Braineack

iTrader: (62)

good to know. maybe im still thinking of the earlier gear-only failures years ago.

shuiend

iTrader: (24)

I have not inspected the cylinder walls in any great detail. From a quick glance when I pulled the head they looked fine. I may turn the engine over on the stand this afternoon just to verify.

My fear with the block is debris stuck somewhere in oil passages or something along those lines. I have access to more blocks at this time then I have cars, so I really have no reason to hang onto it and reuse.

This is the first oil pump failure with this pump and block. The machinist only assembled the bottom end, I have always put heads on myself to save some cash. As far as I know nothing was ever sand blasted on the motor. When I pulled off the gear cover I saw all the scoring, but I could still rotate the gears around and they appeared that they should still work. I pulled out the relieve valve and I saw a little bit of scoring inside that cylinder, I could not get my finger nails to catch on any of it, so I honestly have no clue why the pump would not pump oil while trying to crank it with the port on the side open. I even closed up the port and put my vacuum on the turbo oil feed line to try to pull oil through the block that way. I was not able to get any oil after several minutes of the vacuum running.

I don't think the pump failed and caused the issue, I think something went through and then caused the oil pump to have problems. I am going to try inspecting the pickup tube tonight. There were visible metal pieces on it when I removed it from the block.

I only posted pictures of 2 cam caps. The front 2 on both the intake and exhaust cams look usable, all the back ones on both cams have lots of scoring that I can catch my fingernails on. The head may be usable, but I am not going to try it. I don't want to risk another motor over trying to cheap out on that.

I have not found the exact cause of the oil pressure loss, nor do I honestly expect to at this point, unless the pickup tube is completely clogged tonight when I take a look.

Braineack

iTrader: (62)

you didnt put stop leak in the oil did you?

Savington

iTrader: (31)

What is the history on the head?

shuiend

iTrader: (24)

Friend bought a used VVT motor in 2011. We put it in his 99, had a weird issue with cam sensor heating up and caused the motor to not be able to rev. Pulled the head and swapped on a 99 head and it worked fine for him. This head went into a plastic bag and sat in my garage since then. Pulled it out to put on this motor summer 2014. Checked cam caps and everything was good before I put it on. Only thing possibly wrong was a valve shim or two was slightly out of clearance. I had no reason to think this head had anything wrong with it when I swapped it on.


This weekend I am picking up a VVT motor with 72k on it that came out of a 04. I will be swapping that head onto the new built bottom end I am getting. I will be pulling off all the cam caps and such to verify everything is kosher. Anything else I should check on it before I swap it over?

aidandj

iTrader: (5)

Make sure the oil pump has a relief valve

shuiend

iTrader: (24)

I am not cracking open the bottom end on the new built block. It is a new OEM oil pump. Honestly I am debating if I even want to swap over the VVT head. It pains me to have to go back to a 97 head, but I really just want my car running again.

aidandj

iTrader: (5)

MKTurbo needs built VVT spool plots. Do eet.

shuiend

iTrader: (24)

I know it does. I had just gotten EBC working pretty well the previous day before motor went, and was hoping to get on a dyno very shortly. This sort of derailed those plans.

aidandj

iTrader: (5)

Well your kitty tape should be shipping soon. If that makes you feel better.

shuiend

iTrader: (24)

Want to just hold the tape until my next GPS unit thingy is ready to go?

aidandj

iTrader: (5)

I can. But they ship in different packages. I put the gps thing in the small flat rate boxes because they offer protection. But the tape fits in a padded envelope. So it doesn't matter much to me.

shuiend

iTrader: (24)

Ohh, well in that case send the tape on over.

patsmx5

iTrader: (16)

Whoever built the pump sets the clearance between the gears and the housing they are installed in. I remember looking at their website a few years ago and they advertised setting the gears tighter than stock clearance for extra volume. Which is stupid, because you NEED some clearance for the gears to flex when the crank flexes. That is no longer on their website...

I'm saying your pump failed because it was built incorrectly. The scoring you see, that's not where oil flows though the pump. That scoring is due to improper clearancing of the gears to the housing. The gears were too tight and shaved metal off the housing as they self-clearanced themselves. All of the metal that was shaved off was sent through the engine and did a little damage to your bearings as you see. Eventually a piece got in the bypass valve and hung it up, and you saw a drop in oil pressure.

This.

shuiend

iTrader: (24)

I believe the clearance issues were back when BE was selling just the gears. And that is why they stopped selling the gears and moved to a selling complete pumps.

I purchased a VVT race pump with 2 shims from BE. It went in without being opened the first time. The second time it was put back in the motor the machinist and I pulled off the gear cover. We then pulled out the gears and coated them all in assembly lube, I think redline lube, but honestly can't recall for certain. We then put the gears back in exactly as we pulled them out. Put the gear cover back on and put it on the motor. There was no scoring on anything when we pulled the gears to lube it up. We did not pull the relief valve then, but it did move up and down without catching.

patsmx5

iTrader: (16)

Clearance too tight is the only way I can explain the side of the gears contacting the housing. If the gears were scored where they touch each other (where oil flows) then sure, foreign object damage. But your pics show the housing where the gears run is scored badly, and you confirmed it is. I mean unless you poured sand instead of oil in there, I don't know how else to explain the insane wear and scoring on the sides. How many miles were on the pump from when you inspected it until it failed?

Savington

iTrader: (31)

So it was run in a motor, disassembled, inspected and verified to be in good condition (no scoring), then placed in a motor again, run, disassembled after loss of oil pressure, and scoring was found... and the pump is defective? If the clearances were too tight, the pump would have failed right out of the gates.

I love how the assumption is that the oil pump failed and caused all the other scoring. The scoring on the oil pump (and on the bearings, and cam caps, and probably on the cylinder walls and pistons) certainly had nothing to do with operating the motor with no oil pressure, right?

The five BE pumps I have here are all within factory specification for side clearance.

patsmx5

iTrader: (16)

The gears flex when the crank flexes. If (I said if ) they were too tight, they would show themselves under high load/high RPM when the crank is flexing the most.

How do you explain the side wear on his pump? What would cause that other than the clearance being too tight? It's ok to have a conversation without insulting people. On oil pumps, I don't like BE pumps because I think they are less reliable than the stock pump. And yes, no personal experience with them. But OP has a failure on his and doesn't know what caused it. Do you know?

patsmx5

iTrader: (16)

To quote your edited post.

Your first point, I dunno, but good point. I'd have to ask how long the pump was run at first, and if it saw high rpm or boost. IF it did and it came out fine, I agree, the pump clearance wasn't the problem.

If the relief valve stuck, the oil pump would still be pumping oil and it would stay lubricated, just the rest of the engine wouldn't get much oil. So a stuck releif valve alone does not explain the scoring on the pump.

You seem to know the answer to the scoring in the pump, what caused it?

shuiend

iTrader: (24)

Less then 1000 miles. I think somewhere in the 700-800 range. With 90% of that being a constant 70-80mph driving on the interstate. There was some boosted runs, probably 50 some pulls, but never above 12-14psi.

To answer savington, this motor ran without oil pressure for maybe 3 seconds or so. I pulled off the side of the road and still had pressure, was lower then normal, but still there. I got out checked oil level, which was fine, added a bit extra to be safe, then made sure the sender plug was on the sender securely. I got back in the car and started it to see if it had pressure or not, pressure did immediately build so I shut off the motor right away. Sunday night I pulled the oil plug on the pump and spun the motor with a breaker bar, then an impact, neither caused oil to come out of the pump like I was expecting. I think unhooked coils and injectors and cranked the car for about 5 seconds to see if it built pressure then. Nothing came out. I tried cranking again on Monday night after I tested with the vacuum just to verify. I do admit cranking could have caused some damage after the motor was home, but I wanted verification that nothing was coming out of the pump before I pulled the motor.