Hey guys. When I arrived there engine was "ready to fire" It was assembled and had fuel and spark. The fuel/spark is not the issue right now. The problem was the engine would not crank. Did basic checks on the starter, seems to be pulling ok. My initial impression was that the valves were too loose it was not doing much but compressiong air. Pulled all 8 plugs out and the engine will freewheel using the starter.... but its far too difficult to turn by hand. Then started to loosen the valvetrain off to mak sure that there was no major binding going on there. I dont think there is. It doesnt feel like there is lack of clearence on the rotating assembly as there is never a time where it spins freely by hand. Far as I am concered with plugs out and no valvetrain the engine should be extremely easy to turn over. I am out of ideas to be honest. Id be glad if some expert can look at it and tell me how stupid I am for missing something simple. I hope the problems that I am now considering are incorrect.... for Craigs sake.
Good Luck.
CoryM

 

Well, if it's 'easier' but not 'easy enough' without generating compression, then there are only a couple of things it could logically be, right? It seems to me everyone's dancing around the real issue here.

a) The rotating assembly / pistons aren't lubed up properly. This is the easiest to fix of all the nightmarish options I'm about to list.

b) The crank is warped ever so slightly.

c) The mains bearings are the wrong size for the machined crank. Proper enough to sit in the journals alright, and have the crank sit in them, but once the mains are torqued, they're putting too much pressure on the crank, not allowing it to spin properly.

These all suck badly. But seriously, what else could it be if you've already tried to turn it by hand after taking the plugs out and loosening the rockers?

 

I would hope it's A. How would we go about lubing the motor up? i don't see how it could be B or C since the motor was working fine in it's old car.

Should we maybe just let the starter spin the motor round with plugs out for a few seconds at a time? will that get some oil flowing?

 

So this isn't a freshly built engine? Hmmmm, that was the assumption I was going on.

If the starter was able to crank it at all, then that should have given the system ample oil to free up a bit, right?

Is it an electric oil pump? Is it working? You guys all seem to know your stuff, but I'm going to go through the cardinal rules I follow when putting a different, used motor in a car, atleast a motor that is going to be enjoyed. vs a $100 engine going in a beater to get a buddy through the winter.

Replace the following:
- Frost plugs, this will also show you if there is any gunk in the cooling system.
- Every gasket/seal you can get at without taking the heads off. Including intake manifold or TB. This includes valve seals/oil pan gasket.
- Oil pump (if the engine was claimed to have only run for 3 months on a strangers new engine, replace it anyway)
- Reinstall the water pump (so you can inspect it)
- Throw a new timing belt/chain on. (60 bucks now, at the very least 60 bucks and a day under the hood later)

I hope this was all done. If not, possibly the oil pump has calfed on you. I should have had this item in my other post.

Otherwise I'm without a clue. Was this engine used on the juice before? Perhaps 120 octane or something like that that could have bent the crank?

Why was this motor for sale to begin with?


****DISCLAIMER****

I am by no means an engine builder, but I'm just going by logic here. I've been inside many engines for many reasons, but do not consider myself an expert. Furthermore, I'm a cocky bastard that would tell you if I was an expert, so modesty is not the issue here!

 

I think the oil pump is OK.... we forgot to plug the pipe-threaded hole right above the filter and oil was being pumped out of that when we cranked it. We sealed it up, and I think we cranked some more. I say "think" because my brain is shot right now and can't really remember. Maybe that was the whole problem for all I know and we should try to keep cranking it till it starts.

if oil was coming out of that hole while cranking is that a sign that the oil pump is doing it's job?

 

Yes

 

Now that I think about it, I think there was a pattern to the starter motor stalling when cranking the motor.

I think I recall the starter motor stalling every 4th "cranking sound" or so.... basically the starter motor would get a couple of normal sounding turns in then nearly stall.... and would repeat this pattern. not sure if that means anything . Hopefully Mike can come over and see if it does.

 

Sounds to me like one end of the crank has problems, assuming you're not just hearing things.

Can someone give me a brief history on this motor?

 

Here is what I know of it. The motor was built by MTI as a 383 8.5:1 FI motor. The motor consists of:

Callies magnum crank
Oliver billet rods
blower pistons with big dishes
callies 4-bolt splayed mains

The motor was run by Steven (Zturbo) with a single t60-1 turbo, and then a t72 turbo, until he broke his driveline at Mission in 2001. The driveshaft, tq arm, and rear end were all broken at the start line on a hard launch using slicks. The motor was putting out about 700 rwtq. This was with a t-56 and a street twin clutch (which were fine after the break).

The motor was then taken from the car, but Steve wanted to run a bigger setup to support more power, so he wanted to sell it. I stepped up to the plate and agreed to buy it . So the motor has not been run for about 16-18 months I would guess. Nothing was taken out of the motor as far as I know, the cam, lifters, and timing set were all untouched.

The good news is that Steven and Mike are on the case... they have just been busy with things over the weekend. Hopefully they can help bail me out or point out some stupid error we made during the install . I still don't want to rule out incorrect roller rocker adjustment or a lifter problem, but neither of these should make the motor difficult to turn with no plugs installed.

 

Could installing a one-piece hub/dampenr improperly cause this? Not knowing any better, we used a block of wood and a sledge to get the keyed fluidampr onto the crank snout. We didn't hit it overly hard, it took about 10 moderate smacks to get it on. it looks like it is on properly.... but maybe we should pull it and re-install it properly (or maybe we have killed the crank/balancer already by doing this).

 

That could be a problem, but i don't think tapping a dampner on with hurt the crank. And you wouldn't notice the problems with the balance being out of spec until the engine is fired up at idle, or even reving, if at all.

So unless you guys gave it a real wollup (hehe, i've always wanted to type that) with a 10# sledge, I wouldn't worry about actually warping the crank.

 

My memory is fuzzy after spending so much time working on this damn thing, but we may have done just that. we used a sledge onto a block of wood, but i didnt do the smacking so i am not sure how much force was applied

 

Oh geeze. I'm sorry to hear that dude. I've never been under the hood of a 4th gen, can you get the oil pan off without too much trouble?

you may wanna do that, take the crank in to a machine shop and get it measured out....

 

the oil pan won't come off without dropping the y-pipe and k-member as far as I know....

 

Well that's easier then pulling the engine. You can do that much on your own.

But definately wait and see what these other guys have to say about it. Hopefully someone's ran into this problem before. Perhaps ask around on one of the tech boards.