Potential Timing Chain Failure
 

All right, as luck would have it, the used motor that Toyota put in for me finally had its moment- The timing chain either broken or came off somehow.

The tech was quick to blame my turbo for the failure, which I find laughable, but it's a valid excuse because I have no counter-point to argue on.
I haven't torn anything apart to see if the guides let go, or if a cam gear came apart, etc.

here's my story - Car has had an odd rattle between 1200RPM and 1600RPM on light acceleration. I could never pinpoint what it was, and everything seemed OK so I just let it become the norm; cars make all sorts of sounds and I beat the shit out of the car the day I got it back from them. If that didn't ruin anything, then I was happy enough.

Fast forward a few months, the car starts idling rough. I raise the idle, and it gets better, so I forget about it.

Car starts running like absolute dog shit in low RPM. Like between 900 and 1500 RPM if I'm actuating the gas pedal enough to register between 6% and 17% throttle position ( logged several times when it was really bad in Ecutek to verify this data). Consistent pedal position in this range also resulted in the cams freaking out and the RPM fluctuationg between 400rpm and 1900 rapidly. Imagine how stop and go traffic had been for me?! Ugh.

Finally, after months of this, the car suddenly has an epiphany and sorts itself out, I thought. Idled smooth one morning and the issue seemed to have disappeared. Feeling like a I had been reborn and granted a gift, I proceeded to shit on a 2016 WRX that was trying to pass me to assert his dominance. I attempted to put my 320whp to the ground and as the boost gauge read positive, my car shit its pants and I lost MPH suddenly. This continued for the rest of my trip home. Car ran amazing out of boost, I thought " huh, maybe I blew a line off or have an evap solenoid leak that's causing the car to meter wrong"

I datalogged and immediately noticed that VVT wasn't enabled for some reason.
"Huh." was my only thought. After several tune flashes, driving nicely, and the car running well through all of this, it wouldn't re-enable.
A couple weeks later, I had a really bad night and just floored the gas pedal on a brisk -13 degree night. The tires lit up, the car popped as I ran into the end of 2nd gear within a second and the car roared to life.

I slowed down and drive kindly through 3rd gear until about 3600RPM and then floored it. The car prompty stood up and spun the tires; IT WAS FIXED, WOW. The next morning, the car idled just like it used to- as if an injector was not working and I left a rag in the intake. Fine enough with me- seems like when VVT is working, the car idles like garbage, so at least I know when it is and isn't going to have power so I don't try to pass any more WRXs if VVT isn't on.

I mustered the strength within one snowy day to swap out my cam solenoids from my last engine that were functioning well, and also swapped out the crank position sensor from my last engine. Didn't seem to help, but I felt better for having spent the time trying to I let it be.

Fast forward a few weeks of driving easy and not passing WRXs- I wake up to go to work, and notice immediately that the car is idling worse than usual. It happens to be 39 degrees out, much warmer than it had been, so I thought maybe the warm weather were affecting my fuel trims or something else, who knows.
About 1/4 mile down the road, the car started sounding like a truck with the jake-brake on when I let off the gas. I whipped the car around in the middle of the road and tried to get as much momentum as I could. The car died mid flight but I was able to coast back to my driveway.

I had the car towed to Toyota, because they put this engine in so I felt there should be a warranty. The tech calls me and says he's sure that the timing chain has either broken or fallen off. There is no warranty provided with the engine they put in because my car has a salvage title. Ok, I'll own that the car has a salvage title, bu- nevermind, they can go eat snails.

Has anyone heard of the timing chain stretching or breaking components specifically because of forced induction? I can understand how a bad tune would cause issues, but I think this chain has always been loose and finally caused an issue.

What do you think? I'm not doing this to get at Toyota anymore, I'm really done with them. Not pursuing legal action or otherwise; I will get the engine rebuilt correctly and to my satisfaction out of my own pockets in the future when that's feasible for me.

Was anything done to this engine before it went into your car?

Not much to say at this point..
Go to a reputable Subaru mechanic, they know how to build these engines and they know how to read the manuals: a thing that the retarded Toyota mechanics (at least most of them) can t do

it won t be so bloody expensive, chains and tensioners are quite cheap and just the front cover must go out

he had the recall done like 3 times because Toyota's mechanic suck

If that is the case it sounds like the chain guide was not preloaded correctly. I have heard @Opie mention this in a post talking with someone else about a rattle. Though I could be mistaken.

Thank you for the responses guys. I was fortunate (or not) enough that they put a used engine into the car and didn't touch it. So I think this engine would've had this issue regardless eventually, since the timing chain was rattling the same day I got it in ( I just didn't realize that the noise I was hearing WAS the chain).

As I said, I'm going to buy torque plates for my local tuner/builder and begin buying the parts and hopefully get it done this summer (since I don't see a point to putting another stock engine in if I'm planning on staying turbo, I'll get some better rods, headstuds, valve springs, etc and keep about the same power level). I'm curious to see who else has had the timing components fail who is also running forced induction of any variety

i stretched and ruined chains and guides and tensioner but well, i put a huge hole in the block, a piston sky rocketed to the heads and bent valves and a cam, the chains just followed

Wow, that sucks hardcore.

Did the engine have any sort of warranty?

Nope, they didn't give me one because it's a salvage title. They got the engine through copart I think