IntegraTypeR

iTrader: (1)

Hey guys,
I have a b16a2 block/head which are built for turbo (valvetrain, ITR cams, pistons, rods and new bearing/oil pump/water pump...etc)...mileage is 3k miles after build....car is street tuned by me......now I had an incident and partially its my careless mistake so please don’t start flaming or pointing out fingers...just trying to find the problem....anyway the car was parked in my garage for 9 months without driving (since I broke my DSS stg3 axles)....was low on funds...etc....anyway I was cranking the engine every 2-4 weeks for 10-20 mins just to prevent the engine/crank from seizing (that’s without changing the oil)....now few days ago I got everything fixed with new control arms/knuckles/sway bar end links/steering rods (changed all that cause the car wasn’t running straight when I got the built done) and decided to take the car for a quick drive and check my gauges (again without changing the oil since its was like 3am and there wasn’t any shops open at that time)....before leaving my house I decided to check the old oil condition and it was slightly brownish/black and still had that oil smell out of the bottle, so I said "well it should be fine for the night to drive the car", so I had a spare oil filter and added some oil from the left over oil i had left and took here for a drive and engine was like it used to be and kept driving it for continuous 1.5 hrs....all the gauges were reading that my engine was perfectly healthy, so I decided what the heck I will step on here just for fun.....after that fun a ticking sound started to come from the engine.....MY MISTAKE I KNOW! But I wasn’t expecting this!

Sound source exactly:
Engine head from the intake valvetrain / intake manifold side and is a ticking sound and the number of ticks increases when I rev here up and gets a little louder, but totally vanishes away if I partial throttle accelerator when the turbo spools around 2-4 psi


Check/results:
1- Compression check when engine cold (1: 152 2: 169 3: 164 4: 155) that’s in psi
2- Checked intake if leaking (carb sprayed it and it was all good)
3- Checked valve adjustment (as it should be....by the way it was perfect)
4- Timing belt/cams/crank NOTHING skipped
5- Quick look using a light at the valvetrain and all retainers and everything was there. Rockers look in one piece

Hints on the problem:
1- Rod bearing?
(but the compression check say the engine is with in tolerance and oil pressure didn’t even drop 1psi and yea no metal shaving in my oil pan when I removed my magnetic drain plug (I DID CHANGE THE OIL THE NEXT DAY)....I usually let the magnet hanging on the oil pan hole while the oil drains so it can pick up any passing shavings) found a very small one piece of shaving which seemed to be normal to me since all combustion engines do that!)

2- Bent valve?
(Definitely the compression will get effected, but shows its normal.....retainers are still there with their locks and valve adjustment is in perfect condition)

3- Timing belt skipped or got damaged?
Checked timing belt cam and crank positions while at TDC and nothing moved and timing belts is nice and tight

4-is the oil pressure/oil temp/vac/fuel pressure/AF/EGT look normal?
all gauges say everything is perfect (oil pressure is 56psi at idle and rises when revved, fuel pressure is stable on mid load and increases on high low and boost build, oil temp is normal, EGT is good at idle and on boost, vac is perfect 21 in/Hg , AF is good all around,


Performance wise the car pulls really hard like it used be and doesn’t smoke at all....lol I think I wrote a report or something....anyway what could it be?

Could it be?
1- LMA?
2- rocker or procker pins?
3- Damaged cam cap?
4- Valve seal
5- Valve Guide
6- Something else? If it is what is it then from my research here?

I will do a leak down test today and see what that tells me.....let me know if you think its something am not aware of?!

dart2.2

what size injectors do you have. i had a similar sound and traced it back to my precision 1600's. just a thought.

Ls_dx

iTrader: (5)

Sounds like a healthy motor. Could be the Lma's ...

sanman000719

well man I have been scratching my head for a while also, and thought my problems were axle related. My shop thought I had an oil pump issue well turned out to be my #1 rod bearing was loose and clacking. I sure hope its your injectors to simplify your issues.

blackeg

id also check for it being the injectors. my precision 880s sound like a mack truck lol

IntegraTypeR

iTrader: (1)

well the injectors sound more of a clicking sound and they are RC 750cc High impedance

IntegraTypeR

iTrader: (1)

could be

but does a bad LMA effect on a leak down test by any chance?

asking because I did a leak down test yesterday too (I bought a new cheap quality air compressor which was 1HP and provided a max of 120psi) .....I let the compressor fully fill the tank and connect the tester only without the hose end that connects to the piston....when I set the tester to read 0% the tester 2nd gauge shows 35-40 psi, so I don’t understand when people say to leak test an engine at 100psi....I fully open the tester **** all the way and it only read a max of 50psi....since this is my 1st attempt to use a leak down tester the values seem weird to me (did the test like 3 times cause those testers aren’t perfectly accurate I heard....the tester has to be set to 0% leak before doing the test and every time I remove the hose the thing doesn’t go back to 0 immediately....trying to say the numbers might be high, but there is a different % on 1-2 pistons...I did set each piston to TDC on each cylinder test before the test, so here it goes:

1: 45-55 % leak (55% twice and last try gave me 45) when I put oil in the cylinder and do the test the leak goes down to 40% then gradually to 55%
2: 28 % leak
3: 40 % leak
4: 32 % leak

those numbers are top of my head, but they are original (trying to say I didn’t note them down) all I know that when I opened the oil cap there was a hissing air leak there, so something is shot? valve seal? ring land? the thing is the car was parked for 9 months and it could be a stuck piston seal or something that is causing the leak (even though I think the ticking sound is something else not related to the leak test coming from the valvetrain area, cause its not coming from the block....I used a simple sethoscope to locate the ticking noise

I just realised something yesterday when I was driving my car that there’s a small amount of white smoke during decelerating a bit and that smoke is there for a few seconds during idle after that same deceleration (when I stated that my car doesn’t smoke is based on accelerating/high load/boost and that I always checked my rear view mirror for smoke when I step on the car and it doesn’t smoke when I step on here, no smoke during full boost either)

with all this info can someone point out where the problem exactly? or your thoughts

IntegraTypeR

iTrader: (1)

well i ignored the injectors since the sound was more of a Ticking sound and the injectors click, but i'll still check them for insurance

Turbo-LS

iTrader: (4)

start it and record the sound if you can and post it up.

viskii420

i had same issue couple days ago. It was lose alternator belt. It was clicking noise like the valves were lose or bent. Tightened the belt car is back to normal.
wish you luck

blaze the chemi

people do a leak down with 100 psi so when the reading comes back (i.e. 20 psi) your leak down is 20%. So your numbers needed to be divided into 120 to get your percentage leak down.

If you can hear hissing from the top it usually means the valve train is leaking.

Can you hear the hissing from the oil pan area? This might indicate worn rings or ringlands.

I have a ticking noise too, but a contribute it to the fact that the valve train is from 1989. My valve adjustment was done recently too. My compression was 210 +/- 5 psi in all cylinders when warmed up. Leak down I am unaware of as of yet.

IntegraTypeR

iTrader: (1)

i did check them by unplugging each injector one by one while the engine running and then suddenly when it came piston #3 order the sound totally went away! put it back sound is back, what i did swapped injector #3 with #1 to clarify it is an injector problem, but then again theres no problem with the injector its in cyclinder #3

the sound descirption is very hard for me but it goes like " Tack Tack Tack " or maybe " Tick Tick Tick "

rod bearing? LMA?

IntegraTypeR

iTrader: (1)

i took the tester to two shops yesterday to see if it can read higher than 50psi and it doesnt....i was told by many poeple that the air compressor tank pressure is isolated and when the valve is open that pressure is flow pressure which is different...well he did make sense to me, but am not fimiliar with air compressors....i followed the tester book and it didnt state anything about what pressure the test should be done.....just says it in this way:

1- connect honse to cylinder while piston at TDC without connecting to the tester
2- connect compressor hose to tester input (thats with the other end un connected) and adjust **** till the % pointer is at 0 sharp
3- when that is all done connect the tester to the cylinder hose and see the % drop

am i doing it right?

sanman000719

mine was originally thought to be in the head as well untill we dropped the pan to check the oil pump, and when we did it was good. Then we looked at the rods to see if we had any loose ones and the rod bearing on #1 was well clacking around. The sound from mine was a very fine high pitched metal on metal sound as if you had 2 metal rods twirling them togather. We have narrowed this down to starvation of oil due to a bad pick up/pan setup, and have since went back to OEM with no issues at all.

good luck to you, and diagnosing your issues man I hope it works out for you

IntegraTypeR

iTrader: (1)

did your compression get effected when that rod bearing was clacking? was the crank scratched/damaged? let me know what you went through to get it fixed

myself am saying that problem that caused this is oil starvation since the car was parked for 9 months and then i stepped on it, the old oil lost its quality and definatly will cause oil starvation since its probably not doing its job? i even said it could have been rust on the crank and sleeves that caused all of this when i stepped on here!

IntegraTypeR

iTrader: (1)

have you ever seen a spun bearing and NOT see-ing any metal shavings in the oil pan? cause i did drain the oil and left my magnetic plug sticking in the drain hole to hold any more shavings while the oil drains pass it....i only saw one small shaving which meant nothing to me

Turbo-LS

iTrader: (4)

this is what mine sounds like. It only does it between 1300-1600 rpm and only on a cold motor. no shavings in the oil. its not the injectors cause ive since replaced mine and its still doing same thing. besides injectors dont get this loud lol. when i got the head i noticed poor oil flow from the cam caps. so i cleaned them all ut with brake clean and they flow much better so im assuming my problem is oil flow to the LMA's when cold so there not holding enough pressure on the vtec rocker when the oil is cold and thicker.

sanman000719

Nope no shavings at all the oil was clean as could be. The crank was very lighty scratched so it went out to be micropolished, and did new bearing and journals. Now it has to come all back apart to check the squirters by the time this is all said and done im going to be profficient in all the symptoms you could ever have lol.

Also the compression was spot on.

sanman000719

My sounds was only heard under a load, and actually only noticeable when passing say some barriers where the sound would bounce off and back into the car.

IntegraTypeR

iTrader: (1)

did some more checking while the engine is running and found out that when i disconnect the inj #3 the sound totally goes away, so i swapped injector 3 with 1 and sound was still there (so i know its not the injectors) and now i know its either piston slap or spun bearing

i will take the oil pan out and check rod bearing #3 and let you guys know!

IntegraTypeR

iTrader: (1)

opened the oil pan and checked these things:

1- oil sprayers look fine (checking if they probably got hit by something)
2- all rod side to side play is equal and normal
3- rod on cylinder #3 looks good
4- checked the neighbouring main bearings to that cylinder rod bearing right/left (i think it was marked main cap #2 and #3) and there was minor damage on #3 main crank bearing

here is a pic of the cylinder #3 rod bearing


as you can see the crank journal is still nice and smooth and bearing has no damage

i decided to check a few things next to cylinder #3 which was crank main bearings (2 and 3)! #2 was perfect while this is how #3 looked like:


the crank journal is still smooth with no scratches while the bearing freaked me out

if someone wants to give me their ideas on what am dealing with and is it true this is the damage am see-ing that caused that ticking/tacking sound i was hearing?

how can i check thrust washers that are in the crank? or you think its not worth checking....i think thrust washers prevent side to side play right?

IntegraTypeR

iTrader: (1)

bump for the pics

IntegraTypeR

iTrader: (1)

here are more pics of the pistons and cylinders

this is how pistons 1 look like:


this is piston 3:


no pistons show any sort of valve hitting on top of pistons:



if you notice the head has some sort of piston to head chamber (there looks like new material, as if fresh material is showing signs of piston/head hitting)



and there is groove or sign of head on the pistons too:



cylinder 1:



cylinder 2:



cylinder 3:





cylinder 4:




pistons 2 & 4 are in perfect condition so thats why didnt take pics of them....there were some signs of detonation on piston 1 & 3 (but no sigsn of detonation on the plugs everytime/anytime i checked when i was tunning or even when checking them!), but do you think its cause of the head to piston clearance was bad? what caused all of this? my timing is about 17 degs (the dist is slightly on the retarded side for safety) and running 91 OR fuel and perfect AF of 11.5 on 18psi of boost, stock gasket and yea am running NGK iridium 8's and M&W Pro10 ignition system

let me hear your ideas guys what caused this?

b20beast83

im no expert but scars on skirts, indicates lean

IntegraTypeR

iTrader: (1)

my AF was perfect 11.5...how could it be lean? since piston 3 is always the leanest piston on a honda engine am guessing it wouldnt lean anything more than 11.8 if the wideband says 11.2-11.5! the pistons show a brownish good mix if you look at all piston pics.....do you think it did that because it went lean? could be something else? and yea how could all pistons be hitting the head? thats a build clearance error right?