This kinda thing seemed to always happen to me when I was having a good time and my car was all sorted too...... then "oh snap"... Hoping for a easy fix.

 

Today I borescoped the cylinders and did a compression check to try and see what happened.

Well I found out one thing for certain. It's engine rebuild time

btw, I bought this USB borescope on Amazon for $20. It works excellent. The only thing is it was hard to bend to see the cylinder walls (and don't even think about seeing the valves) but I saw enough to know...

Compression check:



Borescope in Cyl #4:














Not sure where the oil is coming from as the piston is intact from what I could see. Perhaps forced past the rings?

I'm assuming I melted a valve. Not sure if the plug failed first and took out the valve or the valve melted and melted the plug. Once the head comes off maybe I will see more of the story.

Good news is, Here is what the other three cylinders looked like. This engine has been on E85 since 900 miles. It now has 19,000 miles. Pistons tops are SOOO clean! Go ethanol!





The one valve side doesn't even have any carbon on it!

Dead plug #4:






So now, the big question. Who is building good motors these days? I know I want something stout since I'm going to continue to track the car. I don't need a drag motor, but I'd like to at least upgrade to around a 55-60lb/min turbo at some point. Is sleeved a great thing to have for track use? Don't waste my money?

I'm a bit out of the loop on motor options these days.

 

I would hit up English Racing. They can definitely get you sorted out for a reliable road race motor.

I'm not too familiar with the X's, but sleeving the block is more a factor with how much boost you want to run, and how much power you want to make. Not necessarily that because you're road racing you need it done.

 

hrmm... i guess it depends on how much you want to spend (or need too??)

the scope i got from ebay has a 45deg mirror screw on piece, for looking sideways... but your resolution is much nicer.. i think mine is 480 or something homo... ebay...

 

Loss of oil control in that piston would more likely point to compromised rings. I see some evidence of wall scoring in your pics.

Piston tops look E-85 clean.

Piston tops also appear to have metal impact points everywhere like something fragged. May have been the electrode material rattling around but looks more like what maybe hardened ring material impact points would leave? If so would have munched valves / head too. Don't see much evidence from top view of ring land failure but with that much fresh oil around I would suspect it. Plug has allot of carbon residue so it must have been burning oil before complete failure event.

I would cut open the oil filter and drain and "looksee" the pan for evidence.

Those cheap USB borescopes saved my butt at work a few times!!

Maybe MAP? They were reasonable and appeared to be decent when my 4G63 sploded. Don't know now since I have been out of it long too.

I would give ER a call as well

Best of luck Mr. Medz

 

Right, but I believe the 4B also has cylinder wall deformation issues with high heat so I wonder if sleeving would help with that. Trust me, if I don't have to spend the cash for them I won't, but if they are beneficial for track use, then I can dig in a little deeper cash wise for them.

The problem is, I just don't know. I'm totally out of the loop on 4B builds.

I'm also thinking 2.2L so I can rev because I HATE the gearing on track, always feels like I'm up at 7k all the time. if the 2.2L can offer me more revs safely then that feels like an advantage.

I am for sure not going to do less than 10:1 compression, because E85.

 

AMS claims their 2.2L will rev to 9,500 but 9,000 for road racing. I personally would call English Racing for their 2.2 stroker motor

 

Nice car man Impressive Youll have it back on the road in no time Im sure, very clean EVO btw

 

If you want a 4b to rev, it needs to be a big bore motor. The stroker doesn't rev, the 94mm crank with appropriate length rods ends up with a rod ratio of 1.52ish. Really close to a 4g63 2.3. Best to keep that below 8k.

If you hate the gearing, maybe try finding a 4.30ish final drive gear.

Heat could be factor. I know my car doesn't run over 205 water temp on track usually.

 

Yea, I want to try and keep it squareish. I'll have a discussion with whoever I end up choosing to build the motor.

Yea, I've been keeping an eye on temps. This last event, the car never went over 202F water temp and fluctuated between 195F to 202F while out on track in approx 90F track temps. I also tweaked my fan tables for this event which really helped. Prior I had seen max of 210-213F.

Stock radiator and even has factory fill still.

At some points my MAT was 30F over my IAT which is a bit large of a gap but I blame the stock turbo.

 

I haven't logged on track, but doing 10 back to back to back pulls on the street my intercooler doesn't heat soak on the track tune.

So much for you thread title "simple" build...lol. Might as well send your trans off of you have the money, get the synchro work done for better shifting.

 

Here is the session before it blew up with IAT, MAT, ETC and speed:

http://datazap.me/u/razorlab/thunder...ta=10-15-16-17

MAT drops when not at WOT for sure. I honestly think it's just the stock turbo being a hairdryer. Looking to upgrade with the engine build to a 55-60lb/min turbo.

My trans shifts perfect, have had zero issues with it.

 

GTA Unlimited build

 

I wish.

 

MAT definitely seems to follow boost...lol.

Must be nice on the trans, both of my friends with X's have the 3rd gear crunch, and down shifting 3-2 can be difficult sometimes. And they have the 5th gear crunch if they shift too fast..