Goddamnitsomuch

[EfiniX]

No questions, just a cautionary tale and a need to vent because seriously, f***.

12*F here in Portland a few days ago. Started up my car yesterday and it was missing pretty bad and running very rich. I do have cold-start enrichment setup in link, but 11.0:1 was pretty extreme. I let it warm up a bit, and the rumble didn't go away and more concerning, things didn't lean out. I got link hooked up and nothing looked terrible, but there was certainly a misfire. No CEL, so likely I had spark. I verified this by pulling plugs while idling. #4 (closest to the tranny and the coolant outlet at the top of the motor) was sparking, but no change in idle.

ugh

I verified spark on all cyl's and while #1 didn't spark to the head as enthusiastically as #2-4, it was sparking. I shut it down and pulled the #4 plug. It was loose, but I couldn't see any evidence of blow-by. Still, I was cautiously optimistic. The plug came out smelling shiny, smelling of gas and covered in oil.



That's not good, but a loose plug could likely cause all sorts of things to look terrible. I put a new plug in and things seemed ok for about the first minute of idling. Then it leaned out and went to sh*t again. I could actually idle fairly stable by just killing injector #4 in link, so I did this and let the car warm completely up, hoping that something was frozen and the engine heat would help it thaw. No dice. Still super-lean and misfiring.

I pulled all the plugs and what an ugly sight...




That's cly 3,2, and 1 from left to right. #3 looked fouled by oil, and #2 and #1 were fouled on one half, and white on the other.

closeup:



My best guess is that my coolant froze and lifted my head on the transmission-side of the motor. I haven't tested it yet, but I'd bet I've got little to no compression on #4, I'm blowing oil into #3 and have questionable compression there, and that #2 and #1 are showing symptoms of rich idle, lean revs due to the clusterfuck that is #4 and #3 being screwed up.

The car goes to EHMotorsports on Monday (if I can find a tow for it in this weather) and we're going to pull the head. Fingers-crossed that nothing else is dicked up. We will see...

On the brightside, assuming the block isn't compromised (*cough* part-out *cough*), I'll use the work as an excuse to get some other intake-related work done.

Anyway, f*** the cold weather!

 

[marvinmadman]

Well we only had 2 cold days so far this "winter". Good luck with the cold weather.

 

[EfiniX]

I think the real issue is the ebay radiator. I was running a mix that was obviously too light on actual anti-freeze. I checked it this morning, and at 19*, it wasn't frozen, but when it hit 12*, who knows.

I'll get the head off and all will be revealed.

I'll also likely replace the radiator, too.

 

[GSTwithPSI]

Why not do a leakdown test before pulling the head?

 

[EfiniX]

An excellent question and one with an equally excellent answer.

Certainly, when I get the car to Evan, we'll do a compression test on all cylinders. I thought about renting a tool from the local parts store, but decided I would prefer that Evan do this test for a few different reasons:

1. Even if I have great compression, there's still something terrifically wrong with my car. I've got a spark, but I'm misfiring. Since the oil smelled a bit like gas, I'm inclined to think the relationship between my block and head has been compromised in some way. Even if it hasn't, I'd still need his help working out what I would then assume to be a fuel injection issue.

2. I don't have a garage. Well, not an attached one, and not one that has what I would need to work on the car. It's kind of a thing with houses here in Portland. I'm just outside of the city in a house (and mostly neighborhood) that was built in the early 1900's. My house is a 1911, and the garage that sits 30 paces from my back door is more of a large shed than an actual garage.

3. Doing a compression test in 20* weather on the side of the street... ugh.

At this point, I can only make informed guesses as to what's wrong. The facts go something like this:

* Very rich idle, even when warmed up. ~11.3:1
* Choppy idle/misfire
* Misfire when rev'd
* Pulling the plug wire off of #4 doesn't change the idle
* Pulling the plug wire from #1/2/3 stalls the car
* Killing the #4 injector in Link doesn't change the idle
* Killing the #1/2/3 injector (one at a time, of course) stalls the car
* Killing the #4 injector in Link results in stoich AFR's at idle
* #4 plug was fairly loose, but no evidence of blow-by
* #4 plug came out smelling like gas, covered in oil
* #4 cyl was shiny on top
* #3 plug came out with a very carbon-fouled insulator
* #3 plug hole was smoking a whisp of oil for about 10 min. after I pulled the plug
* #2 plug came out with with the insulator white on one half, black on the other (rich idle, lean rev?)
* #1 plug came out with with the insulator white on one half, black on the other (rich idle, lean rev?)

This feels like either a lifted head or blown head-gasket. I wasn't running a 50/50 coolant mix since my eBay Scirocco radiator wasn't as efficient as I would have liked. Still, my car was fine after our first couple freezes where we saw ~25*, so I figured all was fine. Of course ~12* isn't ~25*. I didn't get any other symptoms of frozen coolant (like I didn't find it frozen under the cap or in the reservoir, the water pump wasn't locked up and causing my acc. belt to scream, and I don't see oil in the coolant), but the state of the plugs and the smell of gas in the oil does suggest something cold-related since it was running like a champ when I parked it.

*sigh*

We will see this week and I'll be sure to update this thread. I'm keeping a positive mindset on the whole thing. Evan has a lift, so maybe I can get a new resonator in while he's got the car (baby on the way and the fiance says my car is too loud). I've also got some electrical work I've been looking to do, and a tail light repair. Under the hood, I'm at about 40,000m on the new motor, so a valve adjustment won't suck, and when we put it all back together, we'll get the ported cyclone intake on it. Likely, I'll put in a new radiator, too, so I can run the same mix year-round. I'm looking at CXRacing and Mishimoto OEM-sized options.

 

[EfiniX]

Valve cover off

Missing 3 rockers

1 accounted for so far

more to come...

 

[transparentdsm]

f***ing oooooooofffff.

 

[MellowVR4]

Hmmmmmm, where did they go?

 

[GSTwithPSI]

I don't think a rocker will fit down the oil drain in the head?

 

[GSXftw]

Yeah bud the freezing/lifting head is a bit far fetched, it would crack something else well before that. The oil will smell like gas with the misfire due to cylinder washing from unburnt fuel. You know theres the testers to see what temp your coolant is good for yes? Theyre cheap and easy, in medford we had record snowfalls and cold and no joke I flushed my radiator with the car running pissing off neighbors at 3am so it was protected down to below 0*, cause we hit 5* crazy winter we had for sure. Hopefully its a no hard no foul on the car, keep us posted.

 

[EfiniX]

UPDATE:

So we found the rockers. All were hiding in the head. We also found that one had grooved the intake cam when it decided to slip this mortal coil.



I also didn't mention that Evan did a compression test at the start of all of this and found the following:

Cly 1 - 125 psi
Cly 2 - 98 psi
Cly 3 - 40 psi
Cly 4 - 0 psi

This actually fit with my suspicion that the head had only lifted a little bit from the side where the thermostat housing attaches to the head. it seemed to me that this would be the first area to freeze if something did freeze. I got this from looking at the condition of the plugs when I pulled them out. #4 was fouled with oil and gas, #3 was carbon-fouled, but dry, and #2 & #1 were half-fouled, and half-white (rich idle/lean rev).



Just a little lift, but any isn't good...

Even gets the head off and thank goodness, the cylinders look fine. In fact, it looks like a dodged a bullet and the bottom end is in one piece. I actually don't know how much of a risk this ever was, but at this point, I'm thankful for any good news. He does find that the ARP head bolts have stretched, confirming what we pretty much already knew. While pulling the head, he found that the idler and timing belt pulleys seemed a bit loose as well.

So where does that leave us? With new stuff! Here's the list so far:

Head work:
OEM composite head gasket
dowel pins (2)
valve cover gasket
ARP 12mm head studs
Idler pulley
Idler bolt
Hydraulic tensioner pulley
Delta 272 intake cam (replaces the 264 that was damaged)


While I'm in there...
Starter
Cyclone intake w/ actuator


And so it never happens again...
Megan Racing 3-row radiator


And since Evan has a lift!
Vibrant Ultra Quiet Resonator


More to come as we get this poor car back on its feet.

 

[FlyingEagle]

"And so it never happens again...
Megan Racing 3-row radiator"

... anti-freeze portion getting higher?

I think that is the moral of the story?

 

[EfiniX]

Larger, more efficient core = same mix in the winter and summer. That's what blew me up. 103*+ in the summer forced a lower glycol ratio. I mean it's my own fault, but not having to change mixtures between seasons means this just won't happen again.

 

[FlyingEagle]

I guess it is quite unfortunate that you had to change the mixture between seasons like that and it just caught up to you behind the scenes.

My project was so badly ongoing, that I would forget when I changed what fluid, when, and so on.

Sorry to hear it happened this way.

Normally we hear about casting hole plugs popping out or other oddball stuff, but not normally really expensive studs stretching and so on.

This is one for the books!

 

[EfiniX]

I'm wondering if losing a pair of exhaust rockers might have been part of the issue here as well. of the 3 rockers I lost, two were on the #4 exhaust cyl (the other was one off the #2 I think).

Seems to me that without the exhaust valves opening, I could run the risk of lifting the head w/ cyl. pressure...

Anyway, it's all going back together over the next few days. more to come.