Report that engine failure

[GTRgeoff]

LOW25T, big ask, but do you happen to know the boost the MINES ecu was tuned for? Not something I know anyway but it would be helpful.

[fatz]

mine might be just a piston ring and turbo failure but ill give her a seriouse freshen up in anycase

pete

[Bobjones]

I should have done this ages ago when I talked you you Geoff about those rings and pistons...good idea.

Engine/Car: 1996 R33 GTS-T - RB25DET - 60,000kms

Type of failure: Fouled number 5 plug, engine stripped down to reveal original honing marks and un-bedded piston rings. Also collapsed piston oil rings in all cyclinders. Slight knock at 1500rpm (before stripping down) revealed to be wear imperfection in main bearing of number 5.

Rest of engine after stripping shows little to no wear indicating the kays are reflecting almost accurate picture.

Factors influencing the failure: Possible causes narrowed down to date from engine builders and mechanic and myself. Crap fuel, and crap oil, yes I used MOBIL 1...

State of tune of the engine: Stock besides pod filter and cat back 3" exhaust.

Suspension and tyres: Stock with 18's

Oil used and service interval: Mobil crap 1, serviced EVERY 5,000 since arriving with 30,000 on the clock

General comments:

After a month off the road now due to getting better replacement parts, it is most likely the result of crap oil, oil that is in fact too thin...added to this the fact that the rings never bedded in properly and there is evidence of oil burn past the rings.

The engine has now been rebuilt using a variety of parts, mostly new Nissan with the exception of bearings, rings and bolts, which are aftermarket including Venolia Rings, Clevite bearings, ARP bolts, I have used the standard Nissan Gasket kit to date, the head gasket may get changed after it is run in.

Also had the rods linished and shot peened, crank and everything fully balanced.

I will update once it is back together and I can finally have my pride and joy back on the road....

[GTRgeoff]

Thanks Bob. What was the run in oil used, or did you go straight to Mobil 1.

I have heard that large metal particulates are very prevalent in the Mobil 1 product. From memory that is 0W 20 multigrade, which is pretty thin.

Surely worth a set of Forgies while it is apart? Rocket usually have Arias in the standard sizes on the shelf and deliver overnight. (was $1300 for mine)

[B-Man]

Bob - what ARP rod bolts did you use ? I understand that there are no ARP bolts for RB25 rods/ - and the SR20 ones are too short - the nuts only go on halfway.

[Bobjones]

Bob - what ARP rod bolts did you use ?  I understand that there are no ARP bolts for RB25 rods/ - and the SR20 ones are too short - the nuts only go on halfway.

B-Man, correct you are...

I just double checked...we ordered ARP bolts, however have used the standard ones as they appear to be strong enough.

We were actually sent the SR20 ones as you said...luckily I am not the one that put the bottom end together...So in fact never RELY on people you call to order stuff to know what the hell they are on about...

While we are on the rod bolts are there aftermarket ones available for the standard RB25 and RB26 bolts??? I have heard that there are RB26DETT bolts, but the RB25 rods need to be redrilled to fit, an exercise I am not willing to take...

This is SOOOOOOOOOOOO confusing as you get different stories from all different places...

Oh and Geoff have gone Venolia pistons and rings, standard size.

[JimX]

Ok mine is the mildest "failure" by far, but at the time I thought it had died completely. I rang up Tony and asked his opinion since his engine had failed recently and I thought he might have some idea of what was wrong with mine. Fortunately this was just a thing which was cured by a couple of hundred dollars after I towed it to the workshop.

Engine/Car: R33 GTS-t

Type of failure: LOUD knocking type noise (not pinging) from top end of engine when idling. This happened one morning in my garage after not starting it for a week. When revved slightly the knocking noise increased in frequency as well. Very little compression when trying to start (engine turned over really fast), so it took a long time to kick over. I found out via the workshop that it was a blocked lifter causing a valve to not seal properly. In the end there was no damage to the engine fortunately.

Factors influencing the failure: Crap quality oil, causing a lifter to become blocked with gunk. I had used Castrol Formula R for the past 4 or 5 oil changes since getting the car, and I believe it was this oil or the previous owner's unknown brand of oil that caused the blocked filter.

State of tune of the engine: Tuned S-AFC

Suspension and tyres: N/A

Oil used and service interval: Castrol Formula R for around 20000km (changed every 5000), then swapped to Motul 8100. It was the Motul which actually caused the blockage, because it cleans out all the accumulated crap in the engine really well. Because there was so much gunk in there, it dislodged a fairly big chunk which ended up in a lifter causing it to become blocked. Even though it was the Motul that actually caused this blockage, I blame the previous owner's unknown brand of oil and the Castrol Formula R I had used. If you use Castrol all the time you may never get this problem, but only because it's not removing any buildup from inside your engine even if it's not adding any. I would not recommend Castrol synthetic oil to anyone for this reason. By the same token, I would say to be cautious when swapping from a crap/unknown brand of oil to a good one like Motul. I'd do an engine flush first, or at the very least do a flush if the valve train starts to get noisy.

General comments: After a couple of hours at the mechanic's, who diagnosed it and ran 2 engine flushes through it, the problem was fixed. He said that it was possible that the lifter was worn and collapsed, because it was still making a slight noise afterwards. But I'm pretty sure it's ok now, because the noise has gotten less and less over time after using Motul 8100 oil again. The brown exhaust buildup on the rear bar is much less than it was before (as opposed to the black fuel buildup which is the same ), so most of the crap is now out of the engine.

[GTRgeoff]

Oil is always a worry, and I don't have a definitive answer to the best oil for every circumstance.

What I do practice is flushing with a mineral oil every 10K-20K depending on how the oil has developed with services at 5K. More frequent if it's a bit dirty.

I run the car for an hour on the road and then dump the oil immediately and allow to drain for an hour, then in goes the cheap mineral detergent oil (OMD by shell classification, usually 115 grade) and i run an hour and dump again and replace filter and fill with the current favourite. Going to go up in viscosity this week though to 60, not sure of brand yet.

[Duncan]

JimX interesting issue, we had exactly the same happen when we put nice clean oil in the Datto before last race....a big clump of crappy old oil held a valve open and we had heaps of smoke. Hoping to clean everything up with a good flush out.

I think that should be added to the "what should I do to my car when it gets here from jp" list.

[Bobjones]

This is very very very true - unfortunately.

 

I still can't believe the number of contrasting opinions from different 'quality' workshops...... (not having a go ant anyone in particular)

 

My opinion on a quality workshop has changed from : " The best workshops are the ones that know the most" to "The best workshops are the ones that admit they made a mistake and go out of their way to fix it for you - ie an honest workshop"

The workshop doing my work is a VERY good mate. I wrote this up and then spoke to him, cause last I checked (Friday night) the ARP bolts were in the box.

He has been really pissed off to say the least in relation to people who SUPPLY parts.

My RB25DET, is supposedly a rare type with each bottom end bearing being different and reference needs to be made to a special chart. As such Clevite had to match the specs and not just provide a kit for the bearings...

Pain in the ARSE...you BET...

So every step along the way my workshop has been honest, the scary thing is that some people are not. Currently, in this workshop there is a 180, with a $15K engine, when we pulled it down, no forgies as told, and the reason for the engine failure...standard bottom end bearings in the WRONG way...

It is sad to see that so many places are dishonest...other places would have let me believe that the ARP bolts had been fitted...

[exhale 32]

Car: R32 GT-R

No modifications all stock except, boost restrictor cut out, cat back exhaust, and K&N pods.

Boost was pretty random, spiked to 18psi once before, useally ran around 14psi sometime a bit less depended on heat of day etc etc. Service every 5,000km, useing shell oil. It started making a noise on boost about 3 weeks before it blew up, i thought one of my turbos was going, noise was random come on and of and sometime not at all. I think the car was pinging so if you hear this noise get it checked out. I skipped a service and at 5,000km and just put some shell oil, same one i used in it by myself but didnt change the oil filter. I played with the timing a bit myself also which may have contributed But my mechanic said it shouldn't matter cause i haven't advanced it far enough, i think i advanced it 1mm not really much but it made the boost come on earlier in the rev range.

My advice is to get a SAFC cause its wires up to your knock sencor and you can see when your car is pinging (aka detonating) then you can stop it in advance, anything over about 60 koncks is pretty bad and you can slowly drive your car to a tuner and get it tuned to stop pinging.

I think my engine blew due to mistreatement really, skiped service, did timing myself etc etc. Was cuttin donuts and it blew

http://www.members.iinet.net.au/~harley4 has photos of the car and bigdeath.avi and bigdeath.jpg are a picture of whats left of my 3rd cylinder

Im looking to buy a new engine for the car before i sell it So if anyone got any engines for sale or knows someone that does email me on [email protected]

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

http://www.cardomain.com/id/exhale32

[meggala]

Rb 20 X 2 2 differnt cars

car one r32 stock rb 20 vg 30 turbo broken ring land didnt check which one

boost too high on vg 30 turbo was running 18-20 psi ( gauge reading wrong) and had stock fuel pump fitted so leaned out.

oil cant remember but think castrol

number 2

cefiro RB20 oil not sure

jms drift comp started hearing cluck cluck near the end of the day etc car fitted with vg30 turbo .9 bar boost . stopped competing tried to limp, on feeway home bang catastrophic failure conrod through side of block

hence why I changed to sr 20's

meggala

leaning out and bad tuning seems to be the main casues for gtst failure

[fatz]

go more for mine

first 3 bores have makers on them

so that will explain the blow by

detonation evident on all cylinder

and number on piston has a chip in it

head seems fine

im thinking my dodgy no 1 injector was causeing a seriouse lean out on cylynder one

get your injector cleaned!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

and theturbo just died in sympathy

will check the bearing tonight in the bottom end

[Bobjones]

Got my car back on Friday, now just have to run it in.

The engine builder and mechanic both recommend SEMI-SYNTHETIC and not full synthetic to be run in the car once the engine has been run in using full mineral based oil.

the fact is ALOT of Japanese cars have synthetic run in them as this is viewed as HIGH quality, however, you need mineral based to bed in the rings and then run semi-synthetic/full synthetic later on depending on rings.

As my rings are chrome-moly then I will be using a semi-synthetic from now on...!!!

[Amaru]

Engine/Car: RB26DETT / R32 GTR

Type of failure: Small portion of valve guide snapped and entered cylinder 3 scoring the top of the piston and cylinder wall. Was only found out after the gearbox let go and pulled the engine out for an overhaul. Other than this, rest of cylinders were fine and engine was extremely healthy for 70,000kms. Apparantly had been kept in a very good state of tune and no evidence of detonation or other factors causing premature wear.

Factors influencing the failure: To this day, still no idea. Just something that 'happened'

State of tune of the engine: Standard internals, standard turbos, apexi pod filters, power fc, avc-r. Running around 200kw

Suspension and tyres: Standard shocks, project mu springs.

Oil used and service interval: Mobil 1 5W-40

General comments: Whilst not an engine failed as such, it did require attention as the piston was scored it had a weak point and would have let go sooner or later. There was no real way to tell this had happened, to me the engine didnt seem to be running any differently, but the marks looked "fresh" and had no buildups of carbon on them. Engine now rebuilt with forged internals.

[rs73]

Engine/Car: RB25DET/R33 GTS-t

Type of failure: Not really a total failure but engine is clicking on cold start, sounds like initially thought to be bottom end crank bearing, but from later and further investigation founds out that noise coming from the top, most possible cause suspected was either sticky valve, broken valve helper spring, or maybe piston gudgeon pin (top of conrod). Got scared me of possible head/engine rebuild. Car won't make power any more above 155rwkw with a weird power curve dipping at 5000rpm. Engine also sounds like pinging even on std boost. A/F seems normal at 12:1 to 11.5:1.

Factors influencing the failure: Was running cheap bleed valve 2 yrs ago, which spiked to 16psi without me knowing. This is believed to have caused some damage over time. Also possible bad plugs as we found car was previously fitted with heat range 4 plugs. We got these changed to NGK heat range 6 last yr. 2 weeks ago car went in for further analysis of the ongoing problem. After almost giving up, I asked the car to be tuned just as is (was thinking to just sell it), this is where my mechanic finds out how bad my fuel pressure was. Final verdict he was pretty sure it was a stuffed fuel pump, causing engine to lean out all the time and pinging. Further check shows engine not blowing smoke and no blow by. So it shouldn't have major damage since most of the time i've been running std boost.

State of tune of the engine: Stock ECU. Stock Airbox with Apexi paper panel filter. SAFC+EVC. NGK plugs heat Range 6, 0.8mm gap.

Suspension and tyres: Whiteline Works Kit (Koni struts, King springs, Whiteline swaybars & bushes). Simex 225/50R16 on stock 16x6.5" rims.

Oil used and service interval: IXL Brand (generic?) fully synthetic 10/50W oil, every 5000km (missed once oil change interval - changed at 7000km - but don't think the extra 2000km did any of the issues above)

General comments: Fitting Bosch975 in tank fixes the leaning problem. car made 192rwkw @ 10psi in shootout mode (possibly 170-180rwkw in normal mode) which is what it's suppose to be with stock ECU. A/F stable around 12:1. No other changes - stock fuel pres regulator. Car may still knock on cold as fuel pump doesnt solve this problem, but just preventing further pinging. Just gotta take it easy when its cold, and trying not to keep bouncing the engine off the rev limiter too often. This way it may last me for ages - finger cross.

PS: I'm now keeping the car.

[BBQ]

Engine/Car: 1995 R33 GTS-T RB25DET

Type of failure: ringlands failure on #6 ,5 ,4 ,3 & *melted pistons*

Factors influencing the failure: 12psi on AVC-R, Motor over 100,000km's old

State of tune of the engine: Usual, FMIC, Exhaust,

Oil used and service interval: Penrite synthetic

General comments: Happened to 2 skylines now, due to stock fuel pump leaning out with more boost.

Pics of Piston here:

http://www.skylinesaustralia.com/photopost.../sort/1/cat/500

[MrZac]

1989 R32 GTR RB26DETT purchased through Prestige.

Failure of Pistons 3&6 (when taken pics, I noticed pretty much all of them were actually quite stuffed with little dents on the sides), unsure as to why as I dont have contact with the mechanic that performed the rebuild anymore. Interesting though, compression was only low (60 I think) in two cyclinders. The rest were around 110-120 I recall.

Oil was all through the intake and car was down on power hence the suspicion. I originally thought the Turbos were blown and this is why oil was everywhere.

Was running 1 Bar, standard ECU and fuel system standard Turbos that had been removed previously and replaced with R33 GTR turbos. 17X9 Sparcos with 245 rubber on all fours.

Needed a rebore, used all Nissan parts and oversize Nissan Pistons for rebuild.

I know this is a bit vague, but I hope it helps in someway. Heres some pics, they are from a 6600 so not too clear sorry.

[GTRgeoff]

Zac, BBQ and Rianto thanks for the posts. The R33 GTS25t fuel pump is a bit of a weak link, as are 180sx Silvia pumps from experience. The RB25t pistons are very susceptible to detonation failure as well meaning just one small problem and i'ts time for a rebuild. Just hope my GTR pump holds up. The forgies should take a bit more hammering though.

Zac the blowby from busted pistons is pretty bad so that is probably where the oil came from if you found it pre compressor where the crank ventilation hose entered the induction pipe pre turbo. I had a compressor seal fail and the oil was from the compressor into the engine. Post the pics for us to take a sqizz at pls.

[omp]

So every step along the way my workshop has been honest, the scary thing is that some people are not. Currently, in this workshop there is a 180, with a $15K engine, when we pulled it down, no forgies as told, and the reason for the engine failure...standard bottom end bearings in the WRONG way...

Hey thats my car! Lol! I knew it didn't have forgies in it as I only wanted a std rebuild. I was supposed to watch the rebuild but didn't, I wanted to see how an engine was rebuilt so badly (I have never seen it before) I guess I went to the right place!

Other mistakes he did miss-aligned camshafts (both) 2-3 teeth out (The fella didn't know why it didn't run properly so another shop diagnosed this as ECU so I had microtech fitted which did not solve the problem obviously), sealant in the oil pump which caused low oil pressure and destroyed 3 std turbo's and of course the lucky special upside down bearings!

The conversion cost me $16k at the time but $6.5k of this was fixing the engine rebuilders stuff-ups (but includes microtech (missdiagnosis unfortunately but it shouldn't of had to been diagnosed in the first place), 3std turbo's, my new turbo(T4-T3 hybrid), new clutch (as the last one I thought was shagged as it slipped and felt weird-pedal went soft/hard at different points) when the new clutch was being fitted it is how my mate changing the clutch found the 2-3mm endfloat in the crank, new oil pump + fitting, other bits and pieces. Now factoring in the new rebuild it will of pushed my simple RB conversion over $20k, if it cost me $10k with std rebuilt RB20 I woulda been a lot happier.

The funny thing is the guy who stuffed my engine up has a chip on his shoulder at ME! Lol! funny little fella! He works at his old mans shop and at first he (the young fella) said they would pay for everything, then his old man said he offered no warranty as I was involved in the conversion (I fitted fuel pump organised wiring loom etc but NOT the engine build)! So they are only paying for new crank and bearings only and removal and refitting of the engine only. I have had to pay for everything else (head rebuild/re-co etc) lucky it was only the bottom end that was stuffed the head was ok no foriegn matter. Funny thing his business card says "guarantee's on all work" Hmm may have fun with that.

Oh yea sorry for the long post