Yeah idk. I don't know what's in the engine, who machined it, the tolerances, tune, etc. and I won't get to tear it down and analyze it so it's hard to say.

But I can say it very/extremely/highly/insanely likely wasn't the oil pans fault.

 

well its never the oil pan's fault. It's the way we drive it that's why people are cooking up solutions to push it further. twice in a row, 2 similar engines, 2 different shops... its just hard not to consider that I had better luck with the OE oil pan. I hope that's fair to say.

 

I've had an engine failure on Dry sump, in my case the #2 injector quick working and overheated/melted a piston. There's always 100 ways it can go.

 

If I spun a #1 rod bearing I would be going to the engine builder and asking to see what clearances were set at, not putting a worse performing stock pan back on. There's a ton we don't know so all we can do is speculate. If the crank was machined incorrectly, or even polished wrong it will be more likely to grab a bearing and spin it.

FWIW the second (and last) autocross I ever did in my evo resulted in a #4 spun rod bearing, stock pan and every rod bearing showed progressively worse wear, which is a clear as day indicator of oil starvation.

 

This highlights the importance of datalogging, especially if you keep blowing up engines. The IE pan is backed by data. We have no idea what was happening in your car at the time of failure and the only way to get that is to record the data.

 

+1 to datalogging. Did you have any gauges at the time?

Sorry about losing another engine, @ViciousLSD , but the oil pan is one of the last pieces I'd suspect.

 

IIRC, you said you logged oil pressure and it was 90-100psi? To me that says the pan was doing its business. Its only there to get oil to the pickup and regulate pressure as well as it can, after that the oiling system is mitsubishi. So if pressure exist, then I dont see how the builder can claim the pan at fault.

This is just me speculating though. Having the oil pressure logs is definitely the proof. I love having the standalone always logging for a some time when ever I start driving hard. So I always have the data if something happens.

 

Yes I'm with you guys with all of that, well i'm all over the place. Except maybe the collected data is not exactly from the abuse I'm putting the car into. Maybe 1.5k miles break-in wasnt enough for the new motor/usage. the >5k mi buschur one & >60kmi stock engine was doing fine in the same scenario before the oil pan/regulator/cooler which is obviously hard to ignore for me. I've spun a bearing autocrossing a high revving toyota before and that engine was just tired. I've read people recommend built evo engines with a side comment to lower the rev limit ... i sensed you cant really rely on people's claims even from the most confident ones. especially if they dont really get up to the limit/abusive levels. maybe you guys already know that and I'm just learning about it now. I'm going to visit the shop in a few days but obviously I'm expecting a similar pushback and no info useful to help get warranty work. It's not like theyre going to give me info on clearance/tolerance levels. I'll need to make a choice if I would have them build a new one or just pay to pack it up and find another shop, maybe get a 2.2l. I'm a bit busy with other stuff, F it the 2024 season will go on without me. its quite embarassing "evo doing evo things" I think will have to get out of Modified classes and go to Stock/Street class. This is just unnecessary stress & disappointment while everyone else is enjoying new cars at the rev limits
Anyway, just putting it out there especially for autocrossers chasing that few tenths

 

I didnt/couldnt log pressure but I installed the gauge with the IE pan. obviously thats no help even if it gives me info 99.9% of the time. I knew that about gauges

 

1500 miles is a wild amount of break in. Everything I build here goes on the dyno with 80-100 miles on it. And I only do that so that I can do a filter cut before the dyno, and there's enough miles to really show an issue if there's any debris in the filter.

 

It a lot of effort. this is with low speed and rpm limiters

 

Maybe that leads more to your issue. I've always been under the assumption that a break in should be hard. I've not built an evo motor, but a few honda motors and they alwasy went full send within 20miles and an oil change.

 

bummer to hear though man. hope you guys get to the bottom of it.

 

how would you know if the numbers youre logging is before or after the bearing spun? how do you use it to pinpoint what?

 

Break in period is mainly for seating rings. The level of aggression on break in should have little to no effect on bearings, unless so much debris comes from the rings and cylinder walls that it gets to the bearings, but that's attributable to lack of an early enough first oil change over anything else.


It takes some deductive reasoning. If you have accelerometer data on your log you can use that along with engine or wheel speed as references for what happened when and where.

As far as going back to the shop, you paid them a lot of money to build you a motor and if they're not willing to tell you something as simple as bearing clearances then you should consider taking your business elsewhere. Bearing clearances aren't black magic, there's nothing for a builder to gain by hiding that. The cases where an engine spins the rod bearing closest to the oil supply and it's not an assembly/machining error are very few.