boosted94gsr

Found some free time to get the bottom end assembled. The machine shop ended up decking the block .002" to get rid of those scratches, witch bumped the compression ratio .1 points. Went slightly tighter on the ring gaps because this is primarily a street car, plus the methanol injection should keep the top rings nice and cool. Hopefully soon I'll get some more time to work on it. I wanna get this thing back on the road!

Bottom end assembly specs
-CR 11.71-1
-piston to wall clearance .0023-.0024"
-top compression ring gap .016"
-2nd compression ring gap .018"
-rod bearings oil clearance .0015" (actually a touch looser)
-main bearings oil clearance.002"

Aradin

Looking good man. I think it'll be great for what you're doing. Not everyone needs a full build with forged slugs. I like cast pistons for street cars. They seem to run a lot quieter and last longer. You can make more power on a good cast piston than you need on a FWD street car anyway.

TheShodan

iTrader: (14)

This will be fun. .. But I sure wish boosted94gsr could have been able to find an LS or B20 Crank.. MAN! Talk about torque...

boosted94gsr

Thanks man. That was my exact reasoning for doing what I did. Hit the nail right on the head lol.

Lol love your gifs haha. I actually have an ls crack but unfortunately it's all scared up or I would have used it.

boosted94gsr

I got the car back on the road. I'm having a serious smoking problem! The pic of the plugs is after the first 20 miles. The car is smoking like crazy, it's embarrassing to drive lol. The owner of the machine shop told me to expect my motor to smoke for a while, because the Hastings rings I used are chrome and take a long time to seat. I was expecting some smoke, but it's pretty ridiculous how much it's smoking. So far I have 50 miles on it and it's not getting any better yet. I know I assembled everything properly, I literally triple checked everything. I had the machine shop hone the cylinders with 250 grit stone at a 45* crosshatch just like it says to on the Hastings website. At first start up I kept it at 2000 rpms until it was at operating temp, then I set base timing and started driving it varying rpm and loading the rings with boost. I drained the 10w30 conventional oil tonight and I'm going to pick up some breakin oil tmrw and try that. I don't really see an engine that smokes this much fix itself from the rings seating. I just don't know what could have caused this, everything was gone through and replaced. I guess the only thing I can do at this point is drive it more and see if it gets better. Ugh!

Have any of you guys had a new motor smoke, then stop after the rings seated? The machine shop owner kept telling me how much he dislikes chrome ring saying how hard they are to seat. He told me about multiple people's engines smoking for anywhere from 500-3000 miles then all of the sudden would seat and stop smoking completely. Idk I've never heard of anything like that from the Honda world anyways. I'm mean my motor smokes a lot.

Aradin

I worked closely with a machine shop for 2 years and I have never heard of such an issue. I've also assembled quite a few engines with them and had no problems. Never any smoke from first start onward. I don't break them in the gentle way either. Sounds to me like the shop owner is just trying to cover his ***. I don't think it's going to get much better over time because usually in such cases it doesn't. It's either an issue with assembly or an issue with the machine work. Any chance it may be the valve seals or turbo causing the issue? The engine was smoking before the rebuild anyway, correct?

Geis

Man, I really wish I could offer you better advice, though I lack experience. Seeing how they returned your block however, and the problems you've had with the machine shops (same one?) in the past, it sounds all too shady to me.

mayfly

did you use a lot of oil on the cylinder walls? to lubricate the pistons as they went into the block? if so it takes some time for it to burn off

boosted94gsr

Well **** that doesn't sound good. I know I assembled everything properly, I seriously triple checked everything. I had the machine shop install new valve guides and seals. Yes the motor was smoking before and thats why I decided to rebuild it. When I pulled the turbo the exhaust side was bone dry, I'm confident the turbo is fine.

This time I used a different machine shop that has a good reputation locally. I told them my experience with the other shop that messed up the install of the valve seals and guides on my ls head. They assured me that they would take every effort to ensure that the work they do will be right.

I did use a lot of assembly lube and oil when installing everything, but the amount of smoke I'm getting is beyond just leftover assembly lube/oil.

mayfly

Just keep driving it, my last build i went a little crazy with some lubrication on the cylinder walls because it has some surface rust from sitting. 7k miles later its all good. it smoked for about the first 50+ miles and the dyno tune.

Aradin

Ok. Just had to check about the other things. Any idea what your PTW clearance ended up being? If that checks out alright then the best I can tell you to do is go out, get it good and warmed up, and do some driving while keeping the rpms over 4-5k and let the engine decel a lot in that high rpm range. The rings get pulled outwards towards the walls during decel which help promote ring seal/seating during break in. Have you noticed any strange fluctuations on the vacuum gauge?

boosted94gsr

So yours stopped smoking completely after some miles and a tune? That gives me a small glimmer of hope lol.

PTW clearance ended up at .0023-.0024" according to the machine shop. It runs and drive fine no weird fluctuations in vacuum or anything. I have done a lot of full boost pulls letting it decel in gear so far.

I just went out and put another 30 or so miles on it with amsoil breakin oil. I noticed it only smokes on decel or when I get on the gas only after deceling in gear. I let it decel in gear off a long hill and when I got back on the gas an insane amount of smoke came out, but if I drive without deceling in gear at all I can't see any smoke behind me even in full boost (wg pressure 7psi creeps to 10psi at redline). I thought smoke under decel meant valve seals and smoke under acceleration is rings?

mayfly

Yes it did. i was very worried at first to, but it cleared up after a while. do a quick compression test after another 20 miles and you should be good to go

Aradin

Just because you can't see it doesn't mean it isn't there. But yes usually that's correct. When you decel the rings are getting pulled outwards towards the walls so they're actually removing a bunch of excess oil from the cylinder walls. Nothing is getting "burned" during this period because the engine isn't firing and instead is basically a vacuum pump being driven by the wheels. So, if it's smoking when you get back on the gas after decel I would think it would be a valve seal issue because of oil just sitting on the piston crowns getting sucked past the seals.

boosted94gsr

Thanks for the info man.

Thanks for your input man I appreciate it. It's basically doing the exact same thing my ls engine did after I had the other machine shop install new guides and seals. When I pulled the cams most of the seals were not seated flush, after I swapped in new seals the smoke went away and it was good to go. This time I bought super tech valve seals, maybe the shop accidentally swapped the intake and exhaust seals witch are different sizes in the super tech brand.

So basically I need to figure out were to go from here. I'm strongly leaning towards the valve seals causing this issue. Do you agree? Maybe I'll bring the car by the machine shop and take the owner for a ride before I tear back into it. Damn this is not how I wanted this to go. It is what it is though.

Aradin

Yeah. I would suspect valve seals going by what you've told me. It's definitely possible that they mixed up the intake and exhaust seals.

boosted94gsr

It has to be valve seals. I was under the car checking everything out and noticed oil seeping between the head and turbo manifold. I mean that has got to be coming from the valve seals, I don't see how blow by from the rings would do that. It's really hard to get a pic of what I'm talking about, but you can somewhat see the oil seeping in this pic.

Aradin

I see it. Must be a pretty hefty amount of it getting pulled into the cylinders if it's seeping through the gasket there. That sucks but I mean at least you don't have to go digging through your brand new bottom end trying to find the culprit. If I were you I would contact the shop that did the work on the head and let them know you're having an issue then investigate it yourself and see if they put the seals in the wrong places or if something else is amiss that looks like error on their part. If they goofed I would definitely be holding them responsible.

boosted94gsr

This is crazy its exactly what happened with the last machine shop that did my ls head. With the other shop they ended up buying me new valve seals plus giving me $100 back. I'll go talk to this shop tmrw. The exhaust valve stems are smaller then the intake so it makes sense that if they switched the seals that the exhaust would be the ones to leak (big seal on small stem). Pretty stupid that I've had so many problems with local shops, well any shop in general lol.

Thanks for for your input Aradin.

boosted94gsr

I went by the machine shop today and explained the situation. The owner is intent on the rings not being seated yet causing it to smoke on decel. He went on again about this is why he doesn't like chrome rings, but he said once they do finally seat they basically last forever. He said just to keep "driving the **** out of it" and they will eventually seat. In his experience chrome rings take anywhere from 500-3000 miles or more in witch time it will smoke he said. The Hastings rings I have are chrome 1st rings and oil rings, the 2nd is the only one that isn't chrome faced. I questioned him about smoke on decel coming from the rings he said if they are not seated yet that it can absolutely suck oil past the rings in vacuum. He guaranteed me that all the work they did on the head is correct and that they absolutely installed the seals on the right sides.

So far I have 175 miles on it with no improvement in smoking on decel. It does slightly smoke under boost too, with the sun at the right level I can see a slight smoke trail behind me, not too much but it's there. Maybe I'll start a separate thread in the engine machining assembly thread about chrome rings. Idk...

TheShodan

iTrader: (14)

Please excuse my ignorance, but why use Hastings Chrome rings in the 1st place? Was that something you meant to do for the build? . I guess I've always used Wisco or other piston oil rings that came with the pistons.

boosted94gsr

They are what came with my pistons. I've read that Hastings makes wisecos rings. Never read a bad review about Hastings rings so I didn't think I'd have a problem. I'm still not 100% convinced it's the rings causing the issues though.

boosted94gsr

Well small update, the smoking issue seems to be clearing up. It will still let out a pretty good puff after a long decel in gear, but not as bad as it was. The plugs are definitely looking better, although they still look like crap imo. Cylinder #4 & #1 are now dry when I look down the spark plug hole, #3 & #2 are still wet looking, but seem to be improving. About 600 miles on it so far, I'm going to give it some more time and turn up the power before I decide if I'm gonna tear into it again. Here is a pic of the same plugs posted above with about 500 miles on them.

On a side note I picked up a new daily driver that I'm super excited about! It's a 2008 evo x that has been tastefully modified with quality parts, only has 80,000 miles and has had every service done on time by the dealer. Definitely a rare find. The stock evo turbo spools stupid fast, makes for a fun daily that's for sure.

scottcraft

Glad to hear the smoking is clearing up. That's a fine Evo! I'd love to buy one with the dual clutch tranny down the road.

Aradin

That's a sick daily man. I'm super jelly. Also glad to hear the smoke is clearing up. Hopefully it'll be gone completely soon enough. Those plugs do look like crap though.