Well yesterday i fired up the car after 3 month of having worked on it. Took me about 21 hours from tranny/clutch install to getting the car up and running. I don't know how you guys do it hecka quick I'm just hella slow I guess. I was really on a budget so I did all the work on my own and bummed cherry pickers and tools off of people haha. After doing a MR2 engine swap it wasn't that hard to do the 2GNT, its a bitch getting that thing back in the engine bay you have to hella tilt it. What was wrong with my engine was that I cracked a ring land on my #2 piston, like 2 or 3 small cracks no scarring also :) Plus the rings were worn out

Not only was this a rebuild but it was like almost a complete overhaul, all the problems that I had in the car I fixed em. here's a list of stuff I did and parts install

JE 10.5:1 pistons /w eagle rods and total seal rings, stock bore
New Bearings (if you remember I installed the rods wrong :P)
Dump Tube elbow install
Port and polish (gasket matched) head, ex/in manifold, and TB.
Crank Scraper
Motor Mount enforcement (welded cracked mount and filled side mounts with windo weld)
installed New school racing slip in differential
Luk Clutch
RRE SS clutch line
GST studded exhuast
New water pump
bent oil return line with torch so it won't touch radiator hose.
polished compressor housing

and that's the main stuff not bad for a home mechanic :thumbsup I had some help from my uncle also the most time consuming thing was the port and polishing it takes forever but I got pretty good at it, I suggest getting an electrical die grinder the air compressor gets annoying after awhile. haha that and looking for stuff took the most time.

ahhh yes and how it runs. The first time I tried to start it, it took forever. I was so scared I installed something wrong I'm still scared to drive it. I had to crank it for a good 5-10 minutes b4 it could run on its own. and when it did start hella smoke came out of the catchcan and exhuast. Is that normal?

Then I noticed a knock, it must be the infamous piston slap I've been hearing about. But it minght not be. Lemme know what you think it is, its a knocking or loud ticking sound and it gets kinda quieter when the engine is warm but I can still hear it. It sounds kinda like rod knock. It did run 2 qts low on oil when I got it started at one point thanx to my oil cooler. The low oil pressure light never went on so I don't think it rod knock. When I drive it I cant really hear it. My uncle thinks its either piston slap or the piston is slapping on a valve (BAD) I didn't take it to a machine shop so maybe the pistons don't fit so well O_0 thats what I get for cheaping out. I did do a compression check after a lotta idling and a trip around the block and it was like 210 245 240 240 I'm worried abou that first piston but I'm guessing its because its not broken in yet. I'll post vid or audio of the sound later I got it on tape the first start up and all.

then the clutch, I bought a slightly used LuK clutch off of ebay for 60 bux (couldn't miss an offer like that) and now the clutch releases hecka high and fast. I heard that what its like for a racing clutch but this is an OEM clutch, I kinda liked the stock sachs clutch better.

ahh the car idles kinda rough also. Sometimes I see the vacuum needle shaking a tiny bit is that normal? It might be because I ported the TB. I tried my best to not grind the part where the plate sits. I got a code 24 also some kinda TPS sensor code. I hope that goes away it doesn't have rediculously high idle but it acts kinda weird.

here's some pix

Pistons and honed cylinders, they look really dull but in the picture there's oil on em so they look shiny.


Crankshaft and crank scrapper


Motormount enforcement, yep filled it with that goopy annoying 3M stuff I noticed they were cracking. Also notice that I welded a crack on the rear motor mount


Engine ready to be installed


Check out that port and polish throttle body our stock one is so puny after I ported it you could tell the difference took forever though


Ahh yse on that night I got it running there was a lunar eclipse wow what a coincedence maybe its a sign of the eclipse's awakening from the dead. kinda hard to tell theres and eclipse in the picture though...


There it is the finished product can't really tell i did any work on it hope this last me a long time, still worried about those knocking sounds.


There it is the copper sprayed manifold, you guyz are right it does turn gunmetal colored when it gets burned pretty cool. You can tell what gets hot on the manifold also, the turbine flange is where it gets hottest and the runners are actually the coolest. THe turbine of course is the hottest it turned grey right away. Notice the polished compressor housing too ^_^


ahhh yes the ever popular pix taken inside the engine bay pictures
There me in my racing helmet and ninja mask downpipe in one hand and brandishing a IC pipe in the other


yay turbo

Kinda sounds like a Ford PowerStroke at idle? Like a Diesel? Yeah, piston slap. Piston slap occurs when the piston-to-bore (PtB)clearance is greater than "optimal" (optimal being dead quiet in some situations). It is aggravated by JE pistons, which have a short piston skirt. The main benefit is that forged aluminum pistons by nature expand greater per unit heat than a standard cast piston, meaning you can run hotter overall with less detrimental effect versus an identically built motor with less piston to bore clearance.

When the PtB clearance is too little, there is no noise at all at idle - the engine sounds and runs like it is completely stock. There are no issues with cold engine and cold start performance (which you'll see if your motor slaps a lot - it doesn't seal well cold, and thusly doesn't make as much compression) or cold idle. Most engines built like this will last forever and then some, because it shows that they are built and toleranced very well. However, if the PtB clearance is just a hair too little, or the engine runs just a little too hot, the increased expansion factor can cause some very ugly problems - binding and breaking of piston rings, exaggerated cylinder bore and ring wear, and even in extreme cases, comlete seizure of the engine due to a completely bound piston (which usually results in the wrist pin being ripped out, and the then free moving rod making unhappy friends with some portion of your block). Of course, those are extreme situations.

When the PtB clearance is too much, the initial result is of course the noise. Your motor will sound like a diesel at idle. This is due to the similarity in what your motor is doing due to the increased PtB clearance, and the way a diesel motor fires - a diesel motor intakes only air(not air/fuel), and injects fuel at the moment of highest calculated combustion chamber pressure(TDC, or slightly after, depending on RPM), which of course results in the injected fuel, under so much pressure, to spontainiously ignite and make a loud "CLACK!" or "KNOCK!" (yeah, basically, it knocks by design!) due to the sudden jump in pressure beating the piston. When a cold, increased PtB clearance motor fires, the effect is not QUITE the same, but the sound is, due to the fact that the combustion forces act on the piston, and the PtB clearance allows enough room for the piston to actually cock SIDEWAYS, causing the upper edge of one axis and the lower skirt of the same axis to contact the block. it's not pinging or knocking, but the same WHACK! effect is occuring.

From what i understand, it is primarly a low engine speed problem, as the rotational momentum isn't there at low speeds (nor the ignition advance) to help the piston stay straight as the forces of combustion try to rapidly move it downward in its power stroke. However, you'll notice cold start issues (rough idle, decreased power under load, oil consumption) with medium-to-high PtB clearance. Once the engine reaches steady operating temp, though, the pistons will have expanded enough to create a better seal and better fill the cylinder bore. At temperature, they will not slap noticably (you'll hear it because you're trying to, but if you didn't know, you'd never hear it). Larger PtB clearances can also create issues similar to inadequate PtB's - too much space to cock to one side on the wrist pin can cause rings to bind and break or fracture. Too much PtB can also cause excessive blowby and oil consumption, and power loss due to lesser compression.

A happy medium is best, naturally. You want enough PtB clearance that the engine is quiet, seals well, and doesn't consume oil when cold, but also enough PtBc to insure your investment in the event of a cooling system failure (headgasket, waterpump, coolant line, low coolant, thermostat, etc) that could result in operating temps high enough to create unplanned-for expansion of the piston and ring set which could cause ring bind or breakange, or if temperatures are sufficiently high, binding and destruction of a piston and possibly the block shortly thereafter.

Will a slapping motor die sooner than a non-slapping motor? Depends on the application. a drag car doesn't have to worry about it - they need to make the most power possible in a short amount of time, and have a quick engine turnover. All dreams aside, we have street cars, and in my opinion a slightly gracious PtB clearance with a short skirt forged piston is a good thing, becuase you never know what might happen down the road... Someday that extra PtB might save your ass when you blow a heater hose and overheat (did that) or kill a thermostat and overheat (yeah, that too) or blow a headgasket and overheat (It overheats.. might be the hg..:( ).. Mine has to get me to work. Better safe than sorry.

Anyway..

i got a little piston slap too... look at it as a good thing sorda.

www.TeamKLR.com
1997 Silver RS
Wiseco 10.5 Pistons
Eagle Rods
T3/T4 Turbo
Custom FMIC
Greddy Exhaust
440's

I couldn't do batter than Dino, so I'll say congrats!!! and yes it's damn unerving the first time you fire her up and here that slapping, you think your messed up and the bearings are gone.



15.9 @ 86.7mph

Injen CAI, 55mm TB, P&P Intake, Crower Cams, Hooker Header, ERT/Catco Cat, GS-T Muffler, AFX UDP, Crane Ign Amp, S-AFC

Great job Hades! :thumbsup I get some piston slap when my motor is cold, but after about 5 minutes or so, and the temp gauge is fully warmed up, and oil pressure has gone down due to being warmed up, i hear no slap at all. If you hear the slap when the motor is fully warmed up, then i'd say you have just a bit too much PTB clearance, which is very possible since you just honed out your cylinders, and used stock bore pistons. Even honing takes off metal, just not so much as boring. Also, my trany input shaft bearing makes almost the SAME exact slapping sound as the engine, but that goes away when i push in the clutch pedal...Piston slap and rod knock are 2 different sounds, so hopefuly its slap.

Hell yeah man! :thumbsup Where did you get the turbo heat shield from? I like that shit!

>Hell yeah man! :thumbsup Where did you get the turbo heat
>shield from? I like that shit!

pretty neat hehe I got it from an Isuzu Impulse at the junkyard. Had to make a bracket for it and bend it so it'd fit the downpipe but fits pretty good. its one of those 90s impulses with the half pop up lights and there are four headlights. It was a AWD turbo one also has a nice top mount intercooler :)

Congrats man!!

Keep us updated on the knocking sound. Hopefully, it is a little slappin instead of a rod bearing or something. BTW, no piston slap for me, and my temps are as low as ever all around. No heavy boosting yet either though.

can we pin this at the top? that was some great info...

well I'm back from weekend drill and I drove it about 70 miles already. Man it sux trying not to boost haha, I wish I could just go WOT haha but I wanna do the easy break in.

yeh it seems like the sound doesn't go away. I'm pretty sure its piston slap now cuz I fired up one of the hummers and it sound like 3x as worse as my engine haha. But yeh I was talking to my friend that has a M3 and he said the previous owner istalled forged pistons and then he said it sounded like my engine. But he wasn't sure but he recognized the sound so it must be piston slap. It also does make the sound only at a low RPM.

After driving it 70 miles it seems like its getting very good mileage now, must be because of that high compression. It also runs very smooth at higher RPMs so what dino was saying is right it runs better when it revs up. I guess no worries now :)

I think I'm running rich though cuz my tailpipe is all black now. Is that a side effect of having a newly built engine? Think I should disable my inline pump for now so I can lean it up, its not like I"m boosting.

thanx for the info dino makes me less concerned now. :) yay I have joined the ranks of the stage III :P kinda anyway.

>can we pin this at the top? that was some great info...

fo' sho', I just feel like I was enlightened from reading all this great information. ahhh i love 2GNT :D

great job hades, the satisfaction of knowing you did most of the work yourself must be infintely excellent. :thumbsup


96 Talon ESi Mods
apex' dunk exhaust
injen short ram intake
magnecore 8.5mm wires
blocked off EGR
front/rear strut tower bars
GSX dual piston calipers

ahh yes I must thank XtremeRS for all his posts. I remember reading a lotta posts he made through the search engine and it helped me a lot same with armond and his website

:thumbsup :thumbsup :thumbsup :thumbsup :thumbsup

Awesome post Dino good luck hades sounds like piston slap to me glad to see things are going well...

Bill

here's a little thing i found a long time ago on vfaq.com, conbcerning JE pistons and overheating. Look towards to bottom.

http://www.vfaq.com/mods/kill.html

He ran most of the coolant out of his car, the pistons overexpanded, and it ruined his cylinder bores. Probably fine PtB clearance for a street car, but with the added heat..

There's also instances where he had so much Ptb clearance and the pistons rocked back and forth to such a degree, it wore away the cross hatching on the cylinder walls.

Man, that guy couldn't catch a break. :rolleyes

I think there was some initial overheating which caused the pistons to expand, and then that caused the rings to crush, rather than the other way around. In any case, this guy had some rough times. Apparently, he left his lower radiator hoses unclamped!!

"Parked it, let it cool off, and noticed the lower radiator hose clamps were loose. I blew it. I missed tightening them during the engine install." :o

"As far as I can tell, the pistons overexpanded when the motor overheated, and crushed the piston rings."

Congrats hades! Looks great.

Just a quick warning though, while what you describe sounds just like piston slap, you are as far as I know, the second person to use 10:1 pistons in an eclipse. The first person (afaik) was Jamesman and his Howell-spec JE-built pistons were HITTING THE HEAD.

If I were you, I'd get a scope in through a spark plug hole and look to see if the piston tops have a notch in them from hitting the valve bridge on the head. If so, you can probably just install a thicker head gasket.

hmm sounds like a good idea, I'll try it out. would a valve slapping up on the piston disappear at higher RPM?

well I did a compression test on it after having driven it 150 miles. I don't think the rings have properly seated but I got some interesting number. Got 240 230 220 240. Now the compression number b4 the engine blew were 150 130 130 150. The variences correspond to the way they were b4. So I must conclude that not only were my rings worn out my cylinder walls were worn out of spec. Not bad it still holds compression pretty well but that must be why I got that slapping all the time, its worn out of spec. The fact that the piston rings i have were used on a newer engine so they've been worn down a bit.

Damn i shoulda known, I never accounted for the cylinder walls to be worn out, I shoulda overbored and put oversized pistons and rings :( I figured the engine was fine and could just throw everything on there. Well no use crying over it now, hope this lasts me a long time. Only reason I rebuilt was because I cracked a piston and my compression was getting low. What should compression be for a 10.5:1? I heard it was 250 I can't remember. Hopefully it goes up later.

well there ya go TAKE YOUR BLOCK TO A MACHINE SHOP :nono but then again I bought the pistons and stuff used so I can't complain if I had to overbore i couldn't use em then. :wary so complicated wish I had more money...

oh yes ne1 here have a LuK clutch? Is the clutch engagement suppose to be really high and pedal really light? Just checking because I don't want to be driving it around thinking its normal when it slippin all the time.

800 more miles till its time to let her rip! :thumbsup

The LSD seems to be breaking in also, thing hecka pulls you around. Its weird because giving it throttle makes the front grip more O_0 can't wait to go WOT on it!

Yeah man I just had a sachs clutch put in. It engages really high on the pedal and it is really soft. Congrats man and keep us posted.

Nick
97RS