Well.. after running a bar daily on pump gas my motor finally gave up. I made a very conservative map, running .6 degrees retard per pound of boost and an a/f in the 11-12 range, but **** always ******* happens!

Last night driving around i noticed the car missing under high rpms under boost in 3rd gear and up. I didn't think much of it and figured I'd look at it later.. Soon after I ran into a stock pos s2k, and we ran from a stop light. He kept revving on me so I said what the hell I'll race. We hit it and I jump out several cars spinning bad giving it partial throttle through second and as soon as I hit 3rd, bam.. No power and huge cloud of smoke. I pull over and notice there's no coolant, so I figured I cracked a sleeve...

I wasn't sure what caused the motor to blow, but as I'm disassembling things now I notice a rattling when I remove the distributor... The screw backed out for the rotor and was bouning around, so that's probably what caused the detonation.. *sigh* I'm going to finish pulling the head now and see if the pistons are still ok..

Being a broke **** that goes to school I guess I'll have to throw in a stock gsr block for a while and turn the boost down. Ah well.. back to work...

-Mike

 

Just an update..

Well, I pulled the head and all I can say is WOW! I put a crack down #3 half way down the sleeve. Another crack goes about 2 inches down and a big chunk of the sleeve is pushed out.. It looks like my fucked up distributor sparked #3 waay too early and it detonated pretty bad.. I'll try to get pics up today or tomorrow..

The only sad part is that the block looks like it would've lasted a while.. The crosshatching is still clearly visible after 15k boosted miles. Oh well, live and learn..

-Mike

 

Pics??

 

Alright.. I'll definetly get pics by tomorrow.. A friend is gonna stop by tomorrow w/ a digicam. It's definetly worth seeing..

-Mike

On that note.. anyone looking for a gsr complete head by any chance? I'm probably going to buy a block, but my friend doesn't want to split the head from the shortblock, so I'll have to sell the head. It's not for sure, but it'll be a very reasonable price if I get one.. Thanks

 

Were you on forged pistons and rods??

 

Yup.. Endyn/wiseco 81.5mm pistons and eagle rods.

-Mike

 

Damn. That sucks that something as trivial as a loose screw in a distributer killed your motor.

 

Time for some Darton sleeves

 

What up with the head? Any Mods done to it? I am intersted if so.

 

Was your car tuned?

 

 

I would look more toward boosting too long on stock sleeves before accusing your distributor. If the rotor had turned on the shaft it would throw all the cylinders off, not just one. Sooner or later, all boosted stock sleeves are going to fail no matter how conservative you are with your tune-up. I think 15k miles is pretty good.

 

how much have you been boosting? and what happened to the pistons and rods?

 

Ok, thanks earl, that makes me feel a little better.. I really wasn't convinced either that the distributor caused it, but it just seemed too coincidental.. It does make sense that the screw wouldn't really cause the problem.

The other theory was that possibly my ignitor was failing and that caused the timing to go out of wack, because my tach would bounce around when I got on it in the higher gears. I thought the ignitor was just a relay, and I'm not sure how it would throw the timing off, but he's pretty convinced that could've happened..

I guess I'll have to sleeve a block then for the summer... It's a shame too, because the motor seemed to make good power.. Although I never did get a chance to hit the track or the dyno.. Even with the quaife that I got from you, some 17" wheels, and a heavy 4dr, it'd spin 3rd w/o touching the clutch.. The pistons seem to look good, and no signs or detonation, so I guess it was just pressure..

Regarding the tuning. YES the car was tuned, pretty safely too.. I guess the stock sleeves just really can't handle boost for a long time. Another friend locally cracked his sleeves a little while ago running 1.1-1.2 bar daily.. Sleeves definetly seem necessary.. The crack in the sleeve was U shaped and the piece of the sleeve was barely hanging on so I ripped it out.. It's pretty damn thin..

I'll try and get some pictures of it up later today.. I've never seen a sleeve so busted up..

-Mike

 

I was running 1 bar daily.. The pistons/rods are fine.

-Mike

 

You've just made up my mind on whether or not I should stay with my stock sleeves. Thanks.