Das Beast: My E30 track / street build

[dvallis]

Oil's Well That Ends Well

Tuner put the car on the dyno today. Luckily he noticed we have a water leak before revving the hell out of it. Off the dyno and parked. Arrrggghhhhhhhh! Of course Rob and I are both out of town. Murphy's law in action.

Turbo is still smoking and it makes sense now. We're seeing 60 psi cold idle, 30 psi warm idle, 60 psi warm 3K RPM. Turbo is only supposed to see max 40 psi (I asked the manufacturer) so we're blowing oil. Will have to add a turbo oil pressure regulator like the one below. However, you can't Tee the regulator return with the turbo oil return. It has to go straight to the sump. Which means pulling the oil pan. Oh Foooking joy. Ah well, it's a hobby.



Here's my hotel room build plan

[Roamies]

You can also run it into the oil cap if you mount it high enough.

Tuner put the car on the dyno today. Luckily he noticed we have a water leak before revving the hell out of it. Off the dyno and parked. Arrrggghhhhhhhh! Of course Rob and I are both out of town. Murphy's law in action.

Turbo is still smoking and it makes sense now. We're seeing 60 psi cold idle, 30 psi warm idle, 60 psi warm 3K RPM. Turbo is only supposed to see max 40 psi (I asked the manufacturer) so we're blowing oil. Will have to add a turbo oil pressure regulator like the one below. However, you can't Tee the regulator return with the turbo oil return. It has to go straight to the sump. Which means pulling the oil pan. Oh Foooking joy. Ah well, it's a hobby.



Here's my hotel room build plan

[dvallis]

Got the Beast back from our tuner. Water leak was at the block around the water pump. Pretty sure it's because we used permatex, maybe too much.



Cleaned up the block and pump face



Coated the pump face with a very light coat of spray stick and added a new gasket. No goop this time.





While we were there, added a timing mark



Tapped the valve cover for 1/8-NPT to 4AN fitting. Outlet of the turbo oil pressure regulator will drain here. It's over the head oil galley.





Changed the sandwich plate fitting to 4AN



Will finish the oil pressure regulator next time.

[jstoll]

really nice build... Im starting on a drift/track day car I would also like to drive on the street.
Im wondering how far to go.... and looking at builds like this is inspiring
thanks
JAK

[dvallis]

Busy with work lately so the build has lagged. Finally got back to it this weekend though. Thought we would have the oil pressure regulator on and be testing today. Ha! You think?

I ordered 4AN braided stainless from Summit, along with the usual Vibrant fittings. Nothing frigging fits. Hose is way too small. Gotta RMA this and research more. Ungh.



To further the horror today, our boost control solenoid frigging refuses to trigger. We tore down the bulkhead and checked the electrical connection end to end. Of course, nothing wrong. Needed to pull it anyway to add our missing connection for the fan control water temperature sensor.

We can trigger the solenoid by grounding pin 7 of the 26 pin option connector, but Megasquirt refuses to do it.



Using the Test Mode I/O page to supposedly drive the boost pin with a PWM waveform. Nada. Nothing. Even tried other pins on the option connector like Injector C.



Even put it on a scope. Nothing but noise out. Should be a square wave with some duty cycle.



Before puling the Megasquirt, in total exasperation I checked the firmware version. Was 3.2.1 2013. Hmmm. A bit old? Flashed it to 3.4.2 2016. Rebooted.

Guess what .... ?

IT WORKED.

Test mode drove the solenoid like it should. Chatters away fine.

One victory today. Time to move on.

[dvallis]

So ..........

40 psi oil pressure regulator installed. Kinda looks like a squid mating with the turbo, LoL. :devil:



Car is back together and running.



So .... ?

Oil pressure regulator and 4AN oil feed: Smokes on decel
With 0.150" restrictor: Smokes on decel
With 0.060" restrictor: Smokes on decel
With 0.030" restrictor: Smokes on decel



There are only three possibilities:

1. Turbo journal bearing is bad
2. Oil getting into pistons past rings
3. Oil getting into pistons via valve stem seals

#2 and #3 are unlikely since rings and seals are brand new.

We can figure out if oil is coming from the turbo or the engine by taking off the turbo. If exhaust manifold has oil in it, problem is engine. If exhaust manifold is dry, problem is turbo.

To be continued

[Digitalwave]

Hope you get it tuned and you can finally enjoy this thing soon!

[wworm]

yeah oof. Trials and tribulations. Fingers crossed the engines fine

[citizen_insane]

I wouldn't immediately jump to assuming the journal bearing in the turbo is bad. It's cheap and easy to do an oil sample with Blackstone, so I'd suggest sending in some oil and seeing if you have high lead/copper content before tearing the turbo apart.

Does the issue occur during all decel events or only at high rpm? High rpm, low load is generally the worst case scenario for oil core flooding so if you're only seeing it at high rpm, I'd suggest revisiting the oil drain line like I mentioned before. The 90° bend right after the turbo is something I know to cause problems in some applications.

Excuse my laziness for not reading back the rest of the thread, but do you have a PCV system which pulls vacuum on the crank case? Is it possible you have high crankcase pressure which is driving a negative seal dP to exhaust at certain conditions where the oil core is flooded?

[whodwho]

There are only three possibilities:

1. Turbo journal bearing is bad
2. Oil getting into pistons past rings
3. Oil getting into pistons via valve stem seals

#2 and #3 are unlikely since rings and seals are brand new.

We can figure out if oil is coming from the turbo or the engine by taking off the turbo. If exhaust manifold has oil in it, problem is engine. If exhaust manifold is dry, problem is turbo.

To be continued

Reviewing your build pics, if this was final assembly the 2nd ring is installed upside-down 8^(

[Mushi]

What gauge steel did you use for the shield? :)

[dvallis]

whodwho

So school me on piston rings. How can you tell the 2nd one is upside down?

I found this after a quick search, but unsure of the accuracy:

"The TOP RING, also called the compression ring, is the ring closest to the top of the piston: Use a magnifying glass, the inner portion of the ring has a tapered edge that faces the head (or top of the piston), that is, outwards."

The 2nd ring (ring in middle) has a notched outer edge. The notch faces the engine case. On the 1981+ style 2nd ring, that ring is marked for the top, the bevel does face the crankcase.

"From the earliest /5 to about 1980, the bevel of the OIL ring was towards the valve cover. Old style oil rings have a taper on one edge, it is not easy to see sometimes. If you have that type of ring, that taper goes OUTward, towards the piston top. The wider rim of ring skirt was towards the crankcase...that is, the wider part of the taper was towards the crankcase. This has caused confusion with the U channel ring. There are two chamfers on that ring. The chamfer on the EDGE faces the top of the piston. The chamber on the INSIDE of the U faces the engine. From 1981, a new, symmetrical design was used, there is NO UP NO DOWN! (for the OIL ring, that is), and there is a radial spring; Nikasil cylinder bikes oil rings will have a spring expander behind it. Early oil rings had a sub-groove, to allow gases to force the ring against the sleeve."


Pictures please .....

Reviewing your build pics, if this was final assembly the 2nd ring is installed upside-down 8^(

[kronus]

The 2nd ring (ring in middle) has a notched outer edge. The notch faces the engine case. On the 1981+ style 2nd ring, that ring is marked for the top, the bevel does face the crankcase.

you can see the bevel face up on the second ring in your photo

[whodwho]

It is a Napier style ring and uses that notch for oil scraping on the down stroke



I don 't know if you still have the original instruction but here is a generic one that shows it a little http://www.deves.com/pistonrings_inst.php

and one that briefly describes it http://knowhow.napaonline.com/how-piston-rings-work/

I will try to find better examples

http://korihandbook.federalmogul.com/en/section_19.htm

[dvallis]

You guys rock. Thanks.

Anyone else please chime in