Smitter

pretty sure i will be pulling my motor again this weekend to address some oil control ring issues. I had the fd on a long road trip(1100kms one way) and was experiencing some fairly high oil temps (235F). the car was fine for the drive out running 10w30 oil. due to the mileage i changed the oil before the trip back and under recomendation of a friend tried a 20w50 oil. My Friend runs this in his 20b without issues and he reccomended it in as an effort to keep the oil temp down.

With the heavier grade of oil i noticed an immediate increase in oil pressure, 5psi at an idle and approx 25psi at a cruising speed of 120km/hr (70mph) (30psi and 87psi respectively). this was to be expected due to the viscosity difference and i was a little reluctant to be pushing that kind of pressure.

Anyway to make a long story short, doing some high speed boost pulls on the highway the car started to blow smoke and burn lots of oil. Ambient temperatures were relatively hot that day and i should have known better then to be on the gas that hard (but its so much fun and hard to stay off it) I believe the problem was due to high oil temps and the added oil pressure.

My car is a single turbo laying down over 400rwhp and is running one stock oil cooler. Coolant temps, air temps & egts were all in normal operating range.

The ironic part of the story is i have a 48 row b&m oil cooler with all the An fittings & -10 braided lines on a shelf in my garage, i was just dreading the install do to having to remove the power steering pump & ac compressor. I guess it will be easy to install the Oil cooler lines now that the engine has to come out.

hopefully this post will prevent this from happening to someone else.

Do u guys thing the higher viscosity oil was the main factor? or was this inevitable running an oil cooler that was insuficient & driving the car hard on a hot day?

jkstill

iTrader: (11)

How do you plan to duct a 48 row cooler?

Smitter

^^That's really the least of my worries right now, but it can be done, i am running a cwest front bumper and no rebar, so there is plenty of room for it. i think i will just have to flare the duct. it will start small and expand to the size of the OC. kinda like the pettit duct does for the cool charge III intercooler, if your familiar with that piece.

notveryhappyjack

iTrader: (4)

25psi oil pressure ?

I see just over 75-85 psi at cruising speed and 38-42psi at idle. Are you sure your gauge is working properly ?

never run 10w30 in a car making that much power, especially in the summer. I run 20w50 and switch to 10w40 for maybe january.

Smitter

25psi higher with the 20w50 oil @ 120km/hr then i had with the 10w30.
87psi @ 120 km/hr (3100rpm) as opposed to 62psi.
i have 30psi @ idle with the 20w50, 25psi @ idle with the 10w30.
the gauge max's out at 100psi, so i cant imagine what the oil pressure would be @ 7000rpm, which was the approximate engine speed when it started burning oil.

I am pretty confident that i wouldnt have hurt the motor if i had stuck with the 10w30. The high oil temps put the oil rings on the verge and the added pressure took them out. I have been running the 10w30 with no problems for a year. Convince me that i am wrong

what are u running for oil cooling Jack?
do u monitor your temps?

Smitter

...

teachermechanic

iTrader: (4)

Problem come from your turbo not oil control ring.
What size and length is your oil feed turbo?

Smitter

pretty sure its not the turbo this time. the car willl not hold idle and sounds like its running on one rotor due to oil fowling the plugs. i am gonna pull the turbo before the motor to be sure though.


i dont understand what u mean by this statement

teachermechanic

iTrader: (4)

Sorry, oil feed line size and length.

Smitter

-4 with a restrictor, cant recall the size of the restrictor, but it is pretty small, the heavier oil might have not been lubricating the turbo aswell. the turbine looks fine, turns freely and has the normal amount of shaft play. there is also no oil in the ic piping. the stock hard line is in place and the -4 line is approx 6" long coming off of that.

grimple1

iTrader: (1)

i honestly don't think it was a oil issue. how old was the engine? has it ever been rebuilt?


10w30 and 20w50 should both be fine oils to run without ANY problems.

Smitter

yeah possible not, the engine is pretty new, rebuilt about a year ago, 5000 miles approx. i took the turbo,manifold & downpipe off today thinking i would find an oily mess in the exhaust ports, everything was dry though except for the wastegate dump tube that is plumbed back into the downpipe. ehaust housing has quite a bit of carbon build up, some shavings fell out of it aswell.

If it was the turbo that was messed up i should be able to tell by the shaft play and the motor should be able to hold an idle? kinda confused about todays findings.

c'mon guys need some advice here, what should my next course of action be?

Gadd

Thicker oil will increase oil temps as well as pressures.

The oil control rings do not see oil pressure.

Oil temp of 235F are high but not excessive.

Excessive oil temp will cause oil control rings to fail.

High oil pressures can cause turbo oil seals to leak, even on the compressor side.

What color is the smoke?

Does cleaning/ replacing the plugs improve the idle?

Have you done a compression check?

Paul

Smitter

^ hold the phone boys, i think its a side seal gone out of the rear rotor. did a poor mans compression check and the results showed only to pulses on the rear rotor.

2007 ZX-10

+1

I run nothing but Mobil 1 15w-50 EP in this car, even in winter, primarily because of the ungodly fuel dilution, and I don't burn oil