cases, if the cylinders have been washed down with fuel, GINORMOUS cams, or a combo of the above.

 

Well he did say 288 cams, so that could take the compression numbers down quite a bit right? Especially depending on when the intake valve actually closes, which will vary greatly depending on which cams and how they're timed. Mine is 8.3:1 and I only have like 140-145 or something at operating temp (less when cold).

 

The engine was dead cold, however, a bit of oil brought it right up to around 200 (too much oil perhaps?). Hearing that I should only be 165 or so normally when warm is pretty comforting actually. I was expecting to hear that 180-210 is normal.
__ I'm not good with plug reading but I didn't see anything obviously wrong. They were light grey and dry, no black, no oil on them Gaps looked good. It's probably the first time I've even taken a close look at them since switching to E85 so I can't say I noticed any change.
Thanks for all the help, everyone Seriously. I appreciate your time and knowlege

 

As I understand it the IX has a redesigned head that won't take quite as much timing, especially at peak tq.

 

I'd say if anything the how to tune thread needs updating with pertinent information on tuning pump gas and e85 on both evo 8's and 9's with suggestions for what is too much timing or too little.

People might come in here, read that thread then go explode their motor. As much as it isn't our fault I think its our responsibility to prove some current info and suggestions.

 

This may be due to a faster burn rate, which would mean less timing required for peak cylinder pressure at 14* ATDC. A faster burn rate also means less pumping losses because the engine isn't trying to compress an explosion for as long.

 

All of this listed in this thread pretty much happened to me with my motor running E85. I was simply running too much timing with E85, and almost exactly what the OP was running, but just a touch more. I was always willing to sacrafice my motor in the interest of learning just how far I could take my motor with E85, basically taking the timing to the point of failure of the motor, and that's exactly what I got.

I was just looking on my camera card, and I don't have it on my today, but what happened with mine was my compression was 185, 185, 110, 95. I fried my piston rings, popped a head gasket, and beat the snot out of my #3 and 4 rod bearings. I was looking for a picture, but couldn't find it on my card.

I have pictures of the entire "rebuild" of all the torn up parts after I decided to get in there and fix everything.

In a nutshell, too much timing on E85 led me to pop a headgasket, pressurized my coolant system (The top of my Koyo radiator is slightly bowed due to the fast pressure spike) fry my piston rings, and toast my #3 & 4 rod bearings. Nothing else was damaged. What I can tell you was that the detonation events that happened were extremely violent, but the motor itself was fine (Only damaged easily replaceable parts).

I posted about this originally in one of mrfreds threads a little while back. It only took me about 5 months to get off my bum and finally fix it. I have a daily driver now, so now I can afford to screw around with Evo even more now that its not my primary anymore.

 

I'm betting it's either a rod bearing or main bearing. Pretty simple "rough evaluation" method to check if it's a rod/main bearing knock is to blip the throttle to get the revs accelerate up to about 3000 RPM then immediately fall back to idle. As the motor accelerates, it will typically be pretty quiet. As the engine speed peaks, you'll get a loud pop then as the engine slows back down, it will knock very noticeably.

If it is a bearing, it's really not THAT big of a deal. Most will just choose to build the motor at that point though, as refreshing the stock motor can be fairly expensive if you do the rings, bearings, rod bolts, polish the crank, etc. Also, if you did pound a bearing from detonation and it's not an oil contamination issue, I'd be hesitant to toss those stock cast pistons back in anyway.

As for the compression, if your cams are actually 280 duration at 0.050" lift, you have the most aggressive cams I've ever seen for the 4G63, by about 40 degrees actually. I'm guessing it's closer to 220-230 degrees @ 0.050". Depending on overlap, that aggressive of a cam can still knock compression down 20-30 psi pretty easily. But the fact that compression jumped to 200 psi with oil makes me wonder how much oil you put in there.

A friend just about found himself in this same situation. He went over to E85 and was pouring on the timing because it was “knock free.” He followed the "How to tune an EVO" thread and that's where he ended up on his tune. He told me how much timing he was running and I explained to him the problem with what he was doing. Long story short, he's running considerably less timing now and the car is faster than ever.

Honestly, I stopped relying on the knock sensor about 6 years ago because even then I was able to see issues with it just on 91 octane at high revs. You can get audible detonation above about 6500 RPM on a quiet stock engine and yet the knock sensor very easily can miss it because of the mechanical noise in the engine. With a louder built motor, it’s even worse.

 

Don't get me wrong, I think it was for the better... just didn't convey that the first time around

 

There is a lot of discussion of what timing can be run at peak torque and at max rpm, but doesn't this depend a lot on the boost that is run? If this isn't the case why don't we all block in the same timing values for each load column and just have timing vary with rpm?

 

Not necessasarily what boost, more what load is run (in which boost is a factor). But that is obvious. We are *assuming* all of this so all of these posts aren't 2 pages long.

It also depends on what RPM, what parts are on the car, etc etc. Remember, these are guidelines, after that is where knowledge and experience come in .