2013 STI Rotated Turbo Project

There is no better cam than the GSC on the Subaru!

 

Also, I consider this a mild job where the motor would be well behaved and not have a crzy idle.

 

oh wow, they are 900$ no wonder I didn't put them in last time.

anyway i'll worry about that later, need to get a daily driver secured and find out how much getting my bottom end back together is going to be.

honestly, unless this was somehow my fault (and i'm just not seeing it) I don't see why I should owe much of anything to anyone but i'm going to reserve judgement until the facts are all out there.
clearly a bearing failed, but why? was it an oiling problem? if so, what caused it?

i'll try to finish tearing it apart this evening. just need to take off the timing belt, pulleys and valve covers, get the cams out and pull the heads.

 

Didn't you get the engine with the heads attached? If so you may want to check with Andrew first to make sure they are ok with that (that's provided that they will honor their build).

 

Yeah nothing against Andrew but a built engine such as your should not spin a bearing. They knew you considered head work in the future and were planning on going rotated. Those should have been in mind when specing the motor.

Since you had trouble free miles for break in and with stock setup, I would think the tune could be the culprit if you had any detonation, the piston or rod might not give but could force the oil out from between the bearing (metal to metal). Or I see it being caused by the power... granted it was a dialed back tune, but it was probably running much hotter with the boost, fuel and volume increase.


These things are hard to tell after the fact. Plugs, pistons, and remaining bearings will be good indicators.

 

I hope you get it figured out. At least in the past, I have seen it hard for people to get things taken care of when multiple people (from different companies/tuners) have their hands on the car for different reasons. It usually results in a lot of finger pointing to what was the root cause of the failure. Whether it be assembly, tuning, the build, etc. Hopefully you are able to get it diagnosed and sorted out.

 

yep, and while i'm no expert, I know what I was working with...

i mean not all coders work for microsoft, doesn't mean they can't code.
i may not build engines for mclaren, but I certainly know what will ruin one and avoid that.

considering that, i'm almost positive it wasn't the tune. we had 0 knock (unless we asked for it) while tuning and we left it pretty tame with no fancy stuff. AFR's were 11.1-11.4ish depending on where/when you switched to open loop. I don't have any way of measuring EGT's yet, so not sure what those were.

took out my plugs that were only in for the one day that it was running right, they look perfect all 4 of them. no signs of lean conditions or anything like that.

yes the motor ran fine @ stage 2 levels for 6-7k miles, and during that time i used the exact same brad penn oil.

basically (as justin stated) andrew knew what I was building this for. that's why he chose 2618 mahle's for me instead of 4032's. he wanted to make sure I had plenty of headroom there. scat rods were also a good choice all that seemed to hold up fine. not sure about the king bearings, obviously that's what failed.

my other question is, i was using the stock subaru oil pump. i've seen hit or miss whether or not people with 450-500whp motors run aftermarket "high volume" oil pumps or the stock ones. seems to be a mixed bag. could I have had an oiling system related failure?

i have a defi oil pressure gauge and I also retained the stock dummy light by utilizing the rear oil galley port for my defi gauge. I never saw any oddities with oil pressure leading up to the incident, and only after I began to hear the ticking sound (bearing was already shot) did I notice a change in oil pressure (down by about 6-8psi from normal)

 

All of the ones I know of used the stock STI oil pump. Its a good one. King bearings are also good so not sure why those would just fail randomly.

 

Look at a post on Nasioc by killerB

Edit:
Had the link subbed
http://forums.nasioc.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2572387

he monitors a 11mm stock pump on a GR STI and when both AVCS switch on there can be a brief moment with a 20psi drop (going off memory)

This could have come from tuning... pulls and pulls, varying conditions, you could have punched it during that drop. Not the tune's fault but that driving style that tuning requires.

Mine will be shimmed to increase pressure and reduce bypass/ aeration

 

yeah, i'm really really struggling on the root cause, of course the motor isn't fully torn down yet but you can tell an awful lot from this already.

waiting for a txt back from andrew. after tonight it will be ready to give to him basically.

 

How much oil did you drain out?

My first one spun because I was burning oil under boost and ran 2qts low in 500 mi.

I ask because you were burning it somehow if it was coming out of the exhaust, and there are only a few ways it can get in there.

 

FWIW I used a modified and bored stock STi pump.

 

i drained out right at 5qts minus some that didn't drain and spilled out of tubes / etc later once the engine was on the engine stand, but that was negligible.

 

motor wont fit in the rental focus trunk.

meh.

was going to take to ball in the morning, not sure what imma do now. it's a bit heavy as a longblock. i can lift it, but awkwardly and not sideways into the back seat.

 

Did you get the insurance?

 

LOL good point

 

[youtube]4T2GmGSNvaM[/youtube]

 

Lol!!!!
Night=made

 

Do you need help to get it into your rental? I am pretty sure Patrick lives down the street and I might be able to come over tomorrow night if needed.

 

remove front seat, it will fit there

wouldn't be the first time I've seen a motor delivered this way

 

What happened to the first engine?

 

the stock one? ringland failure on #2 and #4 @17k miles @ stg2

 

Any news or waiting on Andrew?

 

i have to get him the motor, haven't had anything big enough to fit it in.
found me a daily driver though, 5dr too so should fit in the back. hope to pick that up today and drop it off at their shop later today.
i'll be waiting on him at that point.

 

Awesome on finding the daily. What did you end up getting?

 

99 vw passat 5dr 1.8t 153k miles
he just put a timing belt on, water pump, motor mounts and like 85% of the front suspension components.
it drove better then my 2014 rental focus. not sure what that sais about ford but meh.

perfect for what I need, and it isn't even pathetically slow! he has an APR stg2 flash on it i think he said (not that I care, stock is fine)

 

Sweet, thats not a 5dr my friend... welcome to the wagon club

 

haha just hung up with him actually, super nice guy.
http://atlanta.craigslist.org/nat/cto/4349105316.html

gonna go meet him as soon as my a/c guy stops by i got some questions for him.

 

has ceramic 3m tint LOL, he is/was an engineer so he's a lot like we are, attention to detail.

 

Not bad man great find for $3,500!

 

it's a sad day in the garage.

 

thats how its going to andrew i dont have a puller for the pulley.
sorry bro lol

 

he's going to have to clean my cam gears for me anyway i have no means of doing it properly and completely.

 

That Passat looks exactly like my old one.

Mine was chipped too. It was a nice car and fun to drive. I really liked the dash color combination too.

 

Nice job on the DD....looks like it will be a perfect car for you!

 

Definitely better than a scion

 

Motor dropped off at Ball.
Andrew and I chatted about it for a bit, and he pointed out some strangeness in the O Ring that was on my tigwerks oil pickup tube.
I had used fujibond to seal the o ring in before i put it on, so we know it was sealing, it just looked mangled (maybe by removal?)

who knows. i'll let him figure it out and clean all the bits out of all the avcs stuff too. I think i might have an idea on how to flush my turbo bearing real good. Otherwise not sure what to do there. PAY precision to rebuild it? It's brand new.

 

Call them and ask. I am sure you are not the first person to have a bearing failure with one of their turbos. I would think you could just pump fresh oil through it but what do I know.

 

Is it possible it wasn't sealed and that it was able to get an air bubble in causing insufficient oil supply? Why would you use fujibond to seal an o-ring in? The idea of an o-ring to for it to do the sealing itself?

 

everyone uses it there, to make sure the o ring stays in it's groove and doesn't wiggle out since it's such a vital part.
mine clearly stayed sealed, the impression left shows that, but still it was odd.


yeah thats what i'm going to do eddie, and pushing oil through it is what I planned to do since it's a dual ball bearing. If it were a journal bearing i'd be more concerned as pitting on that could cause shaft play beyond tolerance.

 

Maybe it was a bad faulty oring to begin with....hope not.

 

This all you but I don't recommend cutting corners now.

Some of us mentioned an inline oil filter before which could have spared any turbo contamination.

I have rebuilt intake cam gears, they're not that bad.

I have heard the exhaust are a pain because they have a preloaded spring that complicates things. Outfront rebuilds them or prepare to buy new ones. I don't know if Andrew has experience with them but from what I've read most people don't want to mess with them.

Oil pan is cool, I've cleaned some but for my pricey build I didn't leave anything to chance and bought a new one.

Oil heat exchanger needs to be replaced.

I'd do the oil pump too, hate to gamble with that.

I'd have the turbo sent back and pulled apart. You might get all of it, but even one bearing piece is missed it could be disaster all over again.

I pull my avcs solenoids, remove the orings, and flush them with brake parts cleaner, then put alligator clips to activate it and do it again. I've never messed with the exhaust solenoids.

The rest should be done by Andrew, cleaning the oil passages throughout the block and all. If you ran an oil pressure gauge clean the sending unit, AVCS lines anything oil related.

You are not going to want to push a car you have doubts about... so remove any while you have the opportunity.

As big as some of those chunks are I wonder if it was your thrust bearing that came apart.

I played cleaner man today, been through over a case of brake parts cleaner and haven't even started on the engine. Today was sways, subframe, steering rack, tranny, and driveshaft. The oil leaks and road grime finally got to me

 

Sounds like Andrew pointed out something that wasn't his fault

 

I see no way that oring could be a problem.

If its mangled it simply drains back to the pan and would get strained out in the pick up.

It didn't seem to be leaking since you were not low on oil, neither case should cause a bearing to fail.

 

I personally dont think it was the o-ring either but I do see how something like that could cause a problem. If the pickup is not sealing it will not build enough oil pressure since you are sucking in air instead of oil. Kind of like the same reason why motors were failing when the pickup tubes were cracking at the base. Instead of pulling in oil, you are pulling in air.

 

Oh I retract all that, I thought he was talking about the tigwerks turbo drain. I know he removed that.

My killerb pick up has a slight gap on one side but Chris said a minor gap is fine, a couple thousandths, and thats what the oring should take up.

I never put liquid gasket on orings

 

That is the first I had heard of doing that as well.

 

It was very minimal

 

Ah, I thought we were talking about an o-ring on a turbo component. I agree if the pick up tube isnt seated it could fail at doing its job. However, aren't those o-rings usually crushed down and squeezed into and creases there rendering them one time use? Its been awhile but could have swore I've seen it like that before.