Cascade Crew

DBL_TKE · Posted: Sat Jan 01, 2011 5:45 pm Post subject:

It looks like you may be right Al. Oh well, I like the way the fronts look though. I just want them all to face the same direction.

Twilightoptics · Posted: Sat Jan 01, 2011 9:05 pm Post subject:

SlackerTA · Posted: Tue Jan 04, 2011 6:32 pm Post subject:

Nice Dub, my man! A MkII with a VR6 swap, even a 12v, is always gonna be a fun package. I've had a few VW's myself including a modified TDI Jetta and a low mileage Rabbit GTI. I don't mind FWD for my daily drivers.

idk about those wheels tho...

DBL_TKE · Posted: Wed Jan 05, 2011 1:31 pm Post subject:

I really like the salad shooters, buy I've got another set of wheels that will be going on soon...

DBL_TKE · Posted: Sat Mar 12, 2011 1:03 am Post subject:

So I'm going to be rebuilding the engine pretty soon here. I'm kind of forced to as I had a not-so-great night racing at the track. During my third pass I noticed the engine sounding a little funny while I was in 4th gear around the 1000' mark. I didn't think much of it as it may have been my exhaust leak worsening, seat rattling, etc. Until I was on the return road, I noticed a slight rattling sound above 2k RPM. At this point I wasn't sure if I was just paranoid and hearing things or if there was actually something wrong. Once I was in the pits, I popped the hood and listened while feathering the throttle and my heart sank. I could hear a definite rattle from my intake/head. Not quick a knock though.

Luckily my friend Phil was also racing at the track and I managed to catch him before he left. He agreed to follow me home in case the car wouldn't make it. So I babied it out of there and onto the freeway and made it about 10 or 12 miles until something really let go. The car felt like it lost 50% of it's power and the engine was making a very loud and sickening rattle. I tried putting it in neutral and coasting down a very long hill on hwy 26w and the engine shut off as soon as I hit the clutch. I ended up stopped right at exit 69a at the 26/217 interchange. At that moment I realized I had made it one single exit further than when I had my "wheel incident" in my Camaro. So Phil ended up getting his truck and enclosed trailer and we ended up trailering the GTI back to my shop.

I'll be tearing down the engine possibly on Sunday. I don't think it's a rod but rather a wrist pin or something in the top end. It has a very loud rattling/knocking sound like something in the valve train could be hitting the valve cover. And before everyone starts jumping on me for driving with a hurt engine, I knew exactly how much more damage I could/would be doing. These engines are pretty cheap and I've already sourced another block. Before I even left PIR I knew that I'd be either putting in a new engine or completely rebuilding this one. At least this gives me an excuse to build up the car. I had plans to turbo this thing before tonight.

And needless to say I won't be dynoing the GTI tomorrow morning... Rolling Eyes

Schultzy89GTA · Posted: Sat Mar 12, 2011 1:27 am Post subject:

Sorry to hear that man. No one is going to rag on you for driving her hard. I will be interested to hear what the problem was. A lot of what you described sounded very similar to when I spun a rod bearing in my original L98.

Keep us informed. Let us know if you need anything.

-Schultzy

iansane · Posted: Sun Mar 13, 2011 7:34 pm Post subject:

Hope it's nothing serious like toasted block/head! (damn single head v6 cars!)

DBL_TKE · Posted: Tue Mar 15, 2011 11:00 pm Post subject:

DBL_TKE · Posted: Wed Mar 30, 2011 10:53 am Post subject:

I got around to pulling the engine. A much different experience than pulling a small block, I must say. After a few hours I managed to finally get the thing out.

After finally figuring out how your supposed to mount these dang engines on a stand I drained the oil and removed the oil pan.

Silver oil, not a good sign. Knowing that this was obviously a bottom end problem I proceeded to remove the intake, valve cover, cams and finally got the head off.

I don't like how uneven the valve discoloration is from cylinder to cylinder, not to mention my plugs ranged from oil soaked to white/glazed.

I moved on to removing to pistons and rods. BTW a friend gave me a tip on piston/rod removal since I was working by myself. The easiest way to remove the internals is obviously with the engine upside down so you have easy access to the rod caps. Take two headbolts and screw them into the block by hand so that they are on opposite sides of the cylinder of choice that you're working on. Then stretch a couple rubber bands between the rod bolts so that they sit flush against the block and directly cover the cylinder. Then after removing the rod cap you can use a long wooden dowl and place it one the underside of the piston, you then gently hammer the piston out while the rubber band catches the piston preventing it from dropping to the ground.

And finally, what everyones been waiting for, carnage pics...

Strangely only one rod bearing looked that, all others seemed to have semi normal wear, although they all had a whitish discoloration to them. I've heard that is bad but can anyone explain what it means? Altogether I was pleased at the minimal amount of damage. I was expecting to have actual pieces of metal fall out when I pulled the oil pan.

DBL_TKE · Posted: Sat Jan 12, 2013 9:01 pm Post subject:

Progress has been made. Twisted Evil

DBL_TKE · Posted: Fri Jan 25, 2013 10:40 pm Post subject:

http://youtu.be/6enOIJLHcAs

DBL_TKE · Posted: Fri Feb 01, 2013 4:51 pm Post subject:

So after I tore it down I searched for a new engine. After a couple weeks I sourced on from a member on here on Vortex, [URL="http://forums.vwvortex.com/member.php?535767-Sturmgewehr-86"]Sturmgewehr-86[/URL] . Once I got it home I pulled the pan and checked the rods. One of the rods had play so I pulled the cap and low and behold, this one had a spun rod bearing too. I was beyond pissed as I had specifically asked him if there were any issues at all, i even asked if it was going to have a rod knock. He assured me it was cherry. I wasn't looking to do a rebuild, I just wanted something to drop in.

After that I became pretty discouraged and didn't touch the car or engine for quite awhile. Over a year passed before I even made progress, in fact. As you know I picked up my '91 Z28. So all my time and money started going towards that project and my GTI was put on the back burner indefinitely.

Well fast forward to November. After a few of my friends starting bugging me about how long my GTI had been down I got motivated started searching for a usable short block. i finally found one with a good crank and took all my engine parts to my work so I can start the rebuild.

The head cleaned up nicely.

I cleaned up the block. Then I put in the new crank bearings and installed the crank with some ARP main studs.

Pistons all cleaned up.

I re ringed the pistons, installed new Kings Racing rod bearings and clamped the caps down with some ARP rod bolts.

Then I put the head on. I used a mk4 head gasket and new stock head bolts. I put the cams back in set the timing and installed new timing chains and guides.

I decided to repaint the valve cover and intake manifold.

Bolted on the valve cover and brought the engine back over to my shop at home.

I pushed the GTI inside and prepped it for the install.

I had a crack on the transmission around one of the mounting flanges for the Trans mount. I finally found a shop in my area that was willing to weld cast aluminum. Once Portland Speed Industries was with it I installed a new flywheel, clutch and pressure plate then bolted the tranny up.

Working by myself I finally managed to drop the engine and tranny in the bay. Easier said than done by yourself, it's a tight fit.

I had a friend come over and help me route the harness and wire up the engine. I originally wanted to tuck the harness but decided against it. I wanted to make sure the engine ran fine first in case I needed to trace problems. Then we put the coolant hoses on, hooked up the shifter cables and other miscellaneous things. It was just about ready to fire so we filled the oil and coolant and sorted out the ignition wires.

DBL_TKE · Posted: Mon Feb 25, 2013 2:55 am Post subject:

Then I was ready to fire it up for the first time. Now before anyone jumps on me about starting the engine right up, I'll have you know that I did prime the engine twice before this video for 15 seconds each.

http://youtu.be/6enOIJLHcAs

The video ends early but I shut it down soon after because fans didn't turn on and started getting hot. I believe that either the connector wasn't in all the way or there's a break in the wiring. This is how the car sits today. I'm going to hook up the axles, put the front end back on and take it for a break in test drive then triple check everything to make sure it's running good and doesn't have any leaks.

DBL_TKE · Posted: Mon Feb 25, 2013 2:58 am Post subject:

I was able to Fix all coolant and oil leaks. I had a heater hose that had a pinhole in it. The oil cooler gaskets leaked, replaced though. Both the sensors on the oil filter housing were slightly loose, tightened those up. And the power steering pressure line leaked at the pump, so I replaced the gasket. I have another problem though. The fans wouldn't turn on. So I took the connector off and jumper wire to test the fan. One of the speeds seemed to be inop, but the other one turned them on.

So I just grounded the fans to be on and test drove it to seat the rings. Drove it for about half an hour making sure to do plenty of engine braking, kept the RPM's under 4k and tried not to idle to much or hold a constant speed. Everything seems to be in order. There was one thing that's kind of got me on edge though. I noticed oil around the perimeter of the head gasket around the block. Now I brake cleaned all that off so it was new after it ran. In addition to that I was noticing some small air bubble coming out externally between the block and the head by the #1 cylinder. A couple of m fellow tech's at work were saying that I probably shouldn't worry about it, because when I put the head on I soaked the head bolts in motor oil before installing them. Before I had a chance to torque them down there was oil seeping out from the head gasket surface. They say its probably the residual oil being pushed out and will probably stop after several good heat cycles. Anyone have an opinion on this? I thought about rechecking the torque on the head bolts but I don't see how I can. The last couple steps were an angle, not a torque spec.

Anyway heres a couple recent pics of the car now that it's all put back together.

DBL_TKE · Posted: Mon Feb 25, 2013 3:00 am Post subject:

And here's a start-up, walk around, and rev video I just made on Sunday.

http://youtu.be/aFNx8bPxR44

aaron_sK · Posted: Mon Feb 25, 2013 6:53 am Post subject:

Angle torque spec means TTY bolts were used, so no retorquing period.

Unless otherwise listed the torque specs you commonly see are dry torque. Oiled bolts torqued to dry spec will be too tight.

DBL_TKE · Posted: Mon Feb 25, 2013 2:22 pm Post subject:

Twilightoptics · Posted: Mon Feb 25, 2013 4:16 pm Post subject:

I personally have never seen a headbolt instructed to be torqued "DRY."

That said, all you need is a DASH of oil on the threads and a DASH on the flange where the bolt meets the head.

If you've got oil oozing out from that, you put WAY WAY WAY WAY too much oil on it and likely hydrolocked the bolt from achieving the proper torque/angle.

Your only choice is to run it for a few heat cycles and see if it goes away, but I doubt it will. If you've got combustion and or coolant forcing anything out, it's fubar.

Only time I ever had this happen, is when I used my bosses torque wrench at Garage. God knows when it was calibrated I later found out as I used my wrench to recheck the torque and it was like 30ft lbs light. I retorqued them but the damage was already done, and it had only ran about 2min. New gaskets, and torque with my wrench and all good.

DBL_TKE · Posted: Mon Feb 25, 2013 6:26 pm Post subject:

I used a Cornwell digital torque wrench with angle finder. Its nearly brand new, so there's nothing wrong with it. I probably did use too much oil if that's how much you say you should use. I've been taught different and perhaps wrong then. I've never had an issue with any other engine I've done, though. Perhaps its due to the fact that the VR6 head has a much larger surface compared to the Subaru's I usually work on?