Pop goes the BRZ. Advice please. UPDATE
 

2013 BRZ
Innovate/Sprintex super charger
E85
Delicious Tune

Went to an AutoX today. The event was 60 miles away at a small oval track. They used a mixture of a couple banked turns and the infield. The car ran great. With the suspension tweaks RCE recommended, it was the best it's ever been.

So I drove 60miles there, drove it hard for 14 runs at 40+ seconds each, then drove it home. Almost. About 2 miles from home, as I pulled up to a stop light the engine shut off and smoke came from under the hood. No CEL, no oil pressure light, no overheating. I push the car out of the intersection and pop the hood. The passenger side floor of the engine bay is covered in oil. I have no idea where it could have come from. I know I didn't throw a rod. Guess I'll find out when the engine is pulled.

So, anyways. Great day turned bad real fast, and at a stop light no less. Go fig. At this point, I'm looking at options.

I don't want a crazilly built engine. I love how the car is set up and how it runs with the twin screw. I don't think it I need forged internals for this, and would rather not deal with the PITA aspects of a forged assembly.

On the other hand, just rebuilding the engine like stock means this could happen again, and that's just not acceptable.

I'm hoping there might be a middle ground; OE ease of care and maintenance, but more durable where it counts.

It'll be a couple weeks at least before I get a solid answer about what went pop. But assuming I'm in for more than just a head, I figure I should work on making the engine a bit more stout since it'll be apart anyways.

Thanks, any recommendations are welcome.

UPDATE:
First pic.

UPDATE #2:
The engine is out and pics of the carnage.

UPDATE #3:
Fully built heads.

I'm not sure what happened, I'm not here to answer that.




But in response to your building dilemma....you want safety, and reliability...then you want forged internals, OR you want to just go back to being bone stock.

I dont know where you heard forged internals are a PITA. the rods are no different functioning then factory rods, they're just stronger. And as far as pistons, if you get 2618 they will have piston slap and burn some oil until they heat up but they handle alot more abuse then 4032...4032 act just as factory pistons and are stonger then factory pistons and are more then enough for most people.

You can get pistons with the same 12.5:1 compression ratio as well so your engine will feel no different then the way it is now, it will just handle the abuse of being boosted much better....and by that I mean you'll have a hard time blowing your engine, unless your tune is junk or your trying to make diesel torque way down low, etc etc.

Hope you figure it out and good luck, sorry to hear about your miss fortune and hopefully it isn't to bad.

According to some other members who have commented on one of my threads, what likely happened is that your cam seal plate sprung a pretty massive leak - which has been reported to be an issue on our car. Teclis recommended I buy an aftermarket plate from Speed Factory or one other company, but I ended up getting one from Torque Solutions for about $50. It's located on the passenger side of the car on the rear of the engine, which is where you said you saw most of the oil. I'd check on that first as you probably didn't blow anything yet - other than a seal.

If the is a forged piston that acts like stock, then I'm all for that. I just don't want the piston slap and frequent rebuild issue that accompany traditonal forged internals. For one thing, I just *barely* get the oil up to temp by the time I get to work. Going with that kind of piston would mean I'd never get to drive it to work on a nice day.

Good to know about that alternative. I'll look into it. Thanks.

I've heard about that leak too. But it didn't appear to come form there, and something in the engine is most definitely damaged.

Very curious to see what it is. How much boost were you running? And do you have an air/fuel gauge to monitor if you're running rich or lean? I had a similar thing happen to me once on a SR20DET I was boosting at 1bar... Did a massive pull on the freeway one day, but although I had the car floored it wasn't going any faster. It eventually slowed to a stop for me to realize I blew my rings lol... Not the best of days - I feel for ya.

It's supercharged so it really can't overboost. I did check the bypass valve and it appeared to be working fine. It's weird that it happened under vacuum, but I guess I must've weakened something during the event and it gave up the ghost on the way home.

It sucks that I'm going to have to wait a couple weeks before I know where that oil came from.

What you want is 4032 forged pistons, they'll be more then strong enough for you. And they wont slap and burn oil like 2618's.

Off the top of my head, you can get arias through full blown in 4032, I believe JE and CP sells 4032 pistons as well. Plenty of options out there.

Those sound great, but I'm not really finding any with the stock compression.

Might have to call and find out. They might make them, but dont advertise as theyre not popular since most people reduce compression ratio.


I'd like to tell you that you wont notice a difference between 10:1 and 12.5:1 but id be lieing if I did. Might be able to do something with timing to achieve close to the same power and response but i dont know that for sure.....easiest thing is to increase boost, but being that your super charged that might not work depending what pulley you have now.

Best I could tell you is to call around and see who is offering 12.5:1 4032 pistons, and if your search fails then call some shops like full blown or element tuning who have built these engines for boost and find out what they suggest you do.

Edit: Full blown and element tuning were just shops off the top of my head that have had success with boosting this engine, thats not to say there aren't other shops you can call.

I know you can't really overboost with a supercharger, but how much boost are you running? 6psi? 10psi?

Why such a long wait to find out what happened?

I'll do some calling around. Hopefully this won't be a big PITA.

With a 70mm pulley I should be around 11.5psi.

The wait is because the mechanic I trust to do what I can't is out of the country.

11.5psi seems like a pretty safe amount with a good tune. Sucks that your mechanic is out of the country. I'm crossing my fingers for ya that there is no significant damage.

Same thing happened to me
Sprintex 210 Intercooled
102 RON
70mm pulley 12PSI
Delicious Tuned

Travelling up a hill at 120 km/h got to the top of the hill and all saw was smoke coming out the rear.
I was fortunately logging the car at the time. Opening up the engine piston 1 & 3 had holes from extreme heat.
I had so many issues with the Sprintex kit from boost leaks to coolant leaking into the manifold.

I can see where coolant leaks could come from the laminova, but howd you get boost leaks?