"surprises" found in SR oil pan!?!

[AdrenalineS14]

Yo Zilvians, well im posting this cause im lookin out for a friend and i fear the worst for him, today we managed to drop his tomei oil pan cause it was dented from him being careless(we'll get back to that in a sec)... our main reason for working on his car was because we heard a "TAP" noise after drifting on a Sunday a few weeks back we both came to the conclusion that the "TAP" was coming from the head so we gutted the cams out and noticed that one of the rocker arms had a pretty bad flat spot and the cam lobe looked all blackish with a griddy texture come to find out that the oil rail was clogged and wasn't getting proper lube for that particular cam lobe and rocker arm well that's fixed finally and thought that's it all we have to do is drop the oil pan and bang out the dent and be happy that he can drive his car soon... HA (now getting back to the pan)
weeellllllll we popped that pan off and noticed little fragments of copper "he" didnt really think much of it but i did and told him im a little nervous about the little copper fragments. Im not 100% sure but im guessing that its either fragments of his main bearings or rod bearings WHAT DO YOU GUYS THINK??? and now im thinking maybe that tapping noise came from the block! If it is either of the bearings its gonna suck telling him he wont be able to drive his shit for a LONG LONG time plus he's REAL temperamental too! Ima have too tell him over the phone rofl! ohh boy lol

his specs=
SR20DET
Just tuned it to 360hp @17psi on power fc only mods are...
JGY rail
1000cc ID injectors
greddy style intake mani
hks mani
gt2871 .86

[boms]

lolz..................

[Nicelyphe]

Lmao what a story. Dam though that's no good..Tell em to sell the tomei pan, get a stock one, and bearings!

[boms]

and a crank while hes at it,,

[turbociv910]

Copper is found on the inside of bearings... Hes going to need a engine soon.

[boms]

wait this isnt normal>>???

http://i238.photobucket.com/albums/ff80/jeremy699/DSC_01373-650x432.jpg

[hardparkd]

please tell me thats not the actual pic of his oilpan....

[boms]

na a picture i snapped of a customers oil pan

[AdrenalineS14]

^rofl damn! lol shit gotta break the news to my buddy wish me luck hahaha

[Nicelyphe]

Well, I hope my "Tap" don't result in this kind of ending >_< shit lol

[boms]

a machine shop will be your best friend.. have them check everything rods,crank,block.. its gonna cost money.. but if you cheap out there.. you will re build the motor twice

[Nicelyphe]

Yea screw doing that twice, As of now I usually only have this "tap" when cold out and under 2k rpms, until it warms up fully.

[boms]

just speaking from experience.. i just got done going threw my motor.. measured the rods myself... did great for couple hundred miles... number 3 was egg shaped.. Rod knock came back.. First failed motor ive built..go figure out of all the motors ive done it was My personal car... I skipped one step to try save a couple bucks.. ended up costing me more.. I was careless "thought" it was ok..

[AdrenalineS14]

Yea screw doing that twice, As of now I usually only have this "tap" when cold out and under 2k rpms, until it warms up fully.

lol have you checked lifters maybe got some air in one of them and need to bleed them idk

[Nicelyphe]

Ah man that sounds terrible =\. Yea I've personally haven't ever walked into a machine shop around here, but heard rates were up there.

Nope I haven't checked into lifters actually

[AdrenalineS14]

just speaking from experience.. i just got done going threw my motor.. measured the rods myself... did great for couple hundred miles... number 3 was egg shaped.. Rod knock came back.. First failed motor ive built..go figure out of all the motors ive done it was My personal car... I skipped one step to try save a couple bucks.. ended up costing me more.. I was careless "thought" it was ok..

ooch man... hey we live and we learn

[fliprayzin240sx]

Fuck it, drive it till it blows...tell him to save money for another block while he's at it.

[AdrenalineS14]

update! just broke the news to my friend, he's so pissed... someone come save me lol jk jk he'll get over it :/

[Kingtal0n]

With the price of a longblock compared to a potential fail rebuild I would go for a longblock.

problem with rebuilds is... unfortunately, there are so many details, often some are overlooked. and it only takes a single detail to be overlooked for a catastrophic engine failure.

Imagine a situation like this... a couple of spun main bearings. So you tear it down all nice, bag everything up individually, follow the FSM procedure for runout and dial bore gauge all the rods and mains... You do your research and find the right machine shop, he tanks the block and measures everything and double triple checks... everything looks good.

Little did you know, a .028" bit of copper was lodged in an oil galley where nobody could see it. You fire the engine up... and you guess the rest. "surprise"

[fliprayzin240sx]

^^^I have to agree...its more cheaper and easier to just throw in another known good block than rebuilding it. Keep the old engine and take your time rebuilding that one.

[nassin31spr]

Drive it till it blows. Buddy of mine found a bunch of copper chunks in his pan. We pieced them together and it looked like a small washer made of Cooper. He's been driving it for six months since then. He still takes it to events and daily drives it. Don't think to much about it but if it still runs with out massive taps just drive it.

[JDMRIDDAZ]

i found the same thing in my oil pan after redoing bottom bearing an swapping crank
it ended up being thrust bearing from t25
swapped turbo and went on with no probs

[slw240sx]

With the price of a longblock compared to a potential fail rebuild I would go for a longblock.

problem with rebuilds is... unfortunately, there are so many details, often some are overlooked. and it only takes a single detail to be overlooked for a catastrophic engine failure.

Imagine a situation like this... a couple of spun main bearings. So you tear it down all nice, bag everything up individually, follow the FSM procedure for runout and dial bore gauge all the rods and mains... You do your research and find the right machine shop, he tanks the block and measures everything and double triple checks... everything looks good.

Little did you know, a .028" bit of copper was lodged in an oil galley where nobody could see it. You fire the engine up... and you guess the rest. "surprise"


if you did the correct research you would find a machine shop that would take the time to take the galley plugs out and flush the whole motor out after machining it all. then you would never have to worry about contaminants in the oil galleys.

the potential of Buying a blown up long block is far greater then having a machined motor fail. this isnt witch craft this is precision work and as long as you pay attention to details you will have no issues out of a fresh rebuilt motor.

[Walperstyle]

order up a new headgasket, and pull the head off and take a look. I would also drop the full pan and do a visual on the bearings.

[slw240sx]

order up a new headgasket, and pull the head off and take a look. I would also drop the full pan and do a visual on the bearings.


why would you pull the head and look? that will tell you nothing of bottom end problems. the best idea would be to pull off the pan and check out a main and rod bearing and see if its too the copper yet. more then likely some of the bearings are the through the babbitt material and into the copper and that's where your copper flakes come from. this means the motor is ready for a freshening up, it has likely suffered some oil starvation periods.