Seized motor/vapor lock after installing Edelbrock 1556
 

Hey all,

I spent the weekend installing the Edelbrock 1556 supercharger onto my 2017 Toyota 86. Full disclosure: I bought the supercharger used. Everything was seeming to go well with only having to modify the alternator power connection so the supercharger could fit. We double checked all hoses before we filled it up with coolant. When we started the car it started blowing a ton of white smoke out of the exhaust, and when we tapped the gas the engine completely stopped. When we took the intake off to inspect, tons of coolant was pouring out of the supercharger and onto the intake when we rotated the pulley by hand.

At this point were not sure if the motor is completely hosed. We plan on taking the supercharger manifold off this weekend to try and take a vaccum to the inside of the engine to suck all the coolant out, then try to go back to my stage 2 e85 tune from delicious. My question is if anyone may have had this issue before, and if so how did they go about fixing it? We believe there may be a leak inside the supercharger itself, but it may be possible that we didn't do something right during the installation process that caused it. Any insight is appreciated

Cant help on why it happened as I'm not familiar with the kit, but I would say it would be a damage heat exchanger core in the manifold not holding water.

What I would say is 100% change the oil before trying to restart it

Threads like these make me not want to buy a supercharger used. Sorry about what happened to you man.

You'll want to turn the crank by hand, and see if any of the rods are bent from hydrolock.

Agree. Sounds like the intercooler core was damaged somehow.

I wonder if the previous owner also blew his engine, then sold the kit w/o figuring out exactly what went wrong? Shipping damage?

Yeah I just picked up a Cosworth kit from a local and am going to test this cooling circuit for leaks before install.

Hopefully your engine is okay and it's just an issue with the water heat exchanger within the SC manifold.

When you initially were priming the SC cooling system before starting the car, were you able to get it full? I'd imagine with a leak that big it would just indefinitely take coolant.

Can’t you pull the core out of the rear and do a leak down test?

If it’s the charger itself or the coolant core. Give Jon Bond performance a call he is the best in the buisness. Cheaper by far than Elderbrock. Keep us posted.

Yes thats part of the plan for this weekend

That and shouldn’t he also do a compression test? If he can spin the engine then maybe nothing major is wrong, but a compression test is necessary to confirm nothing subtle is wrong, right?

Yep it initially filled, but when we started the car it sucked it all in and indefinitely took coolant after.

With the engine running and experiencing a hydro lock I would recomend disassembly. Since you are doing forced induction while you are in there you just as well replace rods/pistons instead of just inspecting. This will cost a lot less than if there is damage and you have the engine come apart later. Stress damage is not always visible.

With coolant in the oil, the bearing journals and cylinder walls may have scoring, and the VVT system may have experienced some abnormal wear. I'd be prepared for the existing engine not being a good core for rebuild.

We didn't see any coolant in the oil when we pulled the dipstick, but we'll check for any scoring on the walls as well

Welp.. I need a new short block

Partner that stinks sorry about the misfortune. Keep us posted on the new install. Hopefully somebody will use this info if and when they want to do this upgrade to pay special attention to details. I myself bought my sprintex used, got a great deal. My backround as a retired Air Force aircraft mechanic, the day It was delivered I took it apart completely and inspected it. Especially the guide vanes (scroll,rotors leading edges). They were perfect. I then had the bearings and seal replaced. It was a 300.00 insurance.
I then purchased the delicious tuning tune. So I had that purchase. Upon getting it running which was almost perfect, I then drove it the following couple of days to DBW Motorsports and had it put on the Dyno. I know it’s over kill but I wanted to make sure everything was correct. So I had 2 tune fees, but I would have had a flatbed charge of a couple of hundred dollars so it about equaled out for me.
I hope this eases your pain a little, take care Steve

Dude I feel so bad for you, I recently purchased a used Edelbrock kit from a member as well and had Evasive installed it on my BRZ, mine is working fine but it's still painful to see this photo :brokenheart:
Hope you will have the car fixed and running again soon!

I hope you can fix it soon. Best of luck to you!

Bummer. Did you figure out where it was leaking?

Sorry to hear what happened. In hind sight, I wished I had rebuilt my motor prior to spinning a bearing. I could have saved some money in the rebuild process. Sucks you have to find a block half. Now you have an opportunity to upgrade the bottom end (rods, bearings, pistons, oil pump & baffling, etc) to more reliably handle the added power of forced induction.

It would be valuable for us fellow E-Force users to see the point of leakage on the charge cooler. Knowing how or why it leaked can help prevent others from the same fate.

Good luck!

That totally sucks, sorry to see this happen to you....

Wow, sorry to see this happen. I had a Sprintex kit a couple years ago do something similar. Luckily, it was only dripping a small amount of coolant into the engine, and we were able to catch it right away, without any extra damage. Sad you were not as lucky.

Did you pull the supercharger and see why it was leaking from the core so badly?

On a side note, I have a 2017 fully assembled long block sitting in my shop with only 800 miles on it for sale. PM if you have any interest.

Hey all thanks a lot for the condolences I appreciate it. I sent the supercharger off to Jon Bond Performance for a complete rebuild... They should get it by the end of the week or next week, and they'll let me know what broke

Any update?


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Yes.

The car is over at The Racers Line in Concord; I dropped it off yesterday. Neal found rather quickly that it was caused by us not installing it correctly. The PCV line, was hooked up to the throttle body coolant line, and the throttle coolant line, was plumbed to the supercharger intake port, so the car was filled up with coolant in a matter of seconds. This was our first time installing the supercharger, and this is what happens because we didn't double and triple check our connections!

Anyway, Jon Bond has completely rebuilt my supercharger, and Neal is selling me a 2017 motor with 800 miles on it. He's also reinstalling everything for me, and working with Delicious to update my tune. At the end this will all work out, but lesson learned!

Ouch!! Glad it's coming together though, and sounds like you're in good spirits :)

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Sorry to hear your bad luck.
Just FYI, vapor lock is when the fuel turns to gas and stops the engine from getting fuel. It used to happen in older cars during the summer.
Hydro lock is when the cylinders get water in them and the non compressible fluid brings everything to a very quick stop. Most often breaking parts in the prosses.