J-spec intermediate housing failure
 

We see lots of j-specs with your typical coolant seal retaining wall failure and blown apex seals but I felt this one was worth mentioning.

In this case the customer bought the engine and installed it, only to find that when he was filling it up with coolant it overflowed out the dipstick hole.

In the pics you see that the wall has collapsed on the intermediate plate allowing coolant to flood the oil pan. We can only speculate that the engine sat with water in it that froze. However all the freezeplugs are intact.

Just another reason to rebuild those "30K mile, tested, gauranteed" J-spec engines prior to installation.

wow that's some serious sh*t

wow! ive never seen that before! thats bad!

Holy crap, that sucks!

:doh:

Huh. Never seen that. I can only imagine the look on his face when he's pouring and sees the coolant coming out a different hole, lol.

Freeze damage?

That is my guess, there isn't any damage to the other main engine components however.

My only guess so far....

One more reason not to install j-spec motors right off the boat....

+1.

"I don't see why you guys are spending all that money for a rebuild, when I can get a 'guaranteed fresh' used JDM motor from my importing buddy..."

Hahaha Sooo true :wallbash:

Ive installed a couple right off the boat, but I compression check the motor first on my garage floor, and pressure check the cooling system overnight before event tearing the engine down, which is actually very easy to do.

And finally I check out the apex seals and rotor faces carefully through the exhaust port.

I then tore both engines down to the block and replaced vacuum hoes, broken solenoids, etc, before re assembling the engine and installing.

Both of mine where 13b-re's and both looked like they really did have 30K miles, the wiring harness where soft and supple like new, and had compression over 100PSI

Another 13b-re (know in my car) that I pulled apart, looked like it had 5K miles, all of the apex seals where within like new spec I replaced only the apex seal and corner seal springs and put the engine together with the seals that came out of it

I would never put an engine in without doing all of the steps I mentioned above.

Instead of starting a new thread I figured I would just add to this one.

Here is the most recent engine to arrive with a different type of coolant seal failure on the intermediate plate. Instead of the wall being broken and the seal dropping into the channel, this one developed a crack behind the seal, which allowed the seal into the coolant channel. To the untrained eye this iron could look OK.

http://www.banzai-racing.com/2010_cu...l_rupture3.jpg

http://www.banzai-racing.com/2010_cu...l_rupture1.jpg

http://www.banzai-racing.com/2010_cu...l_rupture2.jpg

lol a rotary hernia

Those first pics are some gnarly ones. Never seen that type of damage posted on here.

The second set, I have seen. Those types of failures can be tough to spot (this one is easy though).

Thanks for posting!

just shows how important a meticulous inspection of parts can be