Razorlab's 'simple' build

[razorlab]

He did a leak down on the rest of the cylinders, all of them are basically 2% like #3. So cylinders are solid. Which makes me feel much better.

He scoped #3 intake valves and they are wet with oil. Next is taking valve cover off and going in for valve seal surgery.

[mityaz]

How do they do it? pressurize the chamber? or string into the chamber?

When i was having a similar issue with my first 4P head that Chet assembled, i was talking to the 4P afterwards and they were saying that some of their race heads dont use seals at all (but maybe he said it was only on exhaust side)

[razorlab]

Seals are fine. Nothing visibly wrong after that. Guess it's time to take the head off.*

Wondering if something got damaged with the head in this cylinder from shrapnel before that the machine shop didn't catch.

I hate this car.

[mityaz]

^ what are you chasing? blown head gasket you think?
compression is good, leak down is good. seals are "good". I think you would pressurize the coolant jacket way before you would have coolant going into cylinders.

[razorlab]

^ what are you chasing? blown head gasket you think?
compression is good, leak down is good. seals are "good". I think you would pressurize the coolant jacket way before you would have coolant going into cylinders.

Oil in cylinder #3 is what we are chasing.

I'm setting myself up emotionally to probably put the car up for sale after figuring out this issue.

[MetalAF]

I'm setting myself up emotionally to probably put the car up for sale after figuring out this issue.

Ahh - bummer man...

[zabes]

[MetalAF]

So do you think you would back fill it with something else? or just go without?

[Black E]

Razor does the car smoke on deceleration, heavy vacuum?

[razorlab]

@Black E No it never did that I noticed, mostly when I started creeping away from a stop or light and sometimes when going WOT

[razorlab]

Here are both sets of seals while still installed. Only somewhat funkiness is the darker stuff on the top of the left exhaust seal.

Intake:



Exhaust

[mityaz]

that mating surface on the exhaust cam cap looks dinged. or is it just the picture?

[razorlab]

Well the head is off. VERY VERY apparent that the oil is coming from the #3 exhaust valves. The seals looked fine so perhaps it's the valve guides. Shop is going to get the head pressure tested.

I'm surprise how much carbon is on the piston tops for 4,000 miles and almost 95% E85 usage. The only thing I can think of is that it happened during break in on 91 and when it was super rich at idle while I was figuring things out.

Also surprised #3 is cleaner, I thought burning oil would make it gunkier, not cleaner.

[DereksX]

Looks like a pump gas only engine lol. My pistons were in great condition after 3k miles. Primarily ethanol with the exception of break in

[razorlab]

Still waiting for this damn machine shop. Quickly losing faith, again. Most likely going to send my spare head to another machine shop.

After dealing with this industry for fifteen + years it still somehow blows my mind how elastic time is for the people in it. If I treated my career in my industry the same way, I would probably still have a crap job with no responsibility and no reports twenty years in. Mind boggling.

[MetalAF]

Still waiting for this damn machine shop. Quickly losing faith, again. Most likely going to send my spare head to another machine shop.

After dealing with this industry for fifteen + years it still somehow blows my mind how elastic time is for the people in it. If I treated my career in my industry the same way, I would probably still have a crap job with no responsibility and no reports twenty years in. Mind boggling.

NO JOKE MAN! If i miss a deadline by more than a week (Sometimes even just 1 day), and its my fault - I'm pretty much fired.

[Black E]

Here here

[Nate]

Agreed, it is really disheartening to see what these shops get away with. They really don't give a damned.

Sent from my SM-J320P using Tapatalk

[razorlab]

Still nothing.

Looks like I will miss most of my fall track events. Absolutely the last time I use this machine shop.

[Mnemuth]

Still nothing.

Looks like I will miss most of my fall track events. Absolutely the last time I use this machine shop.

I have a perfectly good car and with work I cannot go to the track this fall. Too bad we don't live closer to each other, I'd loan it to you.

[razorlab]

Surprisingly, the head is done. Going back on the car this coming week. I am going to miss one of my October track days which bums be out because it's the config I want to break my personal best on. Rest of the month is super packed work wise.

Of course, I have zero information of what actually went wrong. Next time anything happens I am using a different machine shop so when I spend $1k+ I actually have somebody communicate with me.

[MetalAF]

Well that's good to hear. Know what it's like to wait with absolutely no feedback. Brain keeps saying "They have to finish it eventually." and your gut is in knots because you don't actually believe it.

[razorlab]

Picking up the car tomorrow. yay!

In the meantime, I was looking back into the archives and came upon this gem. Dorking around on the dyno one night. I actually think this was after I tuned the car for a time attack event and we decided to really test the tune out by having too much fun on the dyno. Can't believe this was a decade ago!

[Black E]

Did you get it?

[razorlab]

Did you get it?

Yup, drove it home last night, it's in the garage now.

Good news: I have the car back. Machine shop didn't charge for the work.

Bad news: Still have no idea why Cyl #3 leaked. Turbo still smokes even with the new much larger drain fitting. If I knew this head bs would have taken so long I would have taken the turbo off and sent it to Precision to get checked/rebuilt at the same time. Arghh

I'm going to bang on the car this weekend and hope that the plugs come out clean. I have a track event scheduled for next Saturday.