Jump to content
SAU Community

Recommended Posts

The incident happened about three weeks ago and since then my car has been sitting in the garage gathering dust. This is what happened - according to my brother who was driving at the time. My brother was taking the car around the block to a friends place ( no more than a 5 km away), when returning home (after he stopped at the petrol station to fill up the tank) the exhaust backfired - offboost, with visible black smoke and then suddenly the car shut down. He tried to start the car for the a few times without luck but then it started although struggled to idle and then died again. When he eventually got it home, we tried to start the car again - still idling very roughtly. but noticed alot of smoke leaking from between the seal where the turbo is joined to the dump pipe. The next day i had an inspection of the engine bay and noticed that one coil pack was split and the gasket between the turbo and dump pipe had indeed deteriorated. ATM the car starts but doesnt seem to be making an signs of induction noise or sounds from the bov as you would get by revving it at idle. i would like to ask is if my engine is in need of a rebuild or could it just be a minor fix. I havent had the chance to get the engine compression tested. btw the engine is a sr20.

thanks for any help/recommendations/opinions,

duc.

Link to comment
https://www.sau.com.au/forums/topic/60667-is-my-engine-dead/
Share on other sites

thanks for your feedback guys. I removed the dump pipe today as i though that maybe, just maybe the turbo died causing the smoke to leak from in between the gasket - the exhaust wheel was still intacted. Having done this, is it safe to say that the turbo was not the cause of the car to shut down. I'll try the ecu test and intercooler pipes that has been mentioned. Thanks so far guys.

Sorry couldnt help myself... Title of the post made me do it...

Black smoke.... ummmm piping could have a leak... but this usually happens when the piping has completlly blown off.... First fix the exhaust manifold then go from there... Fix all the visible signs... If oil is all over the place around the back of the turbo (dump pipe area) then dead turbo... (seals have let go).... The oil burning can also cause smoke of coarse, if you cant hear induction noise (ie. no piping let go) then replace exhaust manifold gasket as stated above. Then replace tubro.... This should be it.... If it still stutters, then rplace the AFM this is all the possible problems covered.... Should not cost too much....

Remember if it back fired badlly, it may have also back fired threw the intake as well, whcih is enough to bust a oild seal in the turbo...

thank you very much for all of your reply's. Yesterday, since i had the front bar offm so i decided to take the intecooler piping off also even though it was on very tight just to see if there was anything stuck/lurking in it. What i discovered is that in the pipe from where the outlet pipe from the cooler where the turbo side is was covered in what seems to be oil or some sort of dark liquid ( im thinking that it could be some form of sealent that was on the silicion pipe). But this liquid was nowhere found where the piping joins the turbo pipe nor was it on the other pipe which connected to the throttle body.

I have called for a mobile mechanic to perform a compression test on the engine today but as unsure if its better to take it to the workshop to get this sort of diagnostic performed. Is this a good step to take or should i be changing the exhaust maniforld gasket and coils firsts and go from there.

thank you very much for your replies guys even though its aint a rb engine.

regards,

duc.

Pay close attention to the coil pack comment... My coil packs are dying slowly, and one day my car just decided it didn't want to idle any more (until they were cleaned with contact cleaner). The black smoke is probably the unburnt fuel from the affected cylinder. A compression test is always handy though I guess.

Well not long after my previous reply the mobile mechanic arrived before i was contemplating cancelling it o i went ahead and had it performed. The results were as follows..

cylinder 1 - 150

cylinder 2 - 150

cylinder 3 - 150

cylinder 4 - 150 (cylinder in which the coul pack was spilt)

To say the least i was very happy. Does this mean that i still need to perform a leak down test to confirm these results - i wanted the guy to do it but he said that he didnt have the necessary equipment to do it. In saying this, im assured at least that the engine did not sustain any damage when it suddenly shut down, so i guess now i have too look at other parts to find out the problem. btw, the mechanic said that maybe it was a bad batch of petrol or was overfuelled due to the split coil. Could this be fule pump related than as the car did get petrol before the incident occured.

The problem seems quiet clear; Replace the faulty coil pack, which will allow the car to run on 4 Cylinders.

The reason its running rough, is because its not firing cylinder number 4, and the excess fuel is blowing out into the exhaust systems. Not to mention going though your ring lands and into your sump & mixing with your oil!!!

A leek down compression test doesn’t seem necessary, I would fix the most visible problem first. Coil Pack.

good to see the old bitch is still going I was worried for a sec there it shouldnt be a fuel pump related issue as I fitted a new high flow pump installed not long before I sold it to you it could be a coil as one of the was a little cracked when I first got the car I never got around to swapping it over or even just a fouled plug. Good luck

thanks mate, how are you? i was more worried that i had to get a new engine for it. Initially, it was going to get some cosmetic treatment ie respray, until this happened. ive noticed that you are looking for a cefiro, found one yet?

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now


  • Similar Content

  • Latest Posts

    • The average previous owner for these cars were basically S-chassis owners in the US. Teenagers or teenager-adjacent. I often tell people that neglect is easier to fix than something that was actively "repaired" by previous owners.
    • Update 3: Hi all It's been a while. Quite a lot of things happened in the meantime, among other things the car is (almost) back together and ready to be started again. Things that I fixed or changed: Full turbo removal, fitting back the OEM turbo oil hardlines. Had to do quite a bit of research and parts shopping to get every last piece that I need and make it work with the GT2860 turbos, but it does work and is not hard to do. Proves that the previous owner(s) just did not want to. While I was there I set the preload for the wastegates to 0,9bar to hopefully make it easier for the tuner to hit the 370hp I need for the legal inspections that will follow later on. Boost can always go up if necessary. Fitted a AN10 line from the catch can to the intake hose to make the catchcan and hopefully the cam covers a slight vacuum to have less restrictive oil returns from the head and not have mud build up as harshly in the lines and catch can. Removed the entire front interior just shy of the dashboard itself to clean up some of the absolutely horrendous wiring, (hopefully) fix the bumpy tacho and put in LED bulbs while I was there. Also put in bulbs where there was none before, like the airbag one. I also used that chance to remove the LED rpm gauge on the steering column, which was also wired in absolute horror show fashion. Moved the 4in1 Prosport gauge from sitting in front of the OEM oil pressure gauge to the center console vents, I used a 3D printed vent piece to hold that gauge there. The HKB steering wheel boss was likely on incorrectly as I sometimes noticed the indicator reset being uneven for left vs. right. In the meantime also installed an airbag delete resistor, as one should. Installed Cube Speed premium short shifter. Feels pretty nice, hope it'll work great too when I actually get to drive. Also put on a fancy Dragon Ball shift knob, cause why not. My buddy was kind enough to weld the rust hole in the back, it was basically rusted through in the lowermost corner of the passenger side trunk area where the wheel arch, trunk panel and rear quarter all meet. Obviously there is still a lot of crustiness in various areas but as long as it's not rusted out I'll just treat and isolate the corrosion and pretend it's not there. Also had to put down a new ground wire for the rear subframe as the original one was BARELY there. Probably a bit controversial depending on who you ask about this... but I ended up just covering the crack in the side of the engine block, the one above the oil feed, with JB Weld. I used a generous amount and roughed up the whole area with a Dremel before, so I hope this will hold the coolant where it should be for the foreseeable future. Did a cam cover gasket job as the half moons were a bit leaky, and there too one could see the people who worked on this car before me were absolute tools. The same half moons were probably used like 3 times without even cleaning the old RTV off. Dremeled out the inside of the flange where the turbine housing mates onto the exhaust manifolds so the diameter matches, as the OEM exhaust manifolds are even narrower than the turbine housings as we all know. Even if this doesn't do much, I had them out anyways, so can't harm. Ideally one would port-match both the turbo and the manifold to the gasket size but I really didn't feel up to disassembling the turbine housings. Wrapped turbo outlet dumps in heat wrap band. Will do the frontpipe again as well as now the oil leak which promted me to tear apart half the engine in the first place is hopefully fixed. Fitted an ATI super damper to get rid of the worn old harmonic balancer. Surely one of the easiest and most worth to do mods. But torquing that ARP bolt to spec was a bitch without being able to lock the flywheel. Did some minor adjustments in the ECU tables to change some things I didn't like, like the launch control that was ALWAYS active. Treated rusty spots and surface corrosion on places I could get to and on many spots under the car, not pretty or ideal but good enough for now. Removed the N1 rear spats and the carbon surrounding for the tailpipe to put them back on with new adhesive as the old one was lifting in many spots, not pretty. Took out the passenger rear lamp housing... what do you know. Amateur work screwed me again here as they were glued in hard and removing it took a lot of force, so I broke one of the housing bolts off. And when removing the adhesive from the chassis the paint came right off too. Thankfully all the damaged area won't be visible later, but whoever did the very limited bodywork on this car needs to have their limbs chopped off piece by piece.   Quite a list if I do say so myself, but a lot of time was spent just discovering new shit that is wrong with the car and finding a solution or parts to fix it. My last problem that I now have the headache of dealing with is that the exhaust studs on the turbo outlets are M10x1.25 threaded, but the previous owner already put on regular M10 nuts so the threads are... weird. I only found this out the hard way. So now I will just try if I can in any way fit the front pipe regardless, if not I'll have to redo the studs with the turbos installed. Lesson learned for the future: Redo ALL studs you put your hands on, especially if they are old and the previous owners were inept maniacs. Thanks for reading if you did, will update when the engine runs again. Hope nothing breaks or leaks and I can do a test drive.
    • No those pads are DBA too  but they have colors too. I look at the and imo the green "street" are the best.
    • I’m not sure what happened I told them about sonic tunes free OTS tune and the next the I know .. I was booted..   To funny 
×
×
  • Create New...