Raven down! Mechanical failure :(

[JohnnyP]

I've been seeing this car every day at work for over a week now. Just an fyi, the long block retails for $22,000. Hopefully that price will be adjusted soon.

[TheRipler]

Originally Posted by JohnnyP

I've been seeing this car every day at work for over a week now. Just an fyi, the long block retails for $22,000. Hopefully that price will be adjusted soon.

LS9 swap not so out of the picture anymore.

[Mark Slide Squad]

BTW, here is more information on the dangers of aftermarket undampened crank pulleys. It also talks about underdrive pulleys, but it also talk about lightweight, undampened crank pulleys. This is coming straight from ATi dampers themselves, one of the most respected and high quality crank pulley dampers for racing available.
http://www.atiracing.com/products/da...mper_dinan.htm

[TouchMyHonda]

Guy's used to run ctr n1 crank pulleys on their street b series motors. It definitely killed some motors. Harmonic resonance is especially bad for high strung, high revving motors.

However, I doubt that you have had this pully on the car long enough to have had caused an engine failure.... Unless the pully you have is out of spec and unbalanced.

[TRBO2NR]

I love how people are claiming that because the lightweight pulley's work fine on other Subaru's, then it has to be fine... Come on! This is a brand new engine design, yes it is similar to other Subaru engines, but what isn't similar may be enough to enhance the problem of adding the lightweight pulley. I am not claiming that this is the cause of the OP's problem, but it is a high probability or possibility. Can people at least admit that this may have been a contributor due to the unknown's of this engine?

As for me, this is one of the last upgrades I would ever install on any car unless it is designed correctly and still includes a harmonic balancer/vibration damper like higher cost lightweight pulleys do.

[86BRZ]

I can imagine Subaru engineers did a lot of work to trim down all the fats on this car to make it 2700 some lbs. They could save a few pounds of weight and gain a few HP, if it is that simple, and the cost of making these lighter pulleys are no difference. What I am saying is: if this is that obvious, why Subaru not do it? Something they missed or it is tuned and calculated.

[Mark Slide Squad]

Originally Posted by 86BRZ

I can imagine Subaru engineers did a lot of work to trim down all the fats on this car to make it 2700 some lbs. They could save a few pounds of weight and gain a few HP, if it is that simple, and the cost of making these lighter pulleys are no difference. What I am saying is: if this is that obvious, why Subaru not do it? Something they missed or it is tuned and calculated.

It was definitely not something they missed. It was very intentional. You will not find one single make of any car from any company with a non dampened lightweight crank pulley from factory, period. The dampening ring is there to absorb the harmonic resonance from the crank.

[Rayme]

Originally Posted by TRBO2NR

I love how people are claiming that because the lightweight pulley's work fine on other Subaru's, then it has to be fine... Come on! This is a brand new engine design, yes it is similar to other Subaru engines, but what isn't similar may be enough to enhance the problem of adding the lightweight pulley. I am not claiming that this is the cause of the OP's problem, but it is a high probability or possibility. Can people at least admit that this may have been a contributor due to the unknown's of this engine?

As for me, this is one of the last upgrades I would ever install on any car unless it is designed correctly and still includes a harmonic balancer/vibration damper like higher cost lightweight pulleys do.

Maybe there's some mechanical engineer that could chime in. I'm sure the pulley would change the engine's resonance frequency, to the point of self-destructing? I would think the boxer's balanced design wouldn't be able to self destruct in this way, but I'm not an expert.

[xwd]

Time will show the pulley has nothing to do with it, just like it did for the other motors. The FA20 is the same basic design as every other boxer motor, the short crank and nature of the horizontally opposed engine results in a motor with little torsional vibration.

Guys who use EJ22s and EJ25s as aircraft engines often run the engines with nothing on the front of them...

[Mark Slide Squad]

Originally Posted by dwx

Time will show the pulley has nothing to do with it, just like it did for the other motors. The FA20 is the same basic design as every other boxer motor, the short crank and nature of the horizontally opposed engine results in a motor with little torsional vibration.

Guys who use EJ22s and EJ25s as aircraft engines often run the engines with nothing on the front of them...

I think right now, we don't know that for sure. We can't assume either way, but I still stand by the belief that professional Subaru Engineers designed it to have a dampened pulley for a reason. Perhaps the OP could chime in and tell us how long the Perrin pulley was installed for? 10 miles? 5000 miles? 9000 miles? And did the engine ever go into the infamous "limp mode" with CEL? An engine running in the rough limp mode that is shuddering like a diesel can't be a good thing on harmonics...

[Ingen]

Originally Posted by ottopilot

Maybe there's some mechanical engineer that could chime in. I'm sure the pulley would change the engine's resonance frequency, to the point of self-destructing? I would think the boxer's balanced design wouldn't be able to self destruct in this way, but I'm not an expert.

Mechanical engineer here! Ask and receive.

Anyway, technically there is no single frequency that represents the engine's resonance. What I would expect in a case like this -

wait. Disclaimer: I don't work for subaru, toyota, or any car company, and I don't build cars for a living. I AM a Mech-E, degreed and everything, with a double technical concentration in vibration and manufacturing. So A) take this with a grain of salt and B) don't go calling subaru/toyota OR PERRIN citing this post.

Anyway! What I would expect is that your vibration would travel up your belt to the first pulley, where it would impart some or other frequency to the next pulley (and by extension also to the previous pulley) along the belt path.

Now, obviously the engine isn't resonating and exploding, but an engine is a machine FILLED with complex moving parts that have to move together. If one shaft resonates and starts to vibrate up and down (for instance) then it can place an undue amount of stress on the bearings that support it. This increased stress shortens the life of the bearings, possibly by quite a bit. If the bearing fails (and I'm thinking ball bearings here, not journals like a crank shaft would have) then it would generate a lot of heat and seize up pretty quickly.

After that happens, usually a moving part hits the part that isn't moving any more, breaking them both, and taking an oily whiz all over your evening.

tl;dr something small will usually slowly fail un-noticed until it falls apart and ruins everything else. Don't let the dealership clean up ANYTHING AT ALL. Let the toyota rep handle it. Everything is evidence.

And good luck!!

edited to add Perrin to the list of people you shouldn't use my post to complain at

[PERRIN_Chris]

Hi everyone, first off, since the OP hasn't given us much info still, very little is known on what happened to this car. Until the dealer gives info to the OP or the OP posts a reply, everything is theoretical. But since the dealer is replacing the engine, I would think that the dealer determined that the fault is of Subaru/Toyota.

It's been known for years that solid crank pulleys have been OK for EJ series engines. There are many people that have run hundreds of thousands of miles on PERRIN or other aftermarket crank pulleys without any problems. Questions like this don't even come up anymore, since it's been proven so many times. The FA engine is designed the same with the same bearings and layout for the oil pump.

OP, any more info would be appreciated!

[rasec29]

New engine should be arriving any day now. Hopefully will have my car back in a week. I have no information on what happened. I have heard from some at the dealership that something in the head gave out. That it seems something defective in my engine, but its all hear say. I want to give you guys information that I consider certain not speculative. I will ask Toyota to give me a reason for failure and try to get you some accurate information. My buddy has the same setup with the Perrin pulley and Airaid intake with 5k miles and has had no issues. Maybe the addition of the TRD exhaust affected something. I don't know much mechanically so I am learning from this discussion and don't want to say things that I just don't know.
I will update this as soon as I get information.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

[RossGA]

Originally Posted by dwx

Time will show the pulley has nothing to do with it, just like it did for the other motors. The FA20 is the same basic design as every other boxer motor, the short crank and nature of the horizontally opposed engine results in a motor with little torsional vibration.

Guys who use EJ22s and EJ25s as aircraft engines often run the engines with nothing on the front of them...

I'm not arguing the pulley is free of any blame, but you don't need a dampener when you are directly tied to a prop swinging in the wind that behaves...like a giant dampener.

Originally Posted by rasec29

I have heard from some at the dealership that something in the head gave out.

Something giving out in the head would suggest the pulley would have had nothing to do with it. Throwing a rod or losing a crank bearing would be more indicative of having some sort of vibration or resonance failure. The dampener does nothing for the valvetrain.