Tig welding 4047 on block

[shushikiary]

Well, after getting a new jack as my old one died - the pad failed and the car slipped off the jack and landed on the harmonic balancer, I've had the engine torn down and now we can see lots of fun things.

Due to the jack slip the crank and crank pully were bent, so it's getting a new crank.

On tear down we found some fun things .

Ghassan blocked all the piston oil squirters off... ya know you might want those so you don't melt a piston.

All 24 of my rocker arms had scoring. No way to know if they were re-used old ones and that's why or what. So they are all getting replaced.

Crank main bearings and rod bearings were all scored, so they are all getting replaced... possible it was due to the bent crank? Maybe, I only ran the motor for 30 seconds to see if it was bent after the jack incident and the SECOND I saw it was bent I stopped and never ran the motor again. So new crank main and rod bearings going in.

All 4 of the corner ARP head stud nuts were only hand tight, which explains the leaking coolant issue. So new head gasket and proper torque is on the way.

Going to a spline lock instead of a pinned hub.

Cracked timing chain guide as well, getting a new one.

Piston rings and hone looked great at least, rods and pistons in good shape... so that's a plus at least.

Shrick cams were in good shape too, and they used the teflon seal rings at least.

 

[fmorelli]

That's quality.

 

[wheela]

Forgive the uninformed question, but is there any reason why one would want to block off the piston oil squiters? I wouldn't think so, but i've never built a car engine...

 

[shushikiary]

We were all asking the same question... The only thing I can come up with is that it might lower your oil temps... but in reality they are there to keep you from melting pistons as well as to make sure the cylinder has the proper amount of oil, which is why pretty much every newer engine I've ever seen apart has them.

So I'm rather baffled as to why they would do that. Billiam and Billy Orton both were baffled as well as to why they would do that.

Is it possible the piston skits come down far enough to strike the squirter or something? Yea... maybe... I'd hope not.

 

[Hydra Performance]

I'm guessing its a trendy "drag racer-ish" thing to do. Less oil mist around in the crankcase = less windage losses and piston cooling isn't quite as critical when you're living life 1/4 mile at a time lol

 

[shushikiary]

Billy Orton's response when I showed him the picture:

"Never ever would you run without those, that's how you melt pistons and destroy cylinder walls"

 

[Hydra Performance]

Billiam's response when I showed him the picture:

"Never ever would you run without those, that's how you melt pistons and destroy cylinder walls"

While I absolutely do not condone running without oil squirters, and I make the effort to retrofit them wherever possible, there are plenty of highly-boosted 4G64s out there that prove otherwise.

 

[shushikiary]

Yes, but at the same time, those motors were designed to run without them, right?

A motor that already has them from the factory, I would not run without them.... unless like you say, it's a drag car and never gets hot or has long run times.

 

[Hydra Performance]

Yes, but at the same time, those motors were designed to run without them, right?

A motor that already has them from the factory, I would not run without them.... unless like you say, it's a drag car and never gets hot or has long run times.

I was referring to 4G64s that have been converted to turbocharged duty, running some 3-4x more than their factory stock output. The Evo 4G63 came with oil squirters obviously, but the vanilla 2.4L 170bhp 4G64 did not. What a lot of peeps do is run a 4G64 block with forged internals, without bothering to add oil squirters to the block. Again, I'm not condoning this sort of thing, but they seem to get by with it, as does every single boosted LSx out there - apart from the mighty LS9

 

[fmorelli]

I'm guessing its a trendy "drag racer-ish" thing to do. Less oil mist around in the crankcase = less windage losses and piston cooling isn't quite as critical when you're living life 1/4 mile at a time lol

One can further reduce oil mist by simply not adding oil to the motor. Saves weight, too!

 

[SLOWESTN54]

One can further reduce oil mist by simply not adding oil to the motor. Saves weight, too!

Instead of a dry sump no sump sounds better. I like this method, no coolant and no oil means no leaks.

 

[pysical]

Supra guys are running them without any issues. I wouldn't get rid of them unless I had a good reason to though. And I have never heard of any aftermarket pistons running into issues with squirters. My guess you have CP or JE pistons. Also, I would be careful with who you ask questions to. I was talking to ne of the "BIG" engine builders (BM) for the N54 and he gave me nothing but lies.

 

[wheela]

I wonder if they block the squirters to force more oil through other parts of the engine, such as the rod bearings?

 

[shushikiary]

I don't think it would change flow through the bearings, etc. The oil pressure did not change as I have gauge and have watched it, so given the pressure didn't change when they were plugged, the flow must have gone down.

And yes, it's JE pistons

 

[wheela]

I don't think it would change flow through the bearings, etc. The oil pressure did not change as I have gauge and have watched it, so given the pressure didn't change when they were plugged, the flow must have gone down.

And yes, it's JE pistons

The pressure may not have changed, but I believe the pumps are volumetric, so if you block off one path, that oil will go through the other paths to maintain the volumetric flow rate. This may or may not have a noticable affect on oil pressure. I'm not saying it is or isn't a good idea, i'm just trying to think of why an engine builder would put in extra effort to block ports? Afterall, it's not cutting corners to add extra steps.

 

[wheela]

Unless they aren't volumetric? I just assumed based on gear pump and incompressible fluid, but I guess that's probably a poor assumption to make.

 

[shushikiary]

I've heard they were volumetric, but I couldn't find anything to prove it.

If they were, you'd target the same volume of flow, and given your restriction went up by removing 6 open oil squirters, your pressure had better go up to maintain the same flow.

 

[wheela]

I've heard they were volumetric, but I couldn't find anything to prove it.

If they were, you'd target the same volume of flow, and given your restriction went up by removing 6 open oil squirters, your pressure had better go up to maintain the same flow.

Yeah, good point.

 

[rac]

There are a lot of reasons to not run under piston oil squirters and also to run them. Some engine builders would come from one school of thought versus another and so there is a variance of opinion.

no under oil squirters;
- increased oil supply to bearings
- potentially cooler oil temperatures
- potentially lower oil consumption and reliance on piston oil ring
- cost and complication fitting to a block that doesn't have them already
- fitment/clearance issues

oil squirters;
- additional piston cooling, which in turn allows;
- the use of lower quality / cheaper pistons
- less piston thermal expansion and thus better cold to hot tolerances and noise.
- better long term / sustained piston reliability under high load.

so the main things that should be considered:
- did the engine have them to begin with? if no, it would be uncommon for them to be fitted (particularly if running alcohol based fuels and aftermarket pistons). if yes, it would be uncommon to remove them unless the engine had a known bearing oil supply issue and this was part of the solution (in this situation the use of better pistons potentially with thermal coatings on the crown and also alcohol based fuels or water injection would come into play for lower piston temps).

ultimately you can have a reliable engine with or without if you consider the knock on effects and address them. i'm surprised they were blocked in your case but i can appreciate the logic as well. particularly with DI I doubt you would have came across a problem because of it.

 

[shushikiary]

Well more update, remember how the block had issues leaking coolant under the intake manifold? Well we found root cause now. On re-assembly one of the 11mm studs broke its time-sert on the rear intake side. It let go before 65 ft lbs, the 2nd torque pass, didn't even make it to the 3rd.

I'm having them pull the stud and make sure it's the proper longer stud instead of the shorter one, and if it's the shorter one we'll order all new studs of proper length. They will have to pull the time sert and replace it with a "big sert" as that's the only option besides moving to a new block really.

I'll come back when I know if the studs are the right length or not.