I had a customer bring me a car with a darton sleeved block. This customers car was mixing oil and water so I took the block apart and sent it to my local machine shop for testing and to have some o rings installed into the block.

Engine was torn down and pressure tested for leaks. Machine shop says that the block was fine.

I reassembled the engine and put it back in the car.

Car still mixes oil and water.

I took the rad lines off the radiator and plugged one side and pressurized the other side.

When I took the oil pan off water was coming from the bottom of the sleeves.

I was suggested to use GM sealing tabs which I did. I cleaned everything out in the engine oil and water. I followed the instructions for the sealing tabs but it did not get any better.

I then decided to pull the engine and took it apart to inspect it. I found some metal missing from the aluminum @ the bottom of the sleeves which I also found some of the residue from the sealing tabs as well.

My question is what should I do now what are my alternatives if there are any???

I am going to post pics here shortly.

Can these sleeves be reused? My local machine shop says no!

 

May be it dropped a sleeve did JG build it? there none for garbage like that

 

no not sure who built it to begin with!

 

Machine shop says that when he tested it nothing was bolted to it then after we bolted everything up the leak appeared. Does this even make sense???

 

I've seen that a couple times, the real fix is to send it to a darton sleeve installer (call Darton). The guy who does many of the Darton MID sleeve installations is named Steve something and he's in California (call Darton). But the MID install process is real janky so I would get into a Benson, ERL or GE block instead.

The last resort is stop leak, depending on how bad the leak is at the base of the sleeve. I've had them leak only at temperature and not when cold which may be why it didn't leak when the machine shop checked it.

 

I tested it cold with 30psi of air. it leaked into the oil pan like rain! The machine shop now says they can not pull up the sleeves.

 

is this the first time the car has ran or has the block been sleeved for awhile, if it leaked from the beginning i would take it to whoever sleeved it,i see more install errors with darton mid than any others

 

Tyring to figure out who sleeved this motor now. I know it has to be an install error. Car runs and drives great just has this issue.

 

I had the same issue on my first sleeved motor I bought off of honda-tech. When the motor got warm it would pour coolant into the oil. When the block was sleeved they cut to much of the block out and when it would get warm and expand the coolant would drain. I had to toss the block and start all over. What a waste of money.

 

 

put a junk radiator int he car use some liquid glass

run it for a few days .. fixed forever ..

flush engine install good radiator ...

Done !!!

 

looks like they machined it with a hacksaw

 

wont liquid glass eat up the water pump and get all clogged in the water passages in the head

 

Those chunks missing looks like someone had notched the block before it was sleeved.

 

thats why you flush it out after it does the job

 

I already have this engine ripped apart no need to use another filler. I think its only a bandaid and I do not want to do this to an 800whp engine.

 

LOL...I agree though. Looks like it was machined incorrectly. I looked at the blocks I have in the garage and there are no gaps between sleeves and block..

 

Seriously, looks like someone did this at home with an angle grinder.

 

No the engine prior to sleeving had a rod knock and it came in contact with the bottom of the sleeve. Normally if its not to bad it will clean up and be fine.. Apparently that's not the case for you.. I had a block with a rod knock but it wasn't bad at all.. It has the same notch looking mark but it cleaned right up after ERL installed the sleeves.

 

After seeing those pics bro just toss it its garbage especially since its gonna be a high HP motor JMO

 

Why would you say the install process is "janky" for an MID kit?

The block may have been bored to large for the o-rings to properly seal if all 4 cylinders are leaking. If it is only leaking from one they may have sheared the o-rings when putting the sleeves in. If the sleeves were installed properly they shoud be able to be taken out easily. The sleeves are a wet sleeve design so they are made to be removed and replaced.

 

i see more darton sleeves put in by people that have no idea what they are doing compared to ho many know how to do it correctly

 

I had a b16 sleeved by GE when they had their older godzilla design. The engine were in a engine dyno and mixed oil and water. **** got expensive with changeing racing oil and trying to find the leak. In the end I did the same thing and pressure tested the engine with the oilpan off and it leaked alot from the bottom of the sleeves. GE told me to use Bars leak that most of the oem manufacturers use in new cars just for insurance. One more oilchange and no more problems. It made 587hp on a gt35r. Like magic.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZeNEn8_Zkl4

We found the issue!

we pressurized the cooling system and poured water into the bearing mains... Water bubbles NOT GOOD!

 

so it has a crack inside and water is coming from oil passages not sleeves? thats the reason i went with a dart block..too many old junk block out there that have been abused ...