Advice required: Spun out rod bearings.
 

So I bought a 2013 FRS only 48hrs ago from a forum member here, and unfortunately to my bad luck, in my 24 hrs of ownership (and driving the car back 900 miles from Detroit to Boston), the connecting rod bearings spun out on me. I feel that it is partially my fault as I may have gotten carried away with the "enthusiastic" driving in the back roads once I got back home.

Long story short, after a lot of grieving over the car I just bought (with 128k miles on it), I figured that it may be utterly pointless to replace the Short Block (as my mechanic suggested) with an OEM one for 2-3k. Instead I was thinking about going for forged internal parts in order to better reinforce the engine's reliability, and leave room for future forced induction should I choose to go down that route.

So I need some advice from all of the owners who have possibly experienced similar problems as mine. The car is bone stock with 0 mods. I would like to keep the car as reliable as possible, as being on a grad student's budget with a hobby car is quite difficult. Any advice regarding a rebuild is much appreciated.

P.S- This is my first tuner car, I have little to no experience on engine rebuilds. If any member can suggest a good shop that rebuilds engines in Massachusetts or around the New England area, I'd greatly appreciate it.

Keeping RPMs high? SOunds like you may have thinned out your oil from not having an oil cooler.

Just replace it with a used stock engine.

Well, that's too bad .......:sigh:

I agree with @CSG Mike and your mechanic ........ just replace the engine with a stock engine.

Once you get out of grad school and get good job, you will have the time and money to play with modifying engines.


humfrz

I didn't think I'd need a cooler tbh since I'm not running any forced inductions. But I'll make note of that. Any particular coolers I should be considering?

I suppose I'll go that route if the stock engine + labor do not exceed the costs of just rebuilding the current motor (short block) with forged internals. I just honestly have no idea what the going rate would be for labor to install an oem engine on this car.

If it's spun the bearing with no other significant damage then why not buy a replacement block/engine and then keep the damaged one so that you can rebuild it at a later date when funds/requirements arise.

That is actually a good idea for the time being. My only fear is of a spun rod again on the stock motor after replacement. Reason being, I read of spun out bearings all over the forums, due some apparent design flaw in the 2013-2015 models where the engine suffers oil starvation when pushed a little hard. I just dont wanna put a stock one back on, only to have the same thing happen again.

Oil starvation within 48 hours of purchasing vehicle?

Did you even check the oil before driving 900 miles?

The Scions were spec'd to use 0W20 from the factory. It's evident an oil cooler is safer for repeated track use particularly if using forced induction.

There might have been something clogging an oil passage or the car ran dry/massively overheating the oil for extended duration. And if there are other reported cases of bearing failure they certainly are infrequent. Not a failure point of frequent occurrence at all except perhaps when people modify stock engines to 500 HP and then the failure is actually the rod itself bending, not the rod bearing.

Replace, but forged internals are required for ~300 WHP or greater, otherwise unnecessary unless your wallet had the need to trim down.

That's some really bad luck. Did you happen to check the oil level before you drove it home? I agree with the others, just replace the stock motor with a used one and keep the blown one in case you want to rebuild it in the future.

A used, stock engine may be more expensive in parts than a rebuild but probably not labor. Changing the motor may be the way to go.

As for your spun bearing, that could be bad luck, low oil, bad oil, old oil, who knows. Unless you money shifted, I can’t imagine you pushed the car harder on the streets than people do on the track who also have bone stock cars and who don’t experience problems.

I guess it is 128k miles

but during my 60k mile of ownership I beat my car near redline for longer then 30mins on cali mt passes.................>___>

When oil does thin out the engine sounds different, I always used good oil, sustina or motul & change them out every 6k miles & have magnetic drain plug or magnetic oil filter so i guess that helped a bit. It could be many reasons why it happened.


I would say just replace the engine with a newer one...lol 2017 ones if you are feeling lucky instead of getting into forged internal now. 2017+ engines has more special treatment, or just get a 2015+ engine if budge is in your mind.

Advice required: Spun out rod bearings.
 

The 2017 engine is not a straight swap, lots of things need to be swapped over from the old engine (crank angle hardware, one fuel rail, and more I can't remember). A 2015-2016 motor is a better bet since it got some updates but it swaps easily with just a few connectors that need to be transfered over.

In your opinion, at what oil temperatures do you need an oil cooler to keep the oil from getting too thin assuming 0w20?

Advice required: Spun out rod bearings.
 

Depends on the oil. Some 0-20 oils are good til only 220F, others only to 260, a few go higher than that.

Mobil1, Castrol Edge, Pennzoil (whatever their top tier is). Name brand synthetic average consumer grade.



OP, sorry for off topic but this might help you out in the future. Also, I've got a 2013 that's running great and spends a significant portion of time over 4krpm. Only 35k miles though.

Yep, just call around for prices.

As far as a 2013 engine, first off, you don't know what the engine was subjected to for 128 thousand miles before you bought it. Maybe it was predisposed to fail before you bought it ...... and it failed because of previous abuse.

Most 2013 engines, properly maintained and left stock, seem to hold up just fine ....under average driving (including some spirited driving on public roads).

I hope you get-er back on the road soon ....... spring driving is here ...... :happyanim:


humfrz

OEM (Forester oil cooler) is suffice or need something more robust to keep thinning oil at bay? Asking because summer is around the corner and i could try a preventive mods

An oil cooler is recommended for FI or track use. Daily spirited driving is fine stock.

So adding an oem oil cooler will not hurt either

On a budget, stock is best.

My oil of choice is whatever the dealer has In the drum. Personally I think your car already had the shit beaten out of it long before you bought it. Even on this forum for enthusiasts there have been discussions on stretching oil change intervals to twice what the factory recommends. Imagine what's going on in the real world. Lol

I had checked the oil prior to driving it back, and throughout the whole 900+ miles drive back the car was fine. It is only after I reached back in Boston, I went out for a spirited back road drive that the engine started rattling. The previous owner told me that the oil was Redline 0W-20 oil changed about 1300 miles ago, so I assumed all should have been fine. Among several other possibilities, I may just have had crap luck. Now in the market looking for a used engine, with no luck on finding one yet, since every one that I find seems to be a auto trans engine :(

Are the short blocks different from manual to auto?

sorry to hear about what happened. I found an engine when mine blew up at the track on car-part.com. good luck!!!

I'm going to put on my "conjecture hat" for a moment.


Nobody, and I mean NOBODY, puts Redline 0W-20 oil in a stock FRS.


Tell us who you bought the car from, and we'll tell you how much they modded it before returning to stock...

No different than using any other "premium" oil.

That's the point, friend. Why would you put premium oil in a stock FRS?

Because full synthetic is mandated by the factory.

Idk, I have put premium oil in my car since day one, as I do with all my "fun" cars, bikes etc.... using good fluids is not an indicator of obvious modifications IMO.

I had no idea your FRS was bone stock.

That's unfortunate, bruh.

Out of curiosity how hard did you push ?

If there's more of that to come then I would highly recommend an oil temp gauge at least & keep temps under 250F, an oem oil cooler will help.

Not now, but "since day one" indicates it was at some point. :lol:

Shifting around 5.5-6k rpm consistently for about 5 miles of backroads. Funny thing is oil temps never ran hot. Was always at the jormal levels..

Sounds normal track alike driving except maybe without that much sideforces during cornering which could have aggravated oil starvation issues if on sticky tires. Of course flooring/high rpm shifting might be fuel mileage wise be uneconomical :) to be used frequently during daily driving, but in general, nothing out of order to cause sudden failure. Strongly suspect accumulated problems with previous usage/driving, or VERY bad luck, or manufacturing defect, that by rare chance coincidenced when you above steady driving, but not really THAT hard, pushed.
Whatever the cause .. i guess it's worth to concentrate on thinking how to better proceed with fixing result and minimize spending on process instead of overanalyzing what may have or didn't have caused engine breakdown.

Rough ambient air temp? As @churchx mentioned suspect oil was fine & that other factors played their part in the spun bearing. I feel your pain.

Tell me more of your teachings, Ester-Based Jesus.

most of us here have done this without any failures. i would expect any car to handle that as long as it has oil in the crankcase that is changed regularly... dont blame yourself : /

i remember reading reports on here of some engines from the factory having clogged oil passages from excessive or misapplied sealant. if you tear it down i'd be interested in what you or the mechanic find.

Advice required: Spun out rod bearings.
 

How were you monitoring oil temps? The car has no stock oil temperature gauge.

Doesn't need to be Ester based, just a full synthetic.

True ...... just depends upon which base stock group you start with.

For those who don't have a PhD in Chemistry:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthetic_oil


:)


humfrz