Update after strip down and inspection
I will lay out as Fault, cause and remedy,
Problem: Sudden excessive engine breathing
A while ago after a few boosted runs I discovered that the engine was breathing excessively,
At first I initially thought that the engine needed a proper breather system as explained to me by Bugger
But at closer inspection I found that something else had gone wrong,
Fault:
Number four piston had broken a ring land as can be seen in the pictures below,
Cause:
A sequence of events had caused this to happen,
Firstly we had been boosting way too much for the standard pistons to handle, I have been warned about this
by a few members on the forum that knows their stuff, but stubborn and incuisitive as I am, I
went ahead and boosted 1 bar anyway, it was just too good experiencing this for me to follow
their advise and it sort of slipped from my mind, that's one problem.
Then I found that at some stage the pipe to the wastegate actuator had torn thus causing the
Turbo to overboost, I didn't pick up the overboost immediately propably by being over confident
with the results I experienced that I neglected watching the boost guage as frequent as I was
supposed to.That could've caused the broken ring land.
The engine was overheating but I didn't think it was too much, I didn't have all the nescessary cooling
tins installed and all the heated air sucked back into the engine compartment causing the fan to just
keep flowing hot air over the sleeves all the time and the intake also sucking hot air into the induction system
rendering the charge cooling system ineffective also, I did not install any kind of temperature monitoring devices.
Lastly the ever dangerous detonation, due to the excessive heat and pressure this could've destroyed more components
than just breaking the ring land on one piston, I could'nt pickup on the tell tale sounds of detonation but I'm pretty
sure that it was present.
Lastly, after installing the electronic ignition I did'nt ensure max timing advance to 24 deg only, instead it advaced under acceleration to
over 30 deg, but I left it that way - stupid move? ya!
Remedy:
I installed a new piston and new rings on the remaining three pistons, installed the cooling tin under cylinder heads and
also modded up the cooling tin around the turbo and the area around where the crank pulley sits, I will have proper tin made up to ensure
more effective seperation between the underside of the engine and the engine compartment, hopefully I will have a lot more cooler air entering the
engine compartment,
I will ensure max timing advance does not exceed 24deg total, no vacuum line attached,
I removed the boost controller ensuring that I dont exceed factory set .5 bar boost, good move? - I think so
I will need to install a bigger charge cooler radiator and also a bigger reservoir, I may have too little water volume wich causes it to pass through
the cooling system too rapidly causing it to not have enough time to cool down before entering the charge cooler again.
As advised, external filtering and oil cooling must be plumbed in to ensure better efficiency under boost. Thx's to all who advised me on this during the build
I have not adhered to many of the requirements for a turbo build but alas, I went ahead and tried it my own way, it's an expencive and time consuming
way to learn but I guess sometimes I just jump into things and learn on the fly,
A word of advice to other builders going it alone in their garages? When the guru's dish out advice - DON'T take it lightly, do it your way but listen to
the important stuff! Really, you miss a step - you'll be sorry
Lastly just keep having FUN
![Hang Loose :hangloose:](./images/smilies/action-smiley-035.gif)
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