Motor Blew Last Night
 

I was running a FBM base kit @ 10psi on 91 octane for about 15k miles (brz is almost at 29k miles, turbo went in around 14k)... until last night, when the brz decided it would be better off with another window.

I'm posting because I'm wondering what my options are from here on out in terms of cost. I've done some looking around the forums and a lot of people would build the motor for boost, and others say they would just fix it and maybe part out their FI kit and other mods. Others still would take this as an opportunity to do an engine swap? Shop said they can't take a look at the car until the 23rd so I've got some time to decide.

How much am I looking at to replace the block? How much am I looking at to get a built motor? And is it worth it considering so many people have posted about transmission issues with high power output? What about an engine swap? How much money am I looking at for a dope swap? Looking for any and all advice.

Thanks in advance.

First off... find out why it blew.
From there, figure out your finances. Usually people sell off the turbo stuffs to pay for the rebuild.
Transmissions, half of it is driver, half of it is setup(tires/clutch/power).

oh LORD, what tune were you running?

Junkyard low-mile complete motors seem to be in the $3k-$4k range.

My FR-S is at the dealer now having the engine replaced. I will check the invoice when I get it back to see what Toyota charges for a new short block.

-Justin

You can buy built short blocks for around $5K (Full Blown or MAPerformance), without a core exchange. With a core exchange, they're around $3500.

Junkyard motors are around $3-4K.

I'd be inclined to do one of those two options. Motor swaps are more expensive.

If your heads are good and you don't have a good block to exchange you can expect ~5,000.00 for a built block from Full Blown.

What else did you have installed besides the base kit? Who tuned the car? I'm very interested because I'm about to install my fbm kit next week. Trying to get more information on tuners in our la / oc area.

No idea why it blew. Not doing anything I haven't done before. Was passing someone and went WOT for a couple seconds and then I heard a weird noise around the exact same time I backed off... Engine cut out and that was that.

Evasive Motorsports custom dyno tune on ecutek, like I said 10psi on 91 octane which seems to be a safe bet from what I understand.

Yeah idk if I should go junkyard or new if I decide against getting a built short block. I'm worried if I go used it might have problems down the line from damage done to it from the previous owner. I'm not sure how likely this is.

Yeah I think motor swap is pretty much out of the question. The only reason I brought it up is because I wasn't sure if a built motor is worth it since the extra power will only increase the chances of transmission failure. This is a DD, probably doesn't even need boost, I want it to be reliable and it really sucks that it's out of commission right now. I don't want that to be the norm. Maybe if I do a complete motor swap it might be more reliable and I'll be able to make the power I want safely. Probably not the most cost effective option of doing this though.

Nothing done to the motor itself. It's got a perrin oil cooler, koyo radiator, exedy stage 2 clutch (unrevised version), a catch can.
Evasive did the tune. I talked to Randy today on the phone and he said none of the cars (with FA20) they have tuned have had blown engines, except mine now, but some of their customers that have had tunes elsewhere have. Of course except their own racecar which they blew at 400-something whp. But he cautioned that anything over 300hp is kind of sketchy on the FA20. Mine dyno'ed at 279whp on their mustang dyno, before I got rid of some exhaust restriction.

He also said their tunes are generally conservative enough for longevity on the drivetrain, and he said customers with the Greddy turbo kit have been tracking their cars for a long time now with no engine failures like mine. My car has never been to a track or a drag strip. Just street driving. No tickets so I guess that might give you insight into how I drive :P

My car had a couple issues with the tune they tried to fix. When I would lightly press the throttle the revs would dip far below idle and the car would almost stall or sometimes stall. Occasionally would stall soon after starting it and driving around when I would put the clutch in or shift to neutral. They tried to fix it by fixing a vacuum leak I didn't know I had on the catch can, bumping up the idle and causing the revs to sort of hang around 1.5k rpm when I put the clutch in for a couple seconds but it didn't really do much to help. I didn't go back again for a revision on this.

Also the car would jerk/hesitate sometimes at low speeds making it difficult to drive and the AFR's would jump around a bit at low speeds and also the car seemed like it was running rich at times, but I was told that's to be expected with a custom tune like I had. I also had a warm starting issue where the car would continue to crank but not start if I was starting it when the engine was already warm. If I tried to start it a couple times though it would start.

Also the car made some strange noises at idle that sounded kind of sketchy to me, but Randy told me that it wasn't anything to be worried about and there wasn't much I could do to fix it.
You can kind of hear it in this video, the tapping sound I guess.

[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D561sNVIFzw"]Turbo BRZ blue smoke after long idle - YouTube[/ame]

(I had this problem with oil burning out the exhaust a while ago and it resolved itself - probably had to do with me tipping the catch can accidentally when I was trying to empty it.)

Evasive is a well known and popular shop. They do a lot of great builds. I think I just got unlucky somehow and I'm not sure if it's the tune or something else that caused it to blow. They said they will be able to take a look at the car on the 23rd and maybe then I'll have more insight into how it happened.

Everyone whose boosted is blowing motors! ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh! I better rip my supercharger off asap!

This is odd to hear, there have been people running FI for thousands and thousands of miles with no issue, I remember reading here somewhere someone passed 100K in FI miles with no issues and the car still behaved as it was first put on.

The first two things that come to mind is what oil viscosity was used and if any supporting mods were installed which you stated the perrin oil cooler was used, did you happen to check if you overboosted by the actuator getting stuck?

Motul 5w30 was in the car. Before that I had motul 0w20, and before that I had motul 5w30.
I know it's odd to hear. I am honestly surprised myself. I always knew there was a chance of catastrophic engine failure but I spent time and effort researching a reputable shop to get a solid conservative, but well sorted tune and supporting mods that would make the car work properly. The car still needed additional cooling mods, but I never had a major overheating incident and always let the car cool down if I noticed the coolant temps over 215 or oil over 235, and I watched the temps and AFR's religiously, as well as boost. When it blew, I had the p3 on the boost gauge, and I don't think it overboosted because it wasn't any faster than normal and it's not like I saw a crazy number on the gauge. I would have noticed otherwise.

I was always the kind of driver that let the car warm up for 15 seconds after a cold start before driving, avoiding boost before the oil was at 180 at least, and watching my p3 gauge to make sure everything was in check. I knew it was a possibility, but still never seriously thought this would happen to me to be honest.

As long as you ran 5w-30 you're good to go, alot of boosted engines fail on anything thinner, 235 on your oil temp in street driving or spirited?? even when I go quicker than usual mines don't climb past 215. I would've said a dying fuel pump but you say you watch your afrs so this is all very odd :iono:

Yeah I've seen 235F oil, with the cooler, with spirited driving on uphill canyon runs, but as soon as I see that number I either slow down a lot or turn around at a turn out and coast down the hill.

Can't find the receipt right now but a new shortblock from the Toyota dealer cost me approx $2100. I haven't checked locally, but I think the heads are approx $1600~1700 for the pair.

There's really no conservative way to do aftermarket turbo or supercharger on a factory engine running 12.5:1 compression.

My engine blew without boost in normal street driving, and there are a lot more people who had had these engines fail in normal operation without boost. If you're not comfortable with blowing things up and rebuilding them from scratch then you should definitely avoid bolting on boost.

-Justin

Most of this is bulllshit. A custom tune should not run like shit. They definitely did not have your port injectors tuned properly.

Do you have any pictures? Like others have said a brand new shortblock is around $2100. You can buy the case, crank, and bearings separately if you are going to build the block anyways with new pistons/rods but in the end it's not all that much cheaper.

I would never run a stock engine FI on straight 91 octane CA gas.

http://i.imgur.com/yYS10bu.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/QATakwz.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/SX3UKvU.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/TEN7q8G.jpg

Another one bites the dust..smh...hope everything works out bro

Real talk, specially when it's a bolt on kit with a proven MAF sensor location tried and true to be able to be tuned successfully.

EVERY shop says stuff like this. It's meaningless and does nothing but make you feel bad. The tune was sub par, and you likely had some other physical issues in the build that lead to this...

^ All of this is proof. None of these issues should exist... PERIOD. The kit wasn't installed right and/or something else was wrong with the engine / clutch / transmission / whatever. If the shop truly cared about the quality of your experience, they would have fixed these issues.

That said, I don't know the nature of your relationship with Evasive and what you had done with them other than the tune. If there were install issues with any of your parts, and they didn't install them, then that's not on them - beyond their responsibility to advise you... which if they were tuning the car and there were issues, they should have done so.

The number of "high quality builds" a shop has had, has time and again, proven meaningless when it comes to the quality of their tuning on a given platform.

CA people don't have much choice... 91 is the highest octane pump gas we can get. 100 octane is out there but very rare and expensive to run or even mix with 91 to get 93. Octane booster to me is sketchy and isn't very convenient if you have to add it to every tank. E85 is starting to make its way to more gas stations, but it still has poor fuel economy, but it's still the choice of fuel for me.

Well, I installed the turbo kit for the most part but not all of it was done, and I had the car towed to them. They had to machine the turbo exhaust housing since full blowns downpipe fitment wasn't great and I messed it up trying to install it so there was an exhaust leak there. Also full blowns fans melted. I requested they do an inspection of my install and fix everything that was wrong. So they replaced the fans and had the turbo housing machined and said everything else checked out. I later had them install a number of parts on the car including the koyo radiator, perrin oil cooler, exedy stage 2 clutch, boost controller, catch can, and of course the dyno tune. I was under the impression nothing was wrong, and that everything was good. Except the car needed additonal cooling.

A while later their custom mount for the perrin oil cooler broke my ac condenser and when i pulled the car apart I was very disappointed with the way they mounted it. They replaced the condenser for free but I still had to pay like 4 hours of labor to have the mount redone. I was also disappointed that I was recommended parts that don't fit together properly and then later I was recommended I should have gone with a different oil cooler set up since mine wasn't exactly ideal for cooling. But then again this is kinda my fault for not doing all the research separately and ahead of time and choosing the right parts to buy in the first place, but it would have been nice if the parts I should've gotten were the one's recommended.

Now, I'm pretty sad all of you are saying these issues aren't normal for a custom dyno tune. I definitely brought up everything written here with them, but I should have done more research and made it a bigger deal than I did I guess. But it's in the past now and I have to move forward with the car. Don't know if I want to go FI again, this kinda killed it for me.

I like Evasive and I think a lot of people have good experiences with them. I think mine might be different but in a lot of ways it's my fault for not doing the homework I should have done. And maybe I just got unlucky with the motor too.

Evasive is a good shop, but the problem is you have no idea who is doing your dyno tune. I think they have multiple tuners going at it. The 2 times I went there to have a tune, I had no idea who the tuner was. They make you wait in the lobby. That is another variable for you.

Ok lets get this straight. Everyone wants to point the finger at us or our tuner, but we never know what kind of driver you might be after your car leaves our shop. Maybe the car was over-revved or something which we may never know. Evasive only has one in house tuner which has 15+ years of experience of tuning. The tunes we do are on the conservative side for daily driving.

When your car first came to us, it was a mess. No offense but you and few friends tried to do the install yourself which made it harder for us to work on later. After from having issues not being install correctly it fell into our hands with stripped turbo manifold bolts and parts not being install correctly.

Not only we wanted to fix items on the car like the oil cooler with longer lines. You did not want to spend the extra money for long lines. Yes we made the mistake on mounting it before because we couldn't really mount it anywhere else. We did replace your A/C condenser with a new one free of charge. There was other items we address to fix or maybe change but that was up to the customer if they wanted to do it or not. If there were any other issues with the car. We should of looked at it then continue to drive the car.

We are sorry that this has happen and are willing to help you out the best we can.

-Evasive

I already stated about how I like your shop. And I admitted the car had problems when I brought it to you guys. That's why i didn't drive it and I had it towed. There were some some stripped bolts on the turbo exhaust side housing and the issue with the fans with them wired improperly when I was trying to troubleshoot them and that was about it if my memory serves me correct. I paid to have that stuff fixed and I'm not blaming you guys for any of that.

No, I didn't want to pay for long lines. But maybe if you recommended another oil cooler that would have already come with different sized lines that would have fit my application better it would have been nice, and it wouldnt have to have been mounted so poorly. Kind of frustrating that I had to pay for so many hours in labor to mount an oil cooler that was inadequate for my application and not in an ideal location, twice. That's my fault too since I should've done more research. I should have just bought a setrab cooler and lines and I think that should have been the advice I was given, not to buy a prepackaged set and then have to pay again for other lines. But this is off topic.

The car wasn't over revved. I'm not asking you to believe me, but I know it wasn't.

What a lot of people have been saying is that the issues with the tune you told me were normal and not worth worrying about were actually not normal. I'm not claiming to know more than your tuner with 15+ years of experience, but I'm not sure why everyone here is saying those problems I brought up right after I got it tuned and then again later that you told me were nothing to worry about are actually something to worry about.

I'm just sharing my experience, and if you read all of my posts in this thread carefully you'll see I'm not attempting to put the blame on anyone or trash the shop at all. Just trying to share what happened to me and figure out where to go from here. That's all.

With that weird idle problem you had it may have been due to this mechanical problem below , this bleeds off oil pressure and will interfere with cam operation and appears to be able to cause other oil pressure related issues

That oil control valve fails, it should look like the bottom picture



http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showp...postcount=2969
http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showp...postcount=2972


http://www.avoturboworld.com/media/c...ocket_back.jpghttp://www.avoturboworld.com/media/c...ket_back_1.jpg

http://www.avoturboworld.com/media/c...ket_back_2.jpg

What were you tapping oil for next to the AC? Did you install a different oil feed for the turbo? Fullblown doesn't tab oil there; they use a T fitting on the oil pressure barb.

I also see a catch can, do you have both left and right PCV valves venting to atmosphere to prevent crack case being boosted? Fullblown recommends vent to atmosphere on the kit no matter what.

Sucks man I know the feeling just blew mine not even 2 days ago smh. Had about 2k of boosted miles and decided to switch map to same exact map with less boost on e85 worked perfect the whole day put e85 in and boost started to spike. Was only set to 7.5 psi ended up hitting around 18 and 19psi around 17 when car gave out smh. Looking for best way to go about this also no visible damage don't to block what so ever though no oil, doesn't look like rod knocked out of block either still hoping for the best on it. Good luck though man let me know what you come up with definitely looking for some opinions on best route to go with it also.

Sent from my SM-N920T using Tapatalk

I used this

http://res.cloudinary.com/rallysport...024aa210_1.jpg

I'm not sure how the catch can was installed. I can take a look at it later today. I had evasive do it.

Going with a built short block won't necessarily cause more power than the transmission can handle. Get a short block with forged components that is built for boost with a lower compression ratio. The power output is controlled by the amount of boost you chose to push through the engine.

The problem with these engines are they are not built for boost and the high compression does not play nice with boost so you are walking a knifes edge when trying to get a proper and safe tune. Then what happens in a lot of cases is the owner gets use to and bored with the power and decides to turn the boost up "just a bit". Sooner or later they will all blow.

If you are going to go boosted again then get a block that is built to handle it, get a good tune that is just a bit on the conservative side and then practice self restraint by leaving it alone outside of proper maintenance and periodic inspection..

I bought the jdl catch can for the fbm kit. That still okay right?
https://jdlautodesign.net/shop/ft86-...ted-catch-can/
Is it necessary for another one for the crank case?

That catch can has two inlet ports, it is connected to both the PCV and the breather sides, so you're fine with that one, don't need anything else.

Correct both rear and front engine ports connect to the can and the upper can port connects to the turbo intake or OEM intake port.

I'm only obsessed with the PCV to atmosphere/Turbo inlet because of pervious turbo hayabusa hickups. I was having so many damn issues with the crankcase not releasing boost and it cost me, rods, je pistons, case and head work.

High compression isn't the problem, not at all.

You're right that the issue is people turning up the boost, but it's because they're doing so without adjusting the rest of the tune for it.

The same thing will happen with a built block, it's just stronger so the threshold is higher.

With a lower c/r you need to run a lot more boost to make the same power, you get more lag and less off boost power. More boost = more heat, so you might need better intercooling.

I disagree with this in at least one sense although I will refrain from entering into a long winded debate with you or anyone else on the subject. High compression increases the likelihood of detonation therefore the need for higher octane fuel, direct injection (in part) and tuning measures that must be used to control it. It definitely lowers your margin for error when going forced induction.

Yes, heat is also a factor (and a factor related to high compression).

Trying to weigh the costs of a brand new shortblock from toyota/subaru or a junkyard complete motor. With labor for each respective option, anyone wanna chime in here?

Static compression ratio vs. dynamic compression ratio.

Variable cam timing plays a huge role in this as it allows one to control cylinder pressure throughout the rev range. You could run a 15:1 engine on pump gas with 12 psi of boost if you allow the cams to bleed off enough cylinder pressure. Which is why it's not hard to find a boosted 12:1 Honda K, or Toyota 2ZZ, or FA20.

But without variable cams, you'd have to degree your cams for the minimum amount of overlap that keeps the engine from detonating. And that takes a lot of time and testing. Which is why you don't see a lot of boosted 12:1 Honda B's. Or KA24's. Or 4G63's. Or SBC's. Etc.

But to your point, if I was starting a FA20 build for boost from scratch I'd certainly pick a lower than stock C/R. The window for MBT is simply a lot wider and easier to find the lower you go.

Do you monitor your active A/F ratio's on a guage with regular driving??