Serious Engine Trouble

[nfpgasmask]

I'd lend you my camera but your about as far away you can get! Either way, if you can give us non-gear heads a step-by-step with photos that would be awesome and I would be eternally thankful.

In fact, I was thinking of adding a "how-to section" to my site for common stuff so I could host the pics for you if needed.

Thanks man!

Bart

It works just the opposite. When there is vacuum it is closed , so that it does not suck oil out. So what is actually happening is the PCV valve is not closing. They make elbows you could use or even put the breather directly into the valve cover.If you are worried about the motor not breathing but it is not needed, it will be fine with the pcv valve still in. I will try to post some pics but I have to borrow a camera to do so. shawn

[jgalt]

This weekend I had a major problem and on a 230 mile trip the oil burned completely out of my VX. I had to have it towed 100 miles to get home. Today they tell me a bearing seized and they can't turn the crank shaft at all! As you can imagine I'm not very happy. Has anyone had a similar experience?

TM I can't tell you how bad I feel for you. I haven't posted this, but a similar occurence happened to me at 65K miles. I took my recently acquired VX into the local dealer for the 60K maintenance ($1,000) and also because she was running like crap. Turns out the cat had basically disintegrated and plugged up the exhaust (replaced under 8-year Federal warranty); an O2 sensor was fried ($250) and the transmission component that "talks" to the ECU about shift points, etc. (?) was fried as well (another $250).

After fixing (and paying for) all that I come to pick her up and they notify me that the engine is basically toast due to rod knock (spun or seized and deformed piston rod bearing on crank shaft which does not allow engine to maintain the needed oil pressure and adequately lubricate engine).

Well, now I've sunk $1,500 in a vehicle that doesn't run and talk to the dealer about engine replacement. They want over $6,000+ for a new crate engine and another $1,500 for installation.

I priced a new engine and they are over $4000 bucks. I saw that and thought screw it im rebuiliding it myself. ... Balence the crank. ... I think the problem stems from when you wait to long to change oil and sludge it causing your oil rings to fry enough not to smoke but let your oil burn from blowby. Mines to the point of burning and lossing viscosity at 500 miles.

If the crank has been scored by a spun bearing, you'll need to replace it. A new crank will run you $1,500.

This might be worth a shot...

www.powerpro2000.com

I also priced re-built long-blocks and talked to powerpro (above) as well as four others. The only engine rebuilder that had an Isuzu 3.5L was Rhino Engine; $3,900 for the long-block with a 3-year, 100,000 warranty. The new dealer engine at $6K+ had only a 1-year, 12,000 warranty.

I went with Rhino and talked the dealer down to $1,100 install since I just blew $1,000 on the 60K service for nothing...

After 2,000 miles, the engine is running strong and (as always) I check my oil with every fill up and carry two quarts (5w-30 M1 Syn) just in case. So far I've only needed to add 1/4 quart.

I know this has happened to others as well and do believe that, in this case, Isuzu could've done a bit more design, engineering and testing on this engine. That said, this is my fourth Isuzu and the the only one I've had any trouble with; the vehicle, to me, is still worth it as I've wanted one since they came out and know (generally) how stout they are built.

Like I said, I feel for you (BTDT) and it's a hard decision. Please let me know if I can add any more insight.

Best,

[psychos2]

I borrowed a camera and will post pics as soon as I can. Keep in mind it is 29 degrees out and is supposed to get colder. shawn

[nfpgasmask]

Cool man! Thanks for all your effort!

Bart

I borrowed a camera and will post pics as soon as I can. Keep in mind it is 29 degrees out and is supposed to get colder. shawn

[MoonRaker]

Ive been dreading the rebuild and putting it off. Ive been reading alot on the history of problems with this peticuler engine. Im a very reputable engine builder so ive got alot of experiance from my 15 years of building. I work at Email address pettitracing,com and have been there since 04, the yellow RX-8 belongs to me. From the info ive seen it lookes like the main problem stems from sticking oil seals on the pistons. It causes excessive blow-by and from what ive seen breakes down the oil very fast causing lots of problems before you figure out whats wrong. Ive herd of crank bearings going out causing crank failure and also rod bearings. Im lucky to the fact of catching the problem early. It seems to happen from 50,000 to 80,000 miles. Im not shure if its from going to long between oil changes or carbon biuldup but im thinking that its the main cause. Even though a former owner sludged the oil and I have gotten 30,000 miles since perchase. Maintnence or lack of tends to hurt the VX. As good as it still runs im willing to bet that oil rings are the only thing thats wrong with my engine so far. Bearings and seals are getting replaced for shure though. I replaced the PCV valve and found that cleaning it or replacing it helps for about 2000 miles. As for pluging the hose, bad idea unless you dont mind blowing seals like the ones on your valve cover. That PCV valve is there to vent and if its getting clogged its from blow-by. Thats what im talking about. Id like to ask for some help and ill return the favor if anyone is local to WPB. Im disabled to the point of not being able [ 2 shattered vertabre] to pull the motor out of my VX. If you need a rebuild on your motor or tranny I can do everything except lift heavy stuff. I need help pulling it and reinstalling. If you fix this problem early im shure it wont be as bad as you think. I dont play when it comes to the details.

[MoonRaker]

Wow, new set of ring, only $50. Oil pump seems the most expensive thing, $250. Gaskets are cheap to. At the price of what a new engine is going for, im thinking of doing rebuilds for $1500 plus parts and machinind. Its looking like its going to be around $800 in parts sofar. Not bad.

[psychos2]

From the info ive seen it lookes like the main problem stems from sticking oil seals on the pistons. It causes excessive blow-by and from what ive seen breakes down the oil very fast causing lots of problems before you figure out whats wrong. Ive herd of crank bearings going out causing crank failure and also rod bearings. I replaced the PCV valve and found that cleaning it or replacing it helps for about 2000 miles. As for pluging the hose, bad idea unless you dont mind blowing seals like the ones on your valve cover. That PCV valve is there to vent and if its getting clogged its from blow-by.

First of all WHAT OIL SEALS ON THE PISTON ??? Second excessive blow-by is not caused from bad oil rings. Third the hose that gets plugged goes to the intake not the valve cover. You put a breather on the valve cover. Forth it is not getting clogged it is sticking open so when there is vacuum it is sucking oil.
I am willing to bet that most of the problems stem from lack of oil not broken down oil. For example, my low oil light came on ,so I added oil now my engine is making a noise.
I have seen motors with so much fuel in the oil that it has the consistency of fuel not oil. The motors are still running with no spun bearings.
I have seen my motor suck down 2 qts of oil in less than 500 miles. Once the problem of the sticking pcv valve was fixed it would use approx 1/2 of a quart of oil in 3000 miles.
The biggest cause for spun bearings would have to be lack of oil.Metal on metal is a bad thing. shawn

[MoonRaker]

Sorry, oil rings, I like working with cars not reading dictionarys. It shouldnt use oil at all. If your getting fuel in your oil its from a leaky injector and if you have one it makes oil you dont loss it so thats out. Your lossing oil so thats from bad, stuck, worn out oil rings or an external leak. Yes it does get worse if your PCV valve is sticking. If you look through your oil fill, its probly brown, thats a sure sign of blowby. If your oil smells like fuel and breaks down fast, like in 500 to 1500 miles thats another sign. Remeber that its not a rotary engine wich is supposed to use oil. If its leaving your engine, somthings wrong and it isnt anything that you mentioned above is going to fix or stop completly. If your having these problems rember it just gets worse till it gets fixed or breaks completly. If you push it its going to cost you more to fix. My truck still has good power that meens a good chance of a easy inexpensive fix, for me atleast. Dont come at me like that psyco, im here to answer questions and ask them, not to start cyber fights. You can either be a friend and I can answer your questions if you have any for me or not. Pettitracing.com is were I work as the chief of R&D and master machinest. If you look on the sight youl see a yellow rx-8, like I said its mine, that supercharger kit you see there was designed by me also. I have fun doing things like that and ill put my mechanical engineering abilitys up against 95% of MIT grads and the other 5% are pretty impressed. Trust me, I work with alot of them. Ive built V-12s V6s, 4 bangers, rotorys and any 2-strokes you can think of automatic trannys are a little of a challenge, manuals are cake for me. At this time ive got an inline 4 jetski motor apart in my living room, its practicly the same motor as an R-1 less the tranny. I have never had a motor blowup that ive built and havent found a problem I couldnt figure out. I dont cut corners even if it saves money, do it rite the first time is my goal, not rigging it to get some more miles out of it.

[MoonRaker]

First of all WHAT OIL SEALS ON THE PISTON ??? Second excessive blow-by is not caused from bad oil rings


Wana bet ? If the oil rings are stuck, your going to get carbon buildup because the oil isnt getting sraped off the cylender walls properly. That causes the rings to stick also = blowby and oil burning. The acids from blowby breaks the oil down very fast and kills viscosity. Thats why your buddys oil turned to what you explained as almost fuel. That lack of viscosity causes metal to metal. Like I said, overdue oil changes and sludged oil are the main cause. Also if you run out of oil, well that isnt suposed to happen. It didnt do that when it was new did it, and were is it going.

[psychos2]

First of all WHAT OIL SEALS ON THE PISTON ??? Second excessive blow-by is not caused from bad oil rings


Wana bet ? If the oil rings are stuck, your going to get carbon buildup because the oil isnt getting sraped off the cylender walls properly. That causes the rings to stick also = blowby and oil burning. The acids from blowby breaks the oil down very fast and kills viscosity. Thats why your buddys oil turned to what you explained as almost fuel. That lack of viscosity causes metal to metal. Like I said, overdue oil changes and sludged oil are the main cause. Also if you run out of oil, well that isnt suposed to happen. It didnt do that when it was new did it, and were is it going.

I am not here to argue either but ,I purchased my vx with 15,000 miles on it so it was pretty much new. When I bought it the oil consuption was 1/2 quart per 3000 miles. I started noticing a lot more oil consumption , so I changed the pcv valve and it was back to the 1/2 qt per 3000 miles. The pcv valve failed again shortly after. The oil consumption was high again. So I made it so there was no chance for the oil to get sucked into the intake when the pcv valve gets stuck. Problem solved. Back to !/2 qt every 3000 miles . My vx now has 93,000 miles. So it is not a temporary fix to cover a problem with bad oil rings.
The problem with fuel in the motor was not on my vx. It was on a boat with a Procharger on it. They run so rich that the fuel makes it past the rings into the oil pan. They have a bad setup. On boats anyway. But again the oil was broke down and no bearing failure.

If you think about it if the problem was oil contamination, Wouldn't all the bearings fail, not just #1 rod bearing ? I think so . There is a reason it is #1 ,because the vx oil system starts at tha back so #1 get oiled last.

And I am not just joe schmo from Idaho (no offence) I have done some engine building myself.I have done many Supercharger installs. This is a link to the place I work. The motor in the videos is a 1300 hp motor. We just finished a 1000 hp motor,its going in the boat right now.

http://www.perfmar.com/

[VehiGAZ]

Are you two arguing about whether pistons have rings or not?!?

I think we can all agree that in a perfect world, piston rings would form a perfect seal for their entire working life of the engine and not one drop of oil would ever be lost past them, but in the real world, they are not perfect and get worse with age and some oil will get past. If we can all agree on that, then you can argue all you want about how much oil loss is acceptable.

To that, I say that half quart every 3000 miles is fine by me... the engine never gets starved for oil between changes, and that's the most important thing. My old Honda Prelude SH with 145k miles was burning about 2-3 quarts every 3000 miles. That was a problem, but not unexpected for a high-revving engine that old and that beat on (I was anything but gentle on that car from the day I drove it off the lot). Ultimately, the oil was cheaper than a ring job, so I was willing to live with it.

[MoonRaker]

Ha ha, psycos gotta deal with the corrosion factor. Thats why I dont like working on boats. Most of those boats you work on should have heat exchangers though. I worked on large frieghters so I now alot about what you deal with, Props to you psyco. The blowers were so big on those friggen boats that you needed a chainhoist to lift them. EMDs and cummings.

[MoonRaker]

Im starting my tear down monday. Its all pointing at the before mentioned problem. New rings are only $50. Plus parts and machining. A question for anyone that can answer it. Are the cylinders steel sleeves nickol or somthing else.

[Diogenes]

Was out last night at a concert. No problems driving there.. no indications of anything wrong.

After the show, got back in the vehicle and suddenly my "check engine" light, AS WELL AS my "Check Trans" light both came on. This is the first time for either.

Wouldn't be so concerned about the "check engine" since those are usually O2 sensors, but that Check Trans light had me nervous all the way driving home (but no apparent physical problems.. still shifted fine.)

Just went out and rechecked to see I'm still having the problem and the lights are still coming on.

Any ideas? It's a 99 VX with 54K on it. Had the Tranny cover replaced and new fluid put in less than 4K ago.

Appreciate any help..

Also, I'm looking for a replacement gas cap cover. When I bought the vehicle someone had broken off the cover, so the gas cap is exposed. Can't seem to find one doing a web search. But I can't believe this cover is unique to the VX. Would be hard to justify not having used a stock cover from some other model.

Appreciate any help..

Ron

[Diogenes]

Was out last night at a concert. No problems driving there.. no indications of anything wrong.

After the show, got back in the vehicle and suddenly my "check engine" light, AS WELL AS my "Check Trans" light both came on. This is the first time for either.

Wouldn't be so concerned about the "check engine" since those are usually O2 sensors, but that Check Trans light had me nervous all the way driving home (but no apparent physical problems.. still shifted fine.)

Just went out and rechecked to see I'm still having the problem and the lights are still coming on.

Any ideas? It's a 99 VX with 54K on it. Had the Tranny cover replaced and new fluid put in less than 4K ago.

Also, I'm looking for a replacement gas cap cover. When I bought the vehicle someone had broken off the cover, so the gas cap is exposed. Can't seem to find one doing a web search. But I can't believe this cover is unique to the VX. Would be hard to justify not having used a stock cover from some other model.

Appreciate any help..

Ron