Well last night my car starts smoking and making a bad knocking noise...

I get of the road and pak look under the hood, about a QT of oil shot out of the crankcase filter.

There is smoke coming form near the dipstick and out of the exhaust. It is idiling very rough.

I rev it and it sounds as if 2 hammers are smaking each other.

Not at idle and not in rhythm.

So it is not looking good for the home team..

A compression test will be done very soon and then towed somewhere.


Man I hope I don't need a new motor.

 

Not looking good Sounds like a spun rod/main bearing.

 

I have little knowledge in this area.. what does that mean.. in dumass terms?

and how does one fix it?

 

Sheeeeeesh! Does this mean you cant come "out" tonite??

Damn, I know Erik has Dixit's compressor....give him a call.

 

This means I am not coming "out" for a long time to say the very least.

I have a motor lined up. But I would rather fix it, if possible...

I have a garage lined up, just need to find the problem and fix it.. I was hoping it was somethign semi simple.... $50 part that tooks 8 hrs to change..lol

 

When my na motor blew, it ran like crap. Power was down and it started knocking like a ****. Finally it just froze and stranded me a mile from my house.

If indeed one/two of your rod/main bearings are shot, you are looking at a new motor or complete rebuild. These bearings ride on your crankshaft.

When my engine froze, the rod endcap popped off and threw shrapnel though the oil pan from the inside. It also broke off some of the block girdle.

I would really stop driving it. Check the oil if it's milkshakey or if you have oil in your coolant(radiator) Check your oil level also

 

It's parked in the SAME spot that I pulled over last night.

It is going to be towed when ever it's going.

Ok, checking the oil may help...

I guess I should have asked if there is anythign I should be looking for.

If it is going to take 2 weeks to tear the motor down to MAYBE find the problem, I would toss another motor in there and rebuild this one at a later date

 

Whats the 2nd motor in line???

 

Well, we need to see what's actually wrong but it SOUNDS major. But it's ALOT better to catch the problem before the engine goes ******* up 100%. That would make the engine rebuilding process alot cheaper. If you have another spare motor, I'd throw that one in and tear this one down like you said. You might have already torn some stuff up already but at least you shouldn't have broken anything yet. If you spun a bearing, you might have a chance at undersizing the crank journal and putting new bearings in it.

 

well I still gotta buy the motor.. going to look at it now and do the compression test... I'll take pics and let you know what is up



thanks fo rthe help jeff

and dixit

 

that sucks bags. Sry to hear that. Good luck on diagnosing your problem bro!

 

Anytime partner. Anytime... US ATL Turbo Maximas stick together and look out for each other.

Dixit

 

Bags, you have the worst luck man. I'd be fed up if I were you. I hope everything turns out ok for you!

 

Wow, sorry to hear!

What psi were you running? It's posts like this that make me hesitate to go the turbo route.

Best of luck...



-Tony

 

Thanks.. and honestly, I knew this might happen.. and to be honest.. I beat the pi$$ outta my car, so it's my fault.

Well the news is the FRONT passenger side cylinder reads ZERO PSI. The other 2 front ones read 150 PSI

The knocking is still there, pulled the valve cover and everythign looks tight under there.

So I am getting it towed now.

Still working on what the game plan is....

I may see how much of the motor I can pull apart with out pulling the motor outta the car.


And I was running 8-9 PSI on 131, 000 mile motor


DIXIT- it's going to my buddies house, he lives a few miles from jay.

Monster garage part 2 here we come.

 

Anything leading up to last night? Were you pushing it hard right before?

 

Dayum ma.. Sorry to hear about your problem. From the sounds of it and the smoke coming out of the filters and exhaust and all that good stuff.. You probably blew out your piston rings, thats probably causing the smoke. Since the rings keep the oil under the pistons and keeps the compression in place.. if those are blown out, your pistons don't have a tight seal and crappy to none compression and irratically move in the block... I think thats right.

Worse case is that you just have to replace the block if its what I think it is, since you had examined the cylinder head and it seemed tight.


Good luck man,

NeL

 

What was your HP/TQ at 9psi? Is the turbo you have a stage 1 ? Your car has always been a beast, so I know you were flying even quicker around the greater atlanta metro area..

 

Cool, let me know if you need any tools or help. You know im there. Just got back from dyno tuning Jaime's car. I will let him post it.

Dixit

 

Let's see....what was I doing....

hmmmm...


oh yeah...

I redlined 2nd @ WOT, followed by redlining 3rd @ WOT, followed by redlining 4th @ WOT, followed by seeing how close to redline I could get in 5th @ WOT.

I made it to about 5400 RPM

That's when I heard the noise.

 

There is no stage 1 or anythign like that.

I was set @ 8 PSI, but I could have been near 10 PSI I was to busy looking at the road.. see my above post..

GUESSING on my HP.. I would say 270 WHP/WTQ

 

That's what I am guessing as well....

Looking at the FSM I HAVE to pull the motor to replace the rings around the piston

So I don't know what exactly I am gonna do..

but what I DO KNOW, is when I am finished, 4 PSI until I can get a few thigns in my life orginized.. like getting a house.

This is fun.. I want to pull my motor, but this is not the ideal time or situation for me.

 

You and Jay will know more than most.

 

I think my initial guess is right where you probably broke the rod on that cylinder. Thats also probably the clanking you hear.

Dixit

 

I have game plan #2, if you do get a low mileage motor. Remember the tech that came here and bought a maxima engine and slapped it on the blue Nissan van. I was in total disbelief but he did it. It was the same VG block, a Maxima engine, he tore down the block down quite a bit and it runs fine now. So let me know what you want to do. Ill check on that for you today. Having my moms do the call for me.

 

Sorry to hear you may now need a motor. If you need any help give me a call.

 

This sucks dude. You need to slow down now ;-)

 

LoL I don't think you can talk. You seem to have a heavy foot lately..

 

leave him alone Nelson you have a heavy foot too
thats how the tranny went out

 

good luck on the motor, it sounds like you may have spun a rod bearing. which means new motor.

 

OK Do you want the bad news or the godd news?
I know what is wrong......Trust me, I know (from experience)

You have denotated at WOT. and you will be putting in either a new engine or rebuilding the whole thing. The clanging sound is not the rod it is chunks out of the edges of your pistons.
Pull your plugs and you will find that the contacts are touching.
If you had a broken rod the motor would stop spinning completely.
The oil that is coming out of the breather tub is from the oil being pushed past the head into the valve cover from the boost.

That is exactly what my car looked like after my WOT run.

I have a question. Are you running a Vortech FMU?
And do you have the J&S setup?

 

Gabe, he has the standard FMU setup, no J&S. Just converted it from the auto that died to the 5spd. Stock injectors, stock internals.

You bring up a good point of the piston head pieces.... Wonder if Kirk looked at the plugs when he was doing the compression test.

What we need to do first is drop the oil pan look for bits in there. And remove the front head to tell us what the deal is. My friend has that small tube camera where you can stick it into small holes like a spark plug hole and look at the entire piston head without even taking off the head. I gotta see if I can get a hold of that. That would safe time removing the head for no reason if its nothing wrong under there.

Dixit

 

I'm telling you it is going to look like the pics I sent you of my car. Reading his story is like reading about my car.
I am convinced that the Vortech FMU is the colpret (mispelled). That is the first thing that i have gotten rid of.

side note: I should be able send you your factory intake box in the next month. Thanks for the loan and sorry for keeping so long.

 

Oh forgot. Pulling the head is a biaach. you have to almost pull the motor.

 

Damn, you know I forgot about that intake.
Im not saying its not going to be exactly like your situation, but it sure would be nice to get a hold of that wire camera to check it out. And not to mention since Im an electronic gizmo geek, Im probably going to have lots of fun with it

Well at this point we know we are going to have to pull the motor and I think Kirk is working or already has a motor lined up. The motor swap should be quick, weekend job if jaime, kirk, erik, and I get on it.

Dixit

 

 

Daaammm that's alot of people under the hood of a Maxima lol
Remember this is a Nissan not a 57 chevy where you could ge half the org under the hood.

Ya the scope thingy would be coolto play with.

 

Bijan one of our young Jedis is starting to get hooked with wrenches. Keep up the interest which will help you when you get your car. Just dont you never, ever, ever, ever step in my garage talking bout you want a roots blower. Id do this to you .


Just messing with you

 

DIXIT, Latin Max is exactly right!! Thats what happened to my car and i will see if i can post pics of my pistons his description is exactly what my pistons look like!!

 

Bags, you could drop the oil pan(s) with the engine in the car. If you have rod failure or bearing failure, you would be able to see it that way. Removing the heads really does require the motor to be out of the car.

Sorry about the bad news.

But, on the bright side, motor swaps are fun!!