First Start after engine build - not much luck
 

Hello all

Just starting my motor for the first time in over a year, after having rebuild the motor, changed from an FM to EFR turbo setup, and added ID1000 and LS coils. Yeah, a lot to do at once and now I am paying the price.

Anyways, struggling to get the motor running well enough to actually break in.

I can get it to start, but it is blowing smoke like a demon (is this normal, my first engine build) and running very very rough, but the AFR says roughly 13 so at least its not detonating itself to death. There is actually liquid coming out of the exhaust, granted its probably just a bunch of oil from when the previous motor blew.

My problem begins here:
I cannot get the timing light to work properly. I tried using the blue diagnostic connector but it was pulling too many amps and killing the car. I am now using an enormous explorer battery to power the timing light and am getting erratic timing light pulses, and it just cuts out entirely for like 5 seconds at a time. Could faulty ignition settings be the cause of this? I am on MS2, so I do not have a dwell table, but am using 3.7 as the base dwell. Would the signal also stop if the spark plug was saturated?

during the few moments I could see the TDC mark on the ATI damper, it looked to be about 12* retarded, and I think I hear the turbo spooling more than it should at idle RPMs

this last time the car just flat out died while trying to set the ignition timing.

I will attach a datalog

datalog attached, looks like the MAP increased during the last few seconds before it leaned out and died.

Thanks in advance for any help at all

Good news is that it starts at all. Could it also be that maybe one of the LS coils is bad? I still have them wired for batch fire and have been testing the #1 coil, maybe I'll try the #4 coil. Maybe my wiring wasnt up to par

Did you change dwell etc on the coils when you swapped?

Any chance you can put in the old ignition stuff to test?

Yea I mentioned that in the first post, switched dwell to 3.7

I do still have the old coil packs that I could test with

I also changed to NGK BKR7E spark plugs, gapped to .34, should I have them gapped tigher? I might try .26-.28

I made some progress, but would still appreciate some help. Found out I have D510 coils not D585, so I increased my dwell to 5.5 and voila, the car idles enough to time now and I was able to get the ignition timing light to register spark pulses.

I was able to get the ignition timing set using the timing light, but the car is blowing out RIDICULOUS clouds of smoke. Like sea foam on crack. Is this normal with a fresh engine build?

I am also getting smoke coming from the turbo area, definitely from the v-band flange but possible elsewhere as well. I've got the v-band clamp pretty damn tight, how do I prevent this flange from leaking? This is on a brand new EFR 6258 setup

Anyways, I am definitely making progress! The car randomly increased its idle from 1300 to 2300 so I shut it off. I'll have to readjust the idle, and again after its broken in more.

I might try putting a 3'' v band gasket in there to seal that portion up.

What color is the smoke? You could be ungodly pig rich, or you could be burning oil from a plethora of places ranging from rings to a restricted oil return line.

Smoke is light grey, perhaps grease from the rings from assembly? If the drain has a restriction, and its a brand new trackspeed braided drain, then ill be most upset. Thankfully thats not a huge possibility.

EFR is def rich. But not ungodly. Like 13 average but i cant really be confident in AFR readings with this much smoke coming out.



Have you rebuilt a motor before?

I have never had a fresh engine build smoke for more than few seconds after initial startup, but my builders don't use grease on piston rings. Have you checked to see if the cooling system is pressurized/confirmed you're not getting coolant in the chambers?

Coolant could only get in a few places right? head gasket or maybe skunk2 throttle body coolant bypass?

I used the ARP grease and torqued to 65 IIRC

Ive done two built BP engines and neither smoked for more than 5 seconds on initial startup. Grey smoke sounds more like fuel than oil which would be a lot more bluish. White smoke gernally would be coolant, but could also be grey as well. Good luck with it

Just got off the phone with my engine builder. Said smoke is normal and is probably mainly steam from having sat for over a year. Im gonna run it up to idle temp and see if the smoke thins out.

I have to wait for a 3" vband gasket

How long have you let the motor run so far? Sounds like your engine builder is blowing his own smoke. Billowing smoke like a steam locomotive is not condensation from sitting.

A total length of maybe 30 seconds? Thanks for all the advice, I dont think their lying to me but ill know after a few min on Friday when the vband gasket arrives

And it really does look like a steam locomotive LOL


His recommendation was to go ahead and run it for a few minutes. Is there any reason I shouldn't do this?

It's unlikely that you'll damage anything at idle unless there's an issue with assembly.

If you have spark, fuel, and oil pressure, you should be okay. The car will die if it's going lean and it's not like you're going to get detonation at idle.

Spark is good. Fuel seems good as AFRs are averaging 13 (at least not gonna detonate, but I know it's too rich). Oil pressure is good, I cranked it with the fuel injectors and coils unplugged until I got 30 psi. Now I am seeing like 90 psi with the stage 2 BE VVT pump.

I seriously haven't run it for longer than 30 seconds. On Friday I will give it a good 15 minute warm up, unless the smoking gets even worse or other engine problems arise which shouldn't :x:. I have the binder version of the 94 FSM and have torqued everything exactly to spec, using updated specs when necessary and followed all detailed installation instructions of various engine components.

Okay now I feel like a complete idiot. I didn't put in a new rubber gasket between the skunk2 throttle body IAC adapter plate and the IAC unit. Coolant was freely able to move from the IAC coolant chamber to the idle chamber and was dumping water into the intake manifold. Probably lucky I didn't hydrolock the motor. Wow I feel stupid lol but also relieved that all my white smoke is from such a simple fix. I have to wait until Tuesday to get it from the dealership.

The 3'' v-band gasket worked wonders as did doing a more thorough job of aligning the exhaust before clamping down the v-band clamp.

The coolant level was going down so slowly that I couldn't really tell it was going down.

Glad you figured it out! Like Andy noted above - if you've got smoke for more than about 5 seconds on startup, even if its a new build, time to stop and assess the situation!

Yeaaa got it broken in with roughly 20 miles of smokeless driving after repairing the leak