My FF Exige S engine expired yesterday...

[Monsi]

stock metal headgasket... that is weird

[turbophil]

Originally Posted by Monsi

stock metal headgasket... that is weird

yip. metal with a very thin teflon type coating (guessing on the teflon part). This isn't your standard small block chevy HG comprised of cardboard and aluminum fire rings, ya know No, this is a LOTUS with state of the art technology out of a Toyota Celica

Cheers,

Phil

[robains]

Really didn't want to pull the engine to do this -- I have an engine stand, but my hoist has long since been sold.

Monsi, I've been warned to stay many many many miles away from Cometic gaskets (from some reliable first hand experienced sources - aka Speed World Challenge Touring car connections).

Phil, you have me confused, you're suggesting that you don't think this is just a head gasket problem? Like I said, I was able to put a scope into the cylinders and didn't see any obvious damage, also, I was able to actually drive the car home (very SLOWLY and it sounded like an STi) and I don't think I could do this if the damage was more serious??

But I do agree, seems strange that only oil is in the cylinders and not water. Every head gasket failure I've seen in the past was almost always water related. But the world challenge mechanics I talked to have actually seen oil only HG failures -- pretty rare, but possible.

Just ordered the ARPs and head gasket -- I figure I need those regardless of what it turns out to be.

Sounds like a long slow painful process -- was hoping NOT to have to remove the motor.

[turbophil]

Sorry to be discouraging... Oil burning sounds more like stuck/burnt rings to me Not a whole lot of places for oil to get in the combustion chamber with a blown HG on our engine, mainly just cylinder 1....Again, I hope I'm wrong...

Don't fret this whole engine pulling idea. It's really not hard. I was trying to avoid it as well and I really only needed a head. By the time I I was getting ready to just pull the head, I was within an hour of pulling the entire engine--really. With the engine out you can work sans swearing and cussing like a sailor. I bet the add'l aggrevation and time of trying to pull the front cover with the engine in the car will make the whole project harder and longer than if you just pulled the engine to begin with... I'm speaking from experience here...

Don't have an engine puller? 2 ideas: 1) O'Reilly's will rent them for free or 2) get 8 foot 4x4 post and place two strong buddies on eithe side of the car and use them for the puller... Been there, done that

Best,

Phil

Originally Posted by robains

Really didn't want to pull the engine to do this -- I have an engine stand, but my hoist has long since been sold.

Monsi, I've been warned to stay many many many miles away from Cometic gaskets (from some reliable first hand experienced sources - aka Speed World Challenge Touring car connections).

Phil, you have me confused, you're suggesting that you don't think this is just a head gasket problem? Like I said, I was able to put a scope into the cylinders and didn't see any obvious damage, also, I was able to actually drive the car home (very SLOWLY and it sounded like an STi) and I don't think I could do this if the damage was more serious??

But I do agree, seems strange that only oil is in the cylinders and not water. Every head gasket failure I've seen in the past was almost always water related. But the world challenge mechanics I talked to have actually seen oil only HG failures -- pretty rare, but possible.

Just ordered the ARPs and head gasket -- I figure I need those regardless of what it turns out to be.

Sounds like a long slow painful process -- was hoping NOT to have to remove the motor.

[robains]

And yes I do have the moroso oil pan.

[turbophil]

Originally Posted by robains

And yes I do have the moroso oil pan.

Cool, no problem. With the Moroso pan, you need to take the passenger side axle out of the tranny. Don't sweat, it slides right out---sorta. Take no more than 15 minutes and no special tool or aggrevation.

1) remove pass side wheel
2) remove outside tierod end and caliper from kingpin/carrier
3) remove axle nut
4) Remove 2 bolts that hold intermediate bearing carrier together that's mounted on the engine and slide that bit up on the shaft.
5) remove the 3 bolts that hold the carrier to the engine block. Use 2 of these bolts to attached your pulling chain to the engine head
6) Place a drain pan under tranny.
7) turn kingpin inwards to create massive toe in and remove the axle stub out of the kingpin. Now withdraw your shaft
8) Remove rear tranny mount bolt so that you can pivot the engine and tranny upward. this will make the angle of the dangle better for aligning your cluth...

I know about sounds like a lot, but it's really only a few minutes of work---especially with a Bosch 10.8 volt 1/4" impact

I sure wish someone had told me all that stuff before I fiddled with taking the engine out. Would have saved me a lot of time...

You should be able to do this whole engine repair and have the car back together in 2 weeks or less... I did and I work 12-14 hour days at the normal day job. You just have to be willing to give up sleep

Best,

Phil

[kverges]

I suggest a bit more diagnostic work - IMO it is pretty unusual to have a head gasket go (and I have replaced many) and NOT have the cooling system involved, with coolant entering the cylinder or exhaust gases getting into the coolant. That much oil smoke means that quite a bit of oil is getting into the combustion chamber, so it is either getting past he gasket (which only seals off the oil return channels - or is there a presure feed through the head to the cam journals and spray bar?) or by the rings. Isn't the cooling jacket closer to the combustion chamber, i.e. wouldn't you expect that a leaking gasket would have to leak/consume coolant before the leak would be bad enough to also introduce oil into the combustion chamber? Your symptoms are also consistent with broken rings/lands, which may not be obvious with the head off. A leakdown test might help, but in either event you'd expect to hear escaping pressure into the crankcase, but you might be able to isolate the sound with a stethoscope.

Hopefully it is not broken pistons, but I'd definitely make sure before putting everything back together.

[John]

Originally Posted by turbophil

Don't fret this whole engine pulling idea. It's really not hard. I was trying to avoid it as well and I really only needed a head. By the time I I was getting ready to just pull the head, I was within an hour of pulling the entire engine--really. With the engine out you can work sans swearing and cussing like a sailor. I bet the add'l aggrevation and time of trying to pull the front cover with the engine in the car will make the whole project harder and longer than if you just pulled the engine to begin with... I'm speaking from experience here...

Rob - I went through this nightmare leaving my motor in place, and everyone professed it was really easy (in theory it was - in execution was another matter). Even consulted with Phil on the issue... when it came time to do his - he saw the writing on the wall and pulled the motor.

[turbophil]

Originally Posted by John

Rob - I went through this nightmare leaving my motor in place, and everyone professed it was really easy (in theory it was - in execution was another matter). Even consulted with Phil on the issue... when it came time to do his - he saw the writing on the wall and pulled the motor.

John- Still my favorite Avatar

[robains]

Ok, look like motor out is the way to go.

How will I be able to determine if the rings are toast? Seems strange that the two out rings are more oil soaked than the two inner and that all the rings went bad at the same time??

Phil, yeah it does sound bad, but I tend to agree it's probably the better solution. I better take A LOT of pictures along the way.

[turbophil]

Originally Posted by robains

Ok, look like motor out is the way to go.

How will I be able to determine if the rings are toast? Seems strange that the two out rings are more oil soaked than the two inner and that all the rings went bad at the same time??

Phil, yeah it does sound bad, but I tend to agree it's probably the better solution. I better take A LOT of pictures along the way.

Leakdown test and listen to where the air is going... if bubbles in coolant, then HG. if you can hear air going into the crank, then rings. You can hear air in the crank by listening through the filler cap and/or oil drain hole... note: drain oil prior to sticking your ear up to drain hole

You may also pull your TB and look for oil blowby. There's likely to be a lot of it

The next thing to hope for is good cylinder walls. If they're OK, then you're sitting in tall cotton. All you need in that case is a set of drop-ins and some new rings-- Provided your bearings are OK and didn't get hammered out from detonation, you'll be back on the road in no time...

If it's much more than that, just order an entire new short block from Toyota. They're like 1,400 bucks or half the price of a set wheels for our car

If you want to build the engine, plan on spending another 500 in addition to the 1,400 and go for a low compression build. You've got the standalone, so you can bacially do whatever you want. Ever think of Turboing

In any event, start thinking about ways to turn lemons in the lemonade. Deep down inside, I'm looking forward to the day that I drive over my engine

Cheers. PV

[robains]

Well, my wallet is now at close to maximum on what I want to spend on this car.

But everyone has provided some great information on what I need to check when/if I dig into this motor. John at FF has called me and wants to look at my engine and will diagnose for no charge -- I will take him up on his generous offer. Once the exact cause and resolution is known, I'll go from there.

Here is my video (5-6 laps 1st session of the 1st day) Click Me

Please no comments on the driving, 1st session, just warming up in a car I have very little track experience in (I'm well aware of being way off apex and brake zones). I was running 7/10ths effort, car has considerably more in it and I hope some day I can find out what it really can do.

For reference the shift lights are as follows:
Gears 1 - 4 - 3 red lights = 8,000 rpm
Gears 5 and 6 - 3 red lights = 8,500 rpm

there are 3 red lights set to 300 rpm increments, so 1st red light is 7,333 rpm, 2nd red light is 7,666 rpm, 3rd red light is 7,999. Rev limiter is set to 8,500 rpm.

So as you can see, I wasn't really pushing the motor at all.

P.S. updated the link direct to WMV video file, should work better/faster now.

[robains]

Looks like it got progressively worse and it obvious where it finally had enough.

[Mr. Know]

Originally Posted by robains

View from my buddies onboard camera my car in front - look for the smoke

Looks like it got progressively worse and it obvious where it finally had enough.

Definitely (to my novice eyes) looks like oil getting into the cylinders at high engine load. Hope the repair goes smooth. I don't envy you at all.

On a side note, your video is silky smooth and looks great! You should talk your friend into getting the same system you use.

[Chococar]

Originally Posted by Mr. Know

On a side note, your video is silky smooth and looks great!

+1

What camera system are you using?

Thanks,

Joe

[turbophil]

Rob-

Do a leak down and/or compression test for sure before you tear into that car. You're burning a fair amount of oil, but it doesn't look like it's an insane amount of oil... Every engine I've blown (which is several from my drag racing days) would fog the area in no time (granted there was actual holes in pistons in those cases)....

How does the car run? Are you down on power? I know ou mentioned limped home, but was that due to loss of power or anxiety about causing damage?

Not saying anything here in particular, but some further diagnoses should be done given the way the vid looks....

Best of luck,

Phil

[robains]

My buddies video is probably just fine, it's his conversion/compression skills and/or capture to PC process that is lacking. I told him to buy a MacPro

My in-car camera is a basic consumer grade Sony HD (BestBuy), nothing special. I use my MacPro with Final Cut Studio to do the capture/processing. Basically capture to uncompressed (well actually MiniDV is compressed at the source) .mov file. Do some very basic editing in FCS (didn't do any color work) and export output to .wmv -- I use this product to convert to .wmv format.

Camera is mounted to my harness with safety strap.

Phil,

Agree -- diagnostics is needed.

Car runs, initial start when cold takes some time and lots of blue smoke, I drove home at 3K rpm in 6th (about 60 mph) because I don't know what is wrong and wanted to minimize damage and didn't want to trailer it back since it seemed to run without making any noises (aka ticking) and no oil in coolant and no coolant in the oil. I have oil pressure 60-80 psi. Yes it does lack some power but I drove home slowly due to anxiety -- and as you can see from the video it will not pull above 6K rpm now.

Whatever has gone wrong is dumping oil into all 4 cylinders. Like I said earlier, more oil is dumped into the 2 outer cylinders than the 2 inner -- but oil is being dumped into all 4. I don't know enough about this motor to make heads or tails from this information.

Rob

[2-Y-CHROMOSOMES]

Originally Posted by robains

My buddies video is probably just fine, it's his conversion/compression skills and/or capture to PC process that is lacking. I told him to buy a MacPro

My in-car camera is a basic consumer grade Sony HD (BestBuy), nothing special. I use my MacPro with Final Cut Studio to do the capture/processing. Basically capture to uncompressed (well actually MiniDV is compressed at the source) .mov file. Do some very basic editing in FCS (didn't do any color work) and export output to .wmv -- I use this product to convert to .wmv format.

Camera is mounted to my harness with safety strap.

Phil,

Agree -- diagnostics is needed.

Car runs, initial start when cold takes some time and lots of blue smoke, I drove home at 3K rpm in 6th (about 60 mph) because I don't know what is wrong and wanted to minimize damage and didn't want to trailer it back since it seemed to run without making any noises (aka ticking) and no oil in coolant and no coolant in the oil. I have oil pressure 60-80 psi. Yes it does lack some power but I drove home slowly due to anxiety -- and as you can see from the video it will not pull above 6K rpm now.

Whatever has gone wrong is dumping oil into all 4 cylinders. Like I said earlier, more oil is dumped into the 2 outer cylinders than the 2 inner -- but oil is being dumped into all 4. I don't know enough about this motor to make heads or tails from this information.

Rob

If you need someone to follow you up to FF let me know. I can not make any promises as I have to play toddler support unit. Just let me know.
Rob, where do you live? I am near Los Gatos.

[EricH]

Kinda off topic - I notice video when converted to AVI, WMV, or MOV is usually that clear even when only from a mini-DV tape. It is when I convert it to MPG (to burn MPG2 standard DVD) when the quality degrades. I have a Blu-Ray burner but no SW to do it yet.

[robains]

Eric,

There are MANY compression techniques for MPEG2 (DVD SD - standard definition) format. Don't know what software you are using to produce the files for DVD SD, but look around in that software to see if you have any quality setting options.

On my MacPro with FCS (Final Cut Studio) there is a dedicated application called "Compressor" who's soul task is to take .wmv, .mov, etc. and produce MPEG2 for DVD SD. Compressor has MANY MANY options for compression and quality and jobs can be batched and quality options saved.

MiniDV is a compressed format at the source -- meaning the video data is compressed and then written to tape (no option here) -- at about a max rate of 25MB/sec. This is pretty standard for consumer grade video recorders. So keeping this in mind, when you compress again to MPEG2 you are actually compressing twice. You also have to worry about your capture settings (i.e. field dominance - determine by your video camera, aspect ratio, etc.).

If you plan to burn a true Blu-Ray DVD, then that will be MPEG4 format and you will need software to do that as Sony will take a royalty fee for Blu-Ray format. Blu-Ray is the better format, but it's a less consumer friendly format for those that want to produce content on Blu-Ray. True HD cameras that do 1080 24p are usually in the $5,000+ range and use memory cards as no other medium (tape) has the 200MB/sec performance needed to capture uncompressed HD 1080 24p. Typical 16GB memory card will capture only 14-16 minutes of uncompressed 1080 24p video.

Anyway, I seem to have provided more info than you want/need -- PM me if you have specific questions on this.

2-Y, thanks for the offer, much appreciated, but most likely I'll have my buddy follow me with his truck -- worse case would be tow rope on back roads. I don't wanna do trailer if I can avoid it, but I might not be able to. Dropping car off 11am Sat.