FA20 Engine Oiling, Bearings, and Starvation

[nelsmar]

Originally Posted by Luckrider

I haven't really been watching the forums for several months now and last I heard, there were some new springs, but cams would have to be custom ground. I don't want to go crazy (a junkyard motor right now feels tough on the wallet) but if there are reasonable upgrades that can be done NA that make sense to do (like a profile that safely revs and actually makes power to 8,000rpm) I think it would be nice to do while the motor is apart.

About 15 minutes I got the call. Subaru will pay to have the motor disassembled at any dealer of my choice (since the car is now sitting back in my driveway) to the point of failure to determine what happened. Then they will send out their engineer and tech to determine if they will fix the issue. The problem is, they just did this to the STI they looked at and denied the warranty so that car is sitting with a disassembled motor that's in pieces. They will not pay to put it back together if it is not covered under warranty and after the way SoA has continually jerked me around, this is my fear for my car.

Personally I wouldn't want to spend the loads of cash on cams (1,000+$) for a minor NA increase of power... If you were boosted then some money on internals could be great. But cams are not a few hundred dollars... There are four camps total. HKS makes one that is a direct drop in that can be used with OEM heads but is fairly expensive and only adds a slight duration & slight lift (11mm increased to 11.7mm). IMO not worth the 1,300-1,700 MSRP or whatever it was.

The disassembly can be rough especially if it isn't organized... You need to ask them if it isn't under warranty and you want to take the engine to a builder how will it be organized... My builder would have a fit if i gave him a box full of bolts lol.

If you weren't doing anything you should be doing I wouldn't be horribly afraid. I don't know what mods you had and what not. What part of the country are you in?

[Luckrider]

Originally Posted by nelsmar

Personally I wouldn't want to spend the loads of cash on cams (1,000+$) for a minor NA increase of power... If you were boosted then some money on internals could be great. But cams are not a few hundred dollars... There are four camps total. HKS makes one that is a direct drop in that can be used with OEM heads but is fairly expensive and only adds a slight duration & slight lift (11mm increased to 11.7mm). IMO not worth the 1,300-1,700 MSRP or whatever it was.

The disassembly can be rough especially if it isn't organized... You need to ask them if it isn't under warranty and you want to take the engine to a builder how will it be organized... My builder would have a fit if i gave him a box full of bolts lol.

If you weren't doing anything you should be doing I wouldn't be horribly afraid. I don't know what mods you had and what not. What part of the country are you in?

NY area, about 2.5 hours north of SoA's NA headquarters. The car was being driven on the highway. Total mods include an Openflash Header and Tune, as well as new wheels and tires. The car has been two 2 HPDE days and 2 years in a row in the Wicked Big Meet "AutoX" (not really autocross and not many runs total). The WBM even is actually partially sponsored by SoA.

The dealership where the car was towed after failure says they put four quarts of oil in it. The oil was checked less than 3 days before failure (I'm like 99% sure it was checked the day before). There was no oil light at the time of failure (or ever) and the motor did not get hot when it blew.

As for the car being disassembled, they have confirmed that it will just be torn apart. There will be no grand organization, or any attempts to have it put back together. I've been jerked around for 3 weeks by SoA and even lied to (they told me an engineer and regional tech inspected the car personally when no such inspection has taken place as confirmed by the service manager). They also just disassembled an STi at the dealership where the car was towed only for SoA to deny warranty and they left the car in parts with storage fees accruing by the day.

I didn't realize the cams were that much, certainly not worth the maybe 20WHP gain (and that is ambitious).

[nelsmar]

Originally Posted by Luckrider

NY area, about 2.5 hours north of SoA's NA headquarters. The car was being driven on the highway. Total mods include an Openflash Header and Tune, as well as new wheels and tires. The car has been two 2 HPDE days and 2 years in a row in the Wicked Big Meet "AutoX" (not really autocross and not many runs total). The WBM even is actually partially sponsored by SoA.

The dealership where the car was towed after failure says they put four quarts of oil in it. The oil was checked less than 3 days before failure (I'm like 99% sure it was checked the day before). There was no oil light at the time of failure (or ever) and the motor did not get hot when it blew.

As for the car being disassembled, they have confirmed that it will just be torn apart. There will be no grand organization, or any attempts to have it put back together. I've been jerked around for 3 weeks by SoA and even lied to (they told me an engineer and regional tech inspected the car personally when no such inspection has taken place as confirmed by the service manager). They also just disassembled an STi at the dealership where the car was towed only for SoA to deny warranty and they left the car in parts with storage fees accruing by the day.

I didn't realize the cams were that much, certainly not worth the maybe 20WHP gain (and that is ambitious).

20HP is hoping for a lot with the HKS cams :P

As for the oil bit... So they checked the oil them selves and saw it was fine and 3 days later it was 4 quarts low? I would make sure thats documented. Who did the last oil change? They will obviously try to throw that one at you... =/

[Luckrider]

Originally Posted by nelsmar

20HP is hoping for a lot with the HKS cams :P

As for the oil bit... So they checked the oil them selves and saw it was fine and 3 days later it was 4 quarts low? I would make sure thats documented. Who did the last oil change? They will obviously try to throw that one at you... =/

All oil changes have been done by me. I was the one who checked it before (while dropping in some fresh washer fluid). They have some receipts from the oil changes and said I will need more if they do decide to do the warranty work. At this point though, it's not what's holding it up, but it certainly will be the next thing to hold it up since they have been looking for any reason they can.

[Jonsey]

This sounds like a case where you may want to discuss your options with a lawyer knowledgeable about the subject. Just hearing you have hired one may change the way you are treated.

[celek]

Originally Posted by FRS Justin

If you need a rebuild I suggest the following:


West coast: Outfront Motorsports
East coast: Element Tuning
Central: Accelerated Performance


I have spoke to all 3 of these shops and they are top notch...


Good luck

My block is at Accelerated at the moment, Don there pays attention to detail

[celek]

Originally Posted by nelsmar

Personally I wouldn't want to spend the loads of cash on cams (1,000+$) for a minor NA increase of power... If you were boosted then some money on internals could be great. But cams are not a few hundred dollars... There are four camps total. HKS makes one that is a direct drop in that can be used with OEM heads but is fairly expensive and only adds a slight duration & slight lift (11mm increased to 11.7mm). IMO not worth the 1,300-1,700 MSRP or whatever it was.

The disassembly can be rough especially if it isn't organized... You need to ask them if it isn't under warranty and you want to take the engine to a builder how will it be organized... My builder would have a fit if i gave him a box full of bolts lol.

If you weren't doing anything you should be doing I wouldn't be horribly afraid. I don't know what mods you had and what not. What part of the country are you in?

Piper Cams are 700 British Pounds about $1100
GCS told me they are looking into them around the same price range.

There are 4 cams so honestly not a bad price.

[nelsmar]

Originally Posted by celek

Piper Cams are 700 British Pounds about $1100
GCS told me they are looking into them around the same price range.

There are 4 cams so honestly not a bad price.

Yeah they aren't terribly priced. But for most people... not worth it for the NA gains. I'll likely grab a set of theirs or do a custom grind for my other block. I decided to leave my current block where it is but was looking into purchasing a set of cams a few weeks back. 1,100 for 4 cams isn't horrible at all I was 100% fine with paying that and then remembered I wasn't even maxing my turbo out yet and was limited by every other part of the car so I said fuck it. lol Next money pit will get the head work in it =x

Valve springs can be stupid cheap if anyone is planning on FI there is little reason to not pickup some.

[celek]

Originally Posted by nelsmar

Yeah they aren't terribly priced. But for most people... not worth it for the NA gains. I'll likely grab a set of theirs or do a custom grind for my other block. I decided to leave my current block where it is but was looking into purchasing a set of cams a few weeks back. 1,100 for 4 cams isn't horrible at all I was 100% fine with paying that and then remembered I wasn't even maxing my turbo out yet and was limited by every other part of the car so I said fuck it. lol Next money pit will get the head work in it =x

Valve springs can be stupid cheap if anyone is planning on FI there is little reason to not pickup some.

Not really worth it for a stock engine either. Maybe the mild street setup but pointless to go big lift and duration

[ChrisD]

Originally Posted by celek

Update on the Reimax???
Bump

I've just ordered the Reimax gear and will be getting it installed in a few weeks when I get my rods and pistons installed. Not sure I'll really be able to tell you how much it helps though, as I don't currently have any problems with the stock oil pump - just trying to be proactive and get the Reimax one before the stock one becomes an issue. In the grand scheme of things its not that expensive so seems like its worth a try as a few people seem to say it will help a little, even though it won't be a complete solution to the problem. Hopefully I won't ever be getting to that limit though.

[celek]

Originally Posted by ChrisD

I've just ordered the Reimax gear and will be getting it installed in a few weeks when I get my rods and pistons installed. Not sure I'll really be able to tell you how much it helps though, as I don't currently have any problems with the stock oil pump - just trying to be proactive and get the Reimax one before the stock one becomes an issue. In the grand scheme of things its not that expensive so seems like its worth a try as a few people seem to say it will help a little, even though it won't be a complete solution to the problem. Hopefully I won't ever be getting to that limit though.

Yeah but I do not want to invest into something that does nothing. Although Reimax has always been big in the Nissan Community. My Rods just got ordered yesterday so I am still 5-6 weeks out from even completing the 2.3ltr short block.

[nelsmar]

Originally Posted by celek

Yeah but I do not want to invest into something that does nothing. Although Reimax has always been big in the Nissan Community. My Rods just got ordered yesterday so I am still 5-6 weeks out from even completing the 2.3ltr short block.

I'm where you are... You know how quickly this shit adds up to an excessively expensive build. I planned on tossing this in my other block and hopefully someone gets some testing done before then but somehow I feel like I'll end up just having to buy one lol.

[Luckrider]

Originally Posted by nelsmar

I'm where you are... You know how quickly this shit adds up to an excessively expensive build. I planned on tossing this in my other block and hopefully someone gets some testing done before then but somehow I feel like I'll end up just having to buy one lol.

I mean, if you feel like tossing money around at a block for testing, I have a car with a clunky running motor

[sam69]

I posted this in another thread and relates to a possible cause for oil starvation.
Apparently the below motor had only just a bit over 4000 km on it and he believes it would have died not so far down the road.
Would be good to see how much crap is in the motor Luckrider.

......................................

A guy I know builds lots of Subaru ej engines and he is in the process of doing a fa motor atm and he has told me that the amount of silicone inside the motor is just unbelievable.
The amount of bits on the oil pickup strainer was huge and he found the oil galleries to the VCT has strainers built into the block and these were almost totally blocked with bits of silicone .

Also a lot of bolts / screws weren't very tight at all and even some of the fixings retaining the oil pump weren't tight and he said you could see where the pump was starting to float/rub on the housing.

Oil starvation could easily become an issue with all the above.

Maybe some of these engine failures are as a result of how these engines are assembled like the swagging on the rocker arms in the earlier motors .