Scaxx

Young love is right, apparently, this was just a one night stand and I didn't realize. I got played.

My oil pressure is low. Not dangerously low and never dropped below 10 at idle but enough that I'm not comfortable with it. Looks like my cam bearings may be shot...at 18 miles on a crate engine. There is still one other possibility which is that the sensor is bad, which is possible but highly unlikely. I'll test it with a mechanical gauge but usually it's not the sensor that's wrong.

My oil pressure is fine at start up, in the mid thirty's, as it warms up it starts to drop down more. After a little bit it's at about 10-12 psi @800rpm, while this is low it's still at the 10 psi/1000rpm, however when it didn't go over 25 psi @3000 rpm is when I decided to bring her home and park her. I suppose the pressure reliefs could be stuck open as well which might cause this but I have a feeling it's not that. Really sucks. Kinda feeling lost right now.

Scaxx

Alright after a week of having a nasty cold and a half week of feeling sorry for myself I decided to get my **** together and ask the ls forums if they had any ideas. Accidents do happen and sometimes things are assembled wrong or a part is faulty, but it's rare. It's more likely I screwed something up. From their responses it sounds like the o-ring on the oil pump may have been pinched which is apparently very very common so I went ahead and pulled the pan/changed the oring today. It was a bit of a pain but I did it without pulling the engine so that was nice because I thought I would have to. I haven't started it yet since the battery is dead so I'm hoping to start it tomorrow. I also put the hood back on as well as the headlight covers so that it at least looks like I have them. I'm planning on getting ccp fab's fiberglass hood with the headlight covers built in down the road.

If it warms up and the oil pressure holds steady, weather permitting, I'll drive it tomorrow. Cross your fingers for me, really really hoping I fixed the problem, if not I'm gonna be real worried.

Kinda looks stock with the hood back on haha

Scaxx

Just kidding. False hope. It's fucked

turbofan

iTrader: (1)

Scaxx

That's how I feel too man, spent so much god damn money on this car and so much time and now the one thing that I thought would be drop dead reliable from the start is the one thing that went wrong. This really really sucks. The car was so much god damn fun when it ran.

OGRacing

iTrader: (1)

Check the ohms on the Oil pressure sender. If I had a dollar for every time I thought I toasted the engine I could buy a pallet of 5.3's.
PSI should be 10psi x 1000rpm. if you think your cam bearing is shot check your oil filter. it should look like a bass boat with gold flakes. Also what oil filter are you using? i picked up 5PSI from throwing the fram tough guard in the trash and using a Purolator.

Scaxx

Gold?

OGRacing

iTrader: (1)

unfortunately yes. take it out in the sun if it looks like metal flake then you got a bearing gone wrong, somewhere.

luckily enough rebuilding a LS motor isn't the hardest thing to do. as long as you don't have rod knock it's not too hard to fix.

Scaxx

It's pretty black lol, but my buddy works at a machine shop and he can do it for real cheap as long as nothing is scored too bad. Gonna probably go that route, I'll probably get a cam as well this winter, might as well throw one in.

OGRacing

iTrader: (1)

you only have main, rods and cam bearings. I would pull the motor, flip it over, pop the caps, and check the rod and main bearings for scoring. heck, throw some plastic gauge for a quick tolerances check. If that all checks out, then you had a cam bearing go wrong. Cam bearings can be easy to fix, lots of hammers and special tools, but overall not difficult. It shouldn't cost a machine shop anything more than 300 bucks to fix and yep, you will need a cam. at that point get a big one. don't worry hope is not lost i had one go bad on my engine. hope is not lost.
If it is a main or rod bearing, chances are good you'll need a new crank. Get yourself a long nose from the Grandsport. That way if you want to go dry sump in the future it will be really easy.

Scaxx

Yeah, it'll get back on the road, it's definitely upsetting but at least I caught it pretty quick. My buddy's pretty sure there won't be any massive damage, hopefully he's right. Thanks for the tip about the longnose crank, I've been thinking about going to a dry sump down the road since I'm gonna run into oil issues.

OGRacing

iTrader: (1)

I feel you pain, but don't worry there is light at the end of the tunnel.

portabull

early detection is key, just like with prostate cancer. wishing for the best for you.

turbofan

iTrader: (1)

so, did you say this was a crate motor? Any idea what could have caused a failure like this?

OGRacing

iTrader: (1)

Ls engines are very susceptible to dry starts. fresh engines that are started dry and not primed can cook a bearing instantly. You need to prime fresh engines with a pressurised brake in oil. I've used an accusump to prime mine, with red line brake in additive.

i'm not saying that's what happened, just guessing.

Scaxx

Although we didn't fully pressurize the system we did crank it over a bit without the fuel pump hooked up so at least it would build a few psi. Next time I'll probably fully build pressure. It was a crate engine, not really sure what bearing went but we'll figure it out when we tear it down. One of my buddies also mentioned GM had a real problem with deburring the castings when the new corvettes came out in a while back and a bunch of engines grenaded right out of the dealership, he said he thought they would have fixed the problem but that's another possibility. In all reality, mistakes do happen on the production line, we had a couple subies that made it three blocks from the dealership and died. Although my favorites were when cars came in cause the owner didn't change the oil for 17,000+ miles. Wish this wouldn't have happened to me but I'll get it back on the road.

I plan to have it done by early spring at latest. That should give me lots of driving time next year, and I should be able to make it down to MRLS. This setback really sucks but at least it didn't throw a rod through the block or something, my buddy at the machine shop isn't too worried about it which is encouraging.

farpolemiddle

Typically crate engines have a warranty correct?

Scaxx

They do but I doubt they'll give it to me for a couple reasons. They kinda make it so that unless you do absolutely no work on the car yourself you can't get it. Gonna try but I doubt it.

Also, I dug up the instructions that came with my engine and it instructed to just turn over the engine for about 10 seconds with the fuel pump disconnected. We did that plus some since I forgot to wire a ground for the fuel pump at first haha. Also talking more to my buddy who works at chevy he said they do the exact same thing with all the crate engines they install, he was one of the two people there with me that night. This time around I will use a preluber/make my own just to be safe but I feel like that wasn't the problem. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't, who knows.

However, amidst all this bad news, I have some good news finally. My other buddy who works at a machine shop talked to one of his coworkers/buddies and he said he'd fix it for parts and a case of beer. So that's good. I'm trying to sell as much random **** I have lying around as I can to make up for some of the cost of the cam and **** so hopefully I'll have the engine out/back in this winter.

Edit: Just kidding. He meant to diagnose what happened and figure out what the options were. Miscommunication, no good news. Ever.

OGRacing

iTrader: (1)

Misery loves company. I found some flakes in my oil filter last night. My PSI is fine so i need to do more digging, but we might be machine shop buds lol.

Scaxx

Kill all the LS miata's!

That sucks though. Looks like some bearing definitely **** themselves, there's some definite sparkle in my oil. Probably gonna tear the engine down in the next couple of weeks and try to see exactly what it was as well as how much is gonna need to be fixed. I'm hoping the crank doesn't need much work, not knowing exactly went wrong and what needs to be fixed is driving me nuts.