Well, there's the problem
01-31-2009, 06:01 PM
#1
Well, there's the problem
(mods, sorry if this is the wrong section)
Took a little time this afternoon to tear down this motor (VQ30DEK) and see exactly what went wrong. Qmax03 (Qazi) came over to let out some anger and lend a hand. Son was beastin on those headbolts.
I also got to salvage the 3.0 timing equipment and learned alot during the teardown.
I can't get over the fact that the pistons on my DEK were so fagile looking. Its something that you have to feel in your hand to understand what im talking about. I deffinately understand why these motors can't hold alot of boost or juice. The tops of the pistons feel really thin.
On a positive note the DEK headgasket is metal and that **** HOLDS, no sign of headgasket failure even with 2 fucced up cylinders and an abused head.
If you want any parts from this motor just let me know.
Here's the motor with just the outer timing cover of.
Inner timing cover off and cams out
When you pull the heads off, this is what its supposed to look like
Took a little time this afternoon to tear down this motor (VQ30DEK) and see exactly what went wrong. Qmax03 (Qazi) came over to let out some anger and lend a hand. Son was beastin on those headbolts.
I also got to salvage the 3.0 timing equipment and learned alot during the teardown.
I can't get over the fact that the pistons on my DEK were so fagile looking. Its something that you have to feel in your hand to understand what im talking about. I deffinately understand why these motors can't hold alot of boost or juice. The tops of the pistons feel really thin.
On a positive note the DEK headgasket is metal and that **** HOLDS, no sign of headgasket failure even with 2 fucced up cylinders and an abused head.
If you want any parts from this motor just let me know.
Here's the motor with just the outer timing cover of.
Inner timing cover off and cams out
When you pull the heads off, this is what its supposed to look like
01-31-2009, 07:16 PM
#8
02-03-2009, 11:51 PM
#10
Senior Member
Join Date: Oct 2001
Posts: 866
Extremely interesting. Those pistons definitely look like a weak point in the motor. The headgasket is impressive, though. Eases my mind when thinking of the possibility of blowing one.
If you weren't spraying, please tell me you were running ridiculous boost. I haven't heard of any other VQ destroying their pistons, so I'm wondering what was up.
Are there aftermarket pistons available for the VQ30? Would seem to be a good thing to do if spraying or boosting. I thought I'd read years ago that the VQ30 was capable of withstanding about 450 hp (via boost or spray) without internal mods. Maybe I'm remembering it wrong.
Dave
If you weren't spraying, please tell me you were running ridiculous boost. I haven't heard of any other VQ destroying their pistons, so I'm wondering what was up.
Are there aftermarket pistons available for the VQ30? Would seem to be a good thing to do if spraying or boosting. I thought I'd read years ago that the VQ30 was capable of withstanding about 450 hp (via boost or spray) without internal mods. Maybe I'm remembering it wrong.
Dave
02-04-2009, 06:23 AM
#12
Extremely interesting. Those pistons definitely look like a weak point in the motor. The headgasket is impressive, though. Eases my mind when thinking of the possibility of blowing one.
If you weren't spraying, please tell me you were running ridiculous boost. I haven't heard of any other VQ destroying their pistons, so I'm wondering what was up.
Are there aftermarket pistons available for the VQ30? Would seem to be a good thing to do if spraying or boosting. I thought I'd read years ago that the VQ30 was capable of withstanding about 450 hp (via boost or spray) without internal mods. Maybe I'm remembering it wrong.
Dave
If you weren't spraying, please tell me you were running ridiculous boost. I haven't heard of any other VQ destroying their pistons, so I'm wondering what was up.
Are there aftermarket pistons available for the VQ30? Would seem to be a good thing to do if spraying or boosting. I thought I'd read years ago that the VQ30 was capable of withstanding about 450 hp (via boost or spray) without internal mods. Maybe I'm remembering it wrong.
Dave
Well I was running a 2.87 pulley which gave me 12-14 psi depending on air temperature and density (?). I also have meth injection and it dynoed 369 untuned and with using winshield washer fluid instead of real meth. I then street tuned and got real meth at that point the HP was upwards of 400 maybe over but I can't back that up since I never re dynoed.
My theory on this is as follows. I was doing a burnout to warm up some drag radials, and the RPM kinda bounced a bit too much which is what I believe led to violent vibrations and the piston slapping the head which cracked the first piston (middle cylinder towards front of the car). The chunk of that piston rattled in there a bit and probably broke into a hundred pieces and flew out the exhaust valves. The other piston probably cracked the same time as well who knows? I continued to drive the car for about a month after that without any knocking but it was burning a considerable amount of oil obviously. It didn't pull as hard, now I know why then one day I ran it low on oil and it started to knock and that was when I figured I would yank it out.
I mean I'm no pro or anything, this is just my common sense observation or what I think happened. I can say this tho, if I didn't bounce it off the limiter so much this would not have happened.
As far as piston options a full DET swap would be nice pistons, crank, rods, and I think Arias also makes pistons for the 3.0. I heard someone also said STI bore is the same as the 3.0, not sure.
Last edited by secondtonone317; 02-04-2009 at 06:26 AM.
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