Long story short...Was dicking around with the evo around a corner and hit a curb at approximately 10mph. Drove half mile up the road to a buddies shop to check the rim and when getting out of the car it sounded like a diesel truck (definitely noise coming from head). Car drove fine during the half mile after the curb and no engine lights.


Anyways, where I am currently at:

Head looks fine with valve cover off, no metal shavings
Timing belt did not jump a tooth
Compression is good across every cylinder


Now where things get interesting. Started the car with no valve cover, ONLY 2 of the 16 lifters are working! (happen to be the two closest to timing belt, cylinder 1). Tested the oil pressure today and seems to be normal at approximately 40-45 upon initial startup. How is it possible that 14 lifters died all at once??? Is there ANYTHING else that could cause this situation beyond what I have concluded above?


Thank you in advance for any information. Lifters are not cheap but definitely better than a new engine if it ends up being that.

 

Oil pressure issues maybe. Your oil filter didn't get smashed up or anything did it? Do you have an oil pressure gauge?

 

Oil filter is intact and unharmed. I do not have an oil pressure gauage on the car, but tapped the fitting near the oil filter and hooked up a Snap On gauge to test the pressure. At initial start up, the gauage was reading 40, which comparing with my buddies evo with gauage is approximately what it should be...

 

Oil pressure upon cold start up should be much higher than 40psi. Perhaps you have tapped the wrong port or something?

 

Possibly? I tapped where the oil filter connects and the lines go to the oil cooler. There is a plug that is removed with an allen wrench. This a picture of the tap on my friends evo- used the exact same loaction.





How high should I be reading at start up?

Thanks for the help guys

 

I've never checked the oil pressure of an Evo with an OEM oil system (squirters/balance shafts etc), but it should be right around or over ~90psi@cold startup.

 

After some more research it looks like you are correct and now thinking about it, when we checked the gauage in the other evo it had only been sitting for like 45 mins...

So would your best guess be the oil pump on its way out? There is currently no CEL or oil light, so pressure must still be above ecu parameters for low oil pressure.

The only other thing I have stumbled upon in my searching is a bad balance shaft bearing could cause a similar situation because of high load on the oil pump, not allowing it to pump oil adequately.

 

Update: I started ripping apart the car last night and got all the accessory belts off. Upon closer inspection (now that I can actually see the timing cover clearly), it does appear timing has skipped 2 teeth, when crank pulley is fully aligned. Would this cause any issues with inaqeuate oil flow to the head (just the timing being off)? Or did the oil pump fault, causing the timing to jump?

Just want to find out what was the most likely cause.

 

im guessing you bent some valves when the timming belt jumped.

 

Don't think I have ever heard of timing belt jumping teeth by dinking a curb.
With 2 teeth off going 1/2 miles will give you plenty of damage. Sorry man.

 

Well to much of my surprise...Reset the timing belt today, fired the car up expecting no change and what do you know, all noise is gone and car is running normal. Idle is fine, oil is getting to head, and zero strange noises. I did not realize that the timing belt would have such a drastic affect on the oil pump getting oil to the top of the motor(I understand the timing belt runs the pump). Been around these cars for a while, but guess you learn something new once in a while.


I have never had bent valves, but I would assume the car would not be behaving normal if this were the case? Compression test was fine when checked. I have to think the car dodged a bullet, fingers crossed. I will be checking the tensioner pulley tomorrow to see if this may have been the culprit. Any further thoughts are encouraged, thanks.

 

Compression test is ok but leak-down test is better to identify valve issues. But if there is no odd sound your engine may be fine. Congrats!

 

I would do a leak down test to see if your valves are seating right at all. Hope for the best for you mate but with the jump in timing I would expect the valves to be chipped up somewhat, even though the pistons have the extra space so the valve doesn't hit the piston