God dude now you're back on the Rotrex kick? You're never going to build anything because you can never make up your fucking mind!

Just build something. Something is better than nothing lol.

Edit: you're the new urbansoot. You had one cheap turbo setup to begin with for a short period of time, then sold it. Then you bought parts and sold them and lost money. For wanting to spend your money in the best possible way, you've wasted quite a bit of it just from what i've seen!

Not trying to be a dickhead, just giving you shit ;)

Aaron you suck at driving,that's why you need to get your engine built to keep up with me.

From what I've read, falcon sucks at sending people parts they've paid for also. That's not cool.

Reeeaaalllyyyy? He seems pretty straight up,during the few times I have dealt with him.

There's always two sides to one story,I will judge for myself once I hear/read both.

For some reason, it's always the sellers fault apparently. :jerkit:

I don't think I've every seen you drive your car? :makeout:

If you include it in the listing, you should send it. That's the way I do business. I read the FS thread. If you didn't send it, you are responsible for it.

That's because I drive so fast,you can't see me.

I read the thread. It is pretty cut and dry.

If you had done the right thing to start with you wouldn't be looking at additional freight now to send the parts you didn't send the first time.

Doing the right thing counts most when it isn't easy. That's where true character is demonstrated.

Something in this merits repeating.

Hot oil > hot engine.

I mean, I could keep the oil very cool indeed by draining it out into a pan and keeping it in the living room. This would not be beneficial to the motor. The oil has two basic functions. Lubricating the motor is one of them, and removing heat from it is the other.



The one in the middle.

http://s1.hubimg.com/u/3637348_f520.jpg

I just got in on this thread...interesting.

I have considered removing my oil squirters as well. I think it would benefit me more considering that I will not be running for sustained periods. Because I will be using nitrous, my engine builder/consultant suggested that I make a compromise, and reduce the flow in the squirter.

There was a rumor that the later 99 and up engine had a tighter orifice in the squirter, but when I did some investigating, I found that not to be the case. I called Mazda Motorsports, and they said it was the same part number. I even thought just in case there was an update to the squirter (resulting in only one part number), I dissassembled my 99 engine, and compared the squirter to my 95. No dice. They were the same, with the only difference being the removal of a washer.

I may try to 'tune' my squirters by rigging up the squirter to a pump, and squeezing the squirter tip until I get the desired squirter volume and flow pattern. Hard to say if it is worth the trouble or not.

With a drag car with forged pistons thats going to reved high, I would remove them.
For a track car, keep them, and just dont exceed the capabilities of your oiling system.

Something I have been thinking about.

One thing that has been bugging me lately is oil control. I've had a couple engines go burning valves after getting lots of oil consumption and its going past the rings. Basically like having oil injection and I haven’t figured out why.

If you look at most any aftermarket pistons they have oil drain back holes in them between the oil control ring and the bottom of the piston. On most engines these serve as a way for the oil that gets flung up on the cylinder walls and then scraped off and collected in the oil control ring to drain back. On the Miata engine however with oil squirters installed the bottom side of the piston has a steady fire hose stream of oil squirting on it. I would suspect this would make it pretty hard for oil to drain back that way. As a mater of fact it seems that it could actually be injecting extra oil into the oil control ring through the bottom of the piston and overwhelming it with oil supply.

If you look at the stock piston there are no drain back holes for the oil control ring connected to the underside of the piston. Is there a chance Mazda knows something about the engine that the aftermarket guys hadn’t considered?

In the mean time it sure seems like pistons of the aftermarket variety would benefit from not having pressurized oil sprayed on the underside injecting extra oil into the oil control ring and filling it up.

I am also beginning to think the piston cooling effect from the squirters is negligible unless you have internal oil passages in the piston to get the oil closer to the heat source. Based on some other stuff I have read looking at temperature differences between the top and bottom ring lands much of the bottom side of that piston is pretty close to the same temp as the oil so not a lot of heat transfer to the oil could occur. The oil has to be channeled to very close proximity to the upper ring within the piston for it to pull heat out rather than having the heat transferred to the cylinder walls first evidently.

Bob

Some pictures of wiseco pistons versus stock. Also the old wiseco versus new. Lighter, stronger, and with ceramic coated tops.

Bob,

That is a thoughtful and compelling argument and I see the possible merits you describe.

An additional pitfall to consider with your oil consumption problem is the increased propensity for detonation in the combustion chamber when oil is introduced. It is a known fact that oil vapor in your combustion chamber will lower the detonation resistance of the fuel/air mixture. Over a longer term it will also promote the development of carbon deposits which act as hot spots promoting detonation. I can see where this situation might be aggravated by the use of forged pistons which sit loosely in their respective bores.

So do you think the oil squirters are a vestigial design trait? I wonder if they were a design feature included to reduce long-term cylinder bore wear on engines that were in cars geared so low. It can't be good for cylinder wear to turn 4000 rpm on the interstate for a great portion of 150k miles. I understand that racing for hours at 7000 rpm is much worse for wear but these engines were obviously not engineered with racing in mind.

I don’t think your right about the engines not being engineered for racing in mind. Much of the DOHC versions of the b6 and BP engines were designed for Homologation purposes to go racing. The BP engines in Homologated WRC form had pistons that took advantage of the oil squirters.

Bob

I really thought that they were also designed to reduce friction from piston to pin and cylinder wall. Would this offset some of the power lost to windage?

What about if you installed crank scrapers, would there be enough oil to lubricate the bore without squirters?

Bbundy, it never occured to me to think about the fact that aftermarket pistons have the holes drilled in them. Perhaps it would be best to request pistons that do not have them if you plan on retaining the squirters, or ditch the squirters with drilled pistons.

Quite the plot.

Im probably going to get rid of them on my build.


With revving out toe 8500 (possibly north of that with solid lash lifters) imo i think that it would cause unstable oil control.
The forged aluminum would disipate heat way faster than cast iron factory pistons, so im not worried about that... even though the forged ones are going to be thicker.
As well im going to be running meth so that will keep the temps down.

The factory pistons are Aluminum.

The ring land portion on Mazda 323 GTR pistons are Iron.

From the 323 GTR factory service manual

- The piston skirt is shortened for reduced weight and friction
- A cast Iron ring carrier is installed in the piston to reduce piston-ring groove wear
- A cooling channel is incorporated in the body of the piston. The oil jet squirts oil into this cooling channel and the oil absorbs heat from around the ring lands, reducing piston ring and cylinder wall wear.

These pistons seem like they would cost significantly more than stock or even aftermarket forged pistons to produce.

The engine also uses sodium filled exhaust valves to pull heat from the valve and conduct it to the water jacket through the valve guides.

I think now days skirt coatings and ceramic top coatings are able to achive as much or more benifit for much less.

Bob

It's been a while since I saw a Miata oil squirter up close -- are they the usual ball and spring type that opens up at a certain oil pressure, or simply a redirected leak?

That's curious about the stock Miata pistons' lack of holes. The oil's gotta leak out of the oil groove somehow. Sometimes it happens on the outside surface of the piston -- is there a notch or channel on the outside that connects the oil groove to the wristpin?

Ball & Spring.

nvm joe beat me to it.

Correction, they are called oil jets, not oil squirters, lol.

I would NOT remove them. Everytime I open the motors that have been prepped for N/A or turbo applications, always the bottom of the piston looks pretty and shinny. I guess the oil JETS are doing their job.

What the hell, remove them and report to us about 1 year from now.

Edit: the engine block I got is from a Mazda Protege LX, it also uses ball and spring, FYI, no need to use a lot of torque to tighten them. If I remember its about 10 psi.

What oil pressure do they open at?

There are two blind holes drilled near the wrist pin area on each side they dont go through to the underside of the piston though. drain back must occur in this area somhow.

I suspect most all the aftermarket pistions I have seen will have some degree of oil control issues because of their design in combination with the oil squirters.

FWIW on my FM 2.0L the wrist pin hole cuts half way throught the oil control ring groove.

Bob

To add to the story

So my autocross/track season is over and I am finally getting around to re assembling the 2.0L

An interesting discovery. I planned on removing the oil squirters anyway but checking the new pistons it looks like they would be incompatible with the oil squirters anyway. The stock oil squirter hits the new location of the reinforcing rib on the underside of the piston squarely.

These are new FM Wiseco’s

Bob

spin the piston 180 degrees?

Maraha has special squirters for strokers. Their kit has more stroke than FM, and the piston comes in contact with the stock squirter.

Won't help the bottoms of the pistons are pretty much symetric. Maybe if you had specal rods that twisted about 5 degrees.

Bob

It looks like Maraha modifies the location of the alignment pin to get them to clear a similar sort of piston.

More stroke. Interesting the skirt on the FM stroker piston skirts already sticks out the bottom of the cylinder at the bottom of the stroke. Maraha must stick out even more.

Bob

Please tell me you were joking.

I find it hard to believe that a company would sell a piston that could not be used with the oil squirters. From this angle the piston does not look symmetrical.

1. FM specifically states on their website that those Wisecos were meant to be run without the oil squirters.
2. It's a fucking shadow in the pic.

D. You can't install pistons 180* around. Not if they have valve pockets, anyway.

when he wrote that i checked my supertech 8.8:1 pistons i have on my shelf.

they arent symetrical... so if the poster had them in wrong that is a valid point.

there is a relief in the skirt for the squirter on my pistons.



One of the engine builders i talked to recently mentioned boring out the oil passages... would this be for the bearings or the squirters?

1.If he already knew this then why post? If the manufacturer says "Don't use this shit", then obviously you wouldn't use it.

D. No shit. The pistons also normally have cutouts for the oil squirters on one side.

For everyone that has removed the oil squirters what have you plugged the holes with?

M10 x 1.25 bolts with copper washers?
Cut and flattened the factory squirters nozzles?
M10 x 1.25 set screws with threadlocker/theadsealer?

Fun fact.

When Ford built the new Boss 302, they modified the 412 hp "coyote" engine to make 444 hp with different camshafts and intake manifold. They also gave it forged pistons and removed the oil squirters.
Not saying you should remove them. But its not that retarded of an idea. If you have a forged bottom end and want reliable oiling at high rpm, I would consider ditching them.

EDIT:
4 year old thread. Why.

I had fun reading my old posts :p

http://forums.bestbuy.com/t5/image/s...=mpbl-1&px=600

Fun reading my old post.

FWIW my engine still going strong without the oil squirters and has lasted now 3X longer than any of my 350+hp builds that all failed with oil consumption, bearing, and piston wall wear issues.

Bob

my squirters are removed. We rebuilt the engine after last season and the bearings where absolutely like brand new inside and that egine was revved to 8k for 10hrs and was zinged several times. no oil pressure issues or piston issues

Bringing it back to life again, is removing squirter better for supertech pistons as well?

I wasn't planning on removing them but still confused after reading the whole thread...

I'm going to use motor for street application and light track duty

The consensus in the Mitsubishi world is that oil squirters are needed in high output engines with cast pistons, but if you build an engine with forged pistons they are no longer needed, and removing them increases oil pressure to the bearings. The difference is that Mitsubishi's have very robust cooling systems whereas the Miata cooling system is marginal at best. The piston oil squirters remove a crap load of heat from the combustion chamber and I would not remove them on a Miata for this reason alone.

Keith

<edit> Didn't realize this was a necro-thread. Hope my reply wasn't already covered 4 years ago!</edit>

I removed them the engine stays drastically cooler on the track . Oil pressure is much better rings cylinder walls, bearings and everything had about 4 times the life span on a 300+ hp track car after removing the oil squinters. Combustion heat goes out the tailpipe and spins the turbo rather than into your oil. Ceramic coated piston tops on forged pistons I think are desirable with removing the oil squirters though.

The oil squirters are typically there to cool the bottom of the piston to reduce chances of detonation, pre-ignition, and annealing. A forged piston will help combat some of this but only to a point. Professional race teams will use a rockwell hardness tester to measure the hardness of the piston in the as manufactured condition (or obtain numbers from the manufacturer since they likely used a heat treatment coupon for verification) and during tear down inspection at the end of the season will measure the hardness in as many locations as they can to determine if annealing was happening and where. They'll also visually examine the piston crown with a microscope for signs of pre-ignition or detonation. If they find signs of either they will make changes during the next season's engines to combat the issues. This might be re-aiming the squirters, changing the jet size, adding additional jets, adjusting oil pressure, adding coatings to the piston crowns, changing the geometry of the piston, examining fuel distribution in each cylinder, etc....

Unfortunately a better cooling system can only do so much, changes to the coolant system won't change the length of the vector required for the heat to be dissipated to the cooling jacket, the center of the piston will always have the longest heat path so smaller diameter pistons are less prone to thermal issues, forged materials have better thermal conductivity and strength, thicker piston rings have higher contact with the cylinder wall for conducting heat away, etc.... of coarse all of these things have trade offs.

If people who have access to hardness testers can perform hit maps of the hardness of their used pistons and be willing to provide specifications such as the manufacturer of the piston and engine specs it will be far more helpful to help people to decide what actions to take regarding their oil squirters.

I recently considered removing my squirters after one of them came loose (10+ years after my initial build) and broke a piston. I eventually decided against it.

IMO, the benefits of removing the oil squirters are:
-if you have a stock oil pump, it will increase bearing oil supply. If you're running upgraded gears with a shimmed relief valve, you'll get much less benefit. The only problem with this is... if you can get to the oil squirters to remove them, you can get to the oil pump and replace it just as easily.
-if you have a stroker kit (bbundy for example) or some similar setup that has an oil control ring that intersects with the wrist pin area, you'll get less oil usage. If you are running pistons with stockish geometry, you won't get as much benefit because they don't eat oil in the first place. That's my experience anyway.
-if you are suffering from elevated oil temps, your temps will go down because the oil won't be cooling the pistons. This is a mixed benefit IMO, kind of like the increased ability to move around the cockpit you get from not wearing a seat belt. If you're in a situation where you don't suffer from oil overheating or you are in a situation where you worry about heat in the combustion chamber more than the oil, removing them will have less benefit.

If you're running an N/A build with stock oil pump and forged pistons (why would you do this?), this is probably the mod for you.
If you're running a stroker build with coated pistons, this is probably the mod for you.
If you're not experiencing oil pressure/oil heat issues on a turbo car, this is NOT the mod for you.


I'm in the situation where:
-I have a shimmed boundary engineering pump
-I have never come close to having oil overheating problems with my current cooling setup. I had overheating issues like 10 years ago, at which point I parked the car for a few months, upgraded my radiator and fans and installed an oil cooler setup with a fan.
-I have wisecos with stock wrist pin location and I've never had oil eating problems with the sprayers
-my pistons aren't coated
-I like not having detonation problems.

Even before my current rebuild, I never had any of the problems that this fixes. So I kept them.

There is another thread here about the Pro's/Con's but before ever reading that thread, I kept them in my build. In retrospect, I think I'm alright with leaving them in because I, like Always Broken, am running a shimmed BE pump so pressure is not an issue. I wanted to do everything I can to reduce the chances of detonation as this car in it's current form is my daily. Hence the 8.6:1 CR as well.

If this was a beater build I'd do something like Downmented and just go balls to the wall, probably still keeping the squirters.