Originally Posted by thewird

Well, I have to open my motor up again and I just want to confirm the diagnosis so I can sleep at night.

Basically, this is what happened... 2 months ago, I was seeing how far I could push the motor. Long story short, eventually it gave way at 18 PSi @ 12 AFR.

Ok, so now I had it rebuilt with brand new OEM housings, 20b rotors, and NRS one-piece ceramic apex seals (the spotted ones). After a 1,000 km break-in during a 2 day period on country roads only, slowly increasing RPM's and boosting 3-5 pounds every 10-20 km for one pull of whatever RPM range I was working with at that mileage the car was tuned to 16 PSi at safe <11.5 AFR. Made good power and ran well and I planned to keep it that way until I got my A-Spec 500R-SP turbo.

So I took it to its first track day for testing the new motor. Motor ran well and pulled harder then it ever pulled before even when I tuned to 18 PSi (higher top speeds on the straights by about 15-25 km/h). The special porting that my mechanic did made a huge noticeable improvement. Anyway, I noticed something strange that day. Whenever, my BOV would go off, I could see white smoke come out the hood. Since, it was a cold day I assumed it was just from the cold.

After talking with Bryan from BNR though after thinking about it being the turbo's, we diagnosed it was probably the turbo's going out. One of the apex seals must have hit the hot side fins and the rotating assembly was out of balance slowly wearing the oil seals. Since my 500R-SP was due in 1-2 weeks, I just decided to keep driving it and if the turbo's die, they die since they were going to be repaired anyway.

Well, our assumptions about the turbo's dieing was correct. One evening when I went out for a midnight drive, the car stopped boosting entirely and was making a wooshing sound when I tried to boost (turbine stop probably). It still ran perfectly fine, just without boost. So I turned around and started pampering it home. After about 5-10 minutes, the car started boosting perfectly normal again. I continued going home and after about 10 minutes, I started realized I was giving the car more gas to keep it going, the car was losing power. I look at my boost guage and it showed 6 PSi while cruising. I let off the gas and press the clutch to see if the car would idle. The car stalled and I pulled over on the highway. Tried starting the car and it would not start but would seem to almost catch sometimes.

I tried diagnosing the problem looking for any vacuum lines that may have popped off and such with light for my phone. I then thought, the fuel pump wiring went funny again which was unlikely but I thought i'd give it a shot. Wired the pump directly to the battery and tried to start the car again. No difference at all so it wasn't the fuel pump. I checked the dip stick and noticed it was half oil and remember it being full. At that point I pretty much knew it was the turbo's.

So I waited for 20 minutes to let it cool down and then decided to try start the car again. It did start but wouldn't idle without some gas. I happened to be 4 minutes away from a friends house, so I quickly decided to bring it there since it was running. I drove it there leaving a huge trail of smoke behind me (burning oil). I parked it in front of his house and slept until morning (didn't want to wake him).

The next day we took of the turbo's and confirmed the primary turbo was blown. Both rotors had great compression but something was funny. The front rotor spark plugs were wet and the rear one's were dry. We just assumed it was the oil and left it at that.

Fast forward 2 weeks... 500R-SP turbo comes in, we do the single turbo conversion (finished last night at 7pm). We bring the car outside because we knew it was gonna smoke like a **** and I start the car. It started ok but wouldn't idle on its own (sounded the same as on the highway). We waited to see if it would clear out. It didn't and kept running in the same. Maybe the front rotor wasn't firing because of the plugs. So we put new plugs in and try again. Exact same result. We try cranking the motor with plugs out and notice oil and fuel is spitting out of the plug holes. We kept cranking to see if it would go away but it kept coming out.

We think about it for a bit and my mechanic thinks that what happened is there was so much oil coming into the chamber from the turbo's that the rotor hydro locked and since oil won't compress, it found its way to the weakest link, the oil seals... So now its assumed the o-rings are damaged but can't be sure until we open the motor and see whats up.

So is this a fair assessment given the train of events? It sounds like that's what happened. Is there a possibility that anything beyond the oil seals was damaged? My mechanic suggested the apex seal springs may have flatted too but thats no big deal.

I guess we'll see when we open it up but I just needed to get it out. I was getting ready for a big track day event today and then this happened... And now winter is almost hear and I might not be able to drive the car before snow hits... No track days either... It will take 1-2 weeks to open the motor up and fix whats broken... I don't imagine the cost will be too great if assumptions are correct...

Anyway, thanks for reading if you read it all lol...

thewird

Originally Posted by thewird

Tracking has nothing to do with the events that took place.

Run dangerous tune, 18 PSi @ 12 AFR with Sunoco 94 --> apex seals go boom after 4 laps at Mosport
*fine, it was my fault, rebuild
But wait, the turbo's happened to be damaged so they blew after 2,000 km
*no problem again, I was expecting the 500R-SP in 2 weeks
But to top it off, the turbo's leaked so much oil before the car was shutdown that they did internal damage due to hydrolock... (assuming assumptions are correct)

Maybe my car hates me for blowing it up knowing that I was running a dangerous tune... Devil 7 lol

thewird

Originally Posted by R.P.M.

You sure the bearings are alright?

I've only seen heat scoring on irons like that when the rotor touches the iron after a bearing has spun...

Originally Posted by classicauto

**** marco...

I think you parked too close to mine at DGRR, your car caught the disease!!! lol

And its possible that the heat scoring is only due to the extended running of the engine with blown oil seals (compression leaking into there...) but I dunno. Were any of the sideseals stuck?

Good to see the ceramics held up though through all that.....gives me another reason to try them out!

Originally Posted by thewird

Yes, all 3 side seals in the picture I took are squished inside the rotor. It is possible because I drove the car for 5 minutes on the highway and ended up with a 1/4 oil left by the time I stopped. Also, we ran the car for a quite a while when we installed the single turbo and I ran it for 10 minutes the week after trying to clear it up as well.

thewird

Originally Posted by jim kutschke

OK…. Here’s my 2 cents, Damage due to oil starvation by low oil or blockage which in turn took out the turbo’s, caused the oil control rings to over heat causing the oil control O rings to break up like they did and destroy the housings, I would also guess the rotor bearings are toast as well depending on where the restriction took place…any pictures of those?
Thoughts anyone??

Originally Posted by jim kutschke

I think all the damage was done before that...BNR's don't just fail, they need a reason to do so.

Originally Posted by Terrh

I run 17psi on my winter beater DSM with 87 in it. It hasn't spit an apex seal yet.



on a more serious note - I think that damage is from lack of oil, not excessive oil. Something had to burn that, and even mashed side seals couldn't make that happen. Check the E-shaft diameter too, something is not right. Are both irons burnt or just the one?

Originally Posted by R.P.M.

I built an FD with in-spec used bearings, broke the engine in gently myself with over 1200kms of zero boost driving. Got it on the dyno to start tuning, 4 pulls resulted in a spun front bearing and a completely demo'd engine.

Very strange, smoke coming out the BOV?

Originally Posted by classicauto

**** marco...

I think you parked too close to mine at DGRR, your car caught the disease!!! lol

And its possible that the heat scoring is only due to the extended running of the engine with blown oil seals (compression leaking into there...) but I dunno. Were any of the sideseals stuck?

Good to see the ceramics held up though through all that.....gives me another reason to try them out!

Originally Posted by Terrh

well if it damaged both sides it had to be free to rattle around and slam into things, or it was too wide for the space it was given.... I'm going to say the bearings are toast since I don't think the rotor could've been too wide for the housing? Maybe if the housing had been planed for some reason, or if the bolts that hold the motor together were overtightened a ton? (doubt that is possible though, just trying to think of what could have happened)

Originally Posted by Terrh

you know what I just realized?

remember when IAN's battery died on the side of the road?

Your two cars touched.

Originally Posted by thewird

Noooo, thats it!!!! We shared paint

thewird

Originally Posted by Terrh

you shared more than paint.

hahahahah

well, maybe it's death due to oil starvation.. the oil went into the combustion chambers, and then out the exhaust... the pump went dry, the rotors stopped getting lubed, friction killed the oil seals, and side plates.. Any bearing damage you found would probably support this as well - bearings like to have oil.

Does your oil pressure gauge work?