ok i will also change the location. thanks

 

have you drained your oil? what colour is it? sounds to me like you might have some contamination going on there, bearing wear.

 

just wanted to keep everyone posted that may be waiting. today i drained to oil and it looked pretty much brand new. very little derbies on the drain plug. but i wont be driving the car for at least a week. notices what looks like someone puked all over the axel, shafts, firewall. etc. looks like the cv boot exploded. FML! I always thought that grease was black/dark gray though.

 

The fact that the rods were resized and the block line honed to unknown clearances really concerns me. Do you have clearance measurements, or just know they are +0.001" bearings? A line hone without grinding the caps can open up the main bores 0.001". This would put you near 0.004" on the mains with the +0.001" bearings. If opened at all, the rods are probably in the 0.003-0.004" range, which is huge. These types of clearances need a 50wt or heavier oil.

I ran one motor just slightly looser that this and would see about 5psi before the filter when hot and 2-3psi after the filter. I ended up shimming behind the bearing shells to bring up the pressure. I did not see any problems with the bearings on teardown, but I was very concerned with the extremely low pressure. This is getting into a range where it may starve upper end engine components with that low of pressure. As you're flirting with the OEM minimum pressure limit, it really needs to be fixed to be safe by either heavy enough oil that it maintains pressure or changing the bearings to standard clearance.

If you do go into the engine, make sure to check connecting rod side clearance. I've seen this wrong almost every time if it wasn't measured or corrected. The minimum rod side clearance is 4x the vertical clearance. If tighter it will not allow the rod bearings to flow the required amount of oil for that vertical clearance and I've seen multiple rods and engines lost due to this.

Kevin

 

Sub'd. This is a great thread with really good information. Hope it all works out for you OP. Off topic, but it does concern the grease from your CV boot. Once exposed to moisture, grease will turn all kinds of funky colors.

 

Yea, what the above guy said. Looks like the cv grease has some moisture in it.

 

keep in mind, it'll only grab stuff that's attracted to magnets. a lot of important stuff isn't

 

Update,

kiggly, no i do not have clearance measurements. I just know the resized the rods, and honed the crank casing. and when i took the car back from the mechanic those were the parts that i had in hand and that he requested me to buy.

Had the axle checked out by a local company and there is not one thing wrong with it. Looks like when i was putting it in or taking it out the boot shifted back and was not sealed properly. the previous owner must have replaced the boot before and that is the color of the grease they used.

Now back to the oil pressure. I've also decided to run the turbo oil feed line from the filter housing and adding an inline oil filter for the feed as well. so I have been waiting for some parts to come in and still waiting on one more part. should be here tomorrow. Hopefully will have things running by Sunday the 16th. I will start with the 20w-50 and only drive it around my neighborhood to check oil pressure. if it still low then onto the next step.

once again.. thanks everyone for their input. stay tuned!

 

Thought I would share my numbers as well…
2.1L + deleted balance shafts + Kiggly HLA + VR1 10W-30 …..so far ~400 miles on the motor
Lowest idle pressure I experience is ~10-15 psi when its warm and had gone through few 3rd and 4th gear pulls. Cruising at 3k rpm, the pressure I usually see is ~50-60 depending on temps.

 

Side question, can someone share how much oil pressure they see in the higher rpm's? my sensor's reading is maxed at 100 psi and I seem to easily get into that range after 5k rpm or so. Want to ensure I don't blow seals with very high pressure incase the relief port on the oil filter housing is stuck open/closed...etc
Thx

 

this is a sage piece of wisdom

 

By any chance do you have the GSC Zero Tick Lifters? 2 local guys used them in builds and both said they had low pressure at idle. Swapped in OEMs and everything was back to normal... Just a thought.

 

^Interesting…. I do have them!
Bump... can someone confirm the pressures they see at higher rpm's?
Thanks

 

Hey guys just another update. I got the axle fixed, got new oil lines and everything to relocte and then the thanksgiving came up. I got married Dec 23rd in Brazil, so most of December I was doing wedding stuff. I was starting to put everything back together when i realized the fluid on the floor was not grease from the axel but it was ATF. Looks like i am missing the bleeder screw out of the T-Case. So now i am trying to track that down. heading to the dealership today and hoping they can get me the bleeder screw. Stay tuned.... one day i will be done with this build and be able to enjoy the car!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Update. Now that my honeymoon and some work projects out of the way, I also finished up some other things to the car. I finally started it tonight. just reminder what i did, was move defi oil pressure sensor and turbo oil feed to the oil filter housing, previous location was a T coming out of stock oil pressure location on the back of the block. it was T'ed there. one side for defi gauge other turbo feed. I am using 20w-50 Dino oil and previously was using 10w-30. I live outside of Pittsburgh, PA so temp out is 40 degrees. Start up oil pressure 95psi. let the car sit for 15 mins and at temp idle was around 45/50. Now i did not drive it just let it idle in the garage and made sure no leaks anywhere. I will go for a short drive after work tomorrow and update with different PSI readings at different car temps and RPMS.