!!!! - HELP - !!!! Loud knocking sound from motor...

[Wes Chapman]

What kind of oil do you run?  

I run 20w50 on both my motors.  The new one is fairly loose to handle bigger power on forged internals and the thick oil has the good film strength on the bearings if you see any detonation.  On the old stock motor with 300k kms I'm also running it because the clearances have got to be getting pretty loose on that motor and it can't hurt.  Plus all the reading I've done on oils says the only reason we're seeing these lightweight oils is to help meet CAFE fuel economy standards.  Better fuel economy means you can sell more cars in general and better economy in the small cars leaves more room for the manufacturers to offer guzzler SUVs with high profit margins.  The thinner oil will keep a motor together past warranty so it's a no-lose for the manufacturer.  

Couple that with reformulated oil blends that eliminate the really good additives because they're harmful to the environment and the thicker oil really can't hurt.  This reformulation is apparently a good share of the cause of flat tappet lifter failure in the pushrod v8 world, which apparently is becoming something of an epidemic.  

I can't/won't say it's the cause of what happened but possibly a contributor.  

As far as detonation saying "no chance of that, I run 91" is almost laughable.  No offence intended, it's just the way it is.  You can melt motors down on 94, quickly even.  You can definitely have knock on any pump gas.  Even leaded race gas isn't always a cure all for detonation, tho it is far less likely in that case.  

What was your boost pressure?  Raising the boost too much on an otherwise stock motor is a sure way to bring on detonation.

There's a lot of things that could potentially kill a performance motor.  Detonation is a huge one, it's always suspect on anything boosted or high compression.  It's hard on pistons, especially right lands, and also on rods and bearings.  Overheating is another fairly big one.  Either the stock system is inadequate, or extended high stress use can do that.  Also, something to watch, especially on a turbo motor is exhaust gas temperature.  Extended high speed operation or high throttle hill climbing can put alot of heat in the exhaust and potentially burn valves or damage turbos.  Oil starvation is another one, not so common tho, often caused by something careless, excessive RTV breaking off and clogging a passage, garbage in the pan, oil pump/pickup failure, low oil.  

I've said it before and I'll say it again, good guages are a good way to safeguard a motor.

Good post.  I think I'm going to invest in analog oil pressure, and tempeture gauges to help in the future.  


I was running 10-30 QS oil before failure.  What about running synthetic oil?


When I said "no chance of that, I run 91" I was told and thought that the knock sensor would detect any knock, and immediately retard the timing. Does this sensor not do that?  Or is it not quick enough to prevent damage?


I was at 10psi or so when doing 120+ kms, and the MBC kicks in at 15 psi.  In the future Ill have an electronic BC.   If I run the new motor I'm picking up tomorrow at the same psi am I likely to have the same problem in the future?  Or will the added gauges/knowledge/thicker oil/etc alleviate this potential failure?

[Derek Fung]

with a spike of 15psi with 28killa you will most likely damage your new motor without any fuel mods.

motor will go *POOF*

[Mike Schmid]

So you've got a bigger than stock turbo and higher than stock boost.  The ECU doesn't have enough range to eliminate knock by itself on a setup like that.  The ECU is only really has enough control to save the stock engine in good tune with bad gas or maybe being slightly out of tune.  It's definitely not enough that you don't need worry about how high you turn the boost up.  

An electronic boost controller won't change what happened any.  Providing it's set the same as the MBC you should still have the same boost at the same RPM or if anything more boost, especially under acceleration, because of the different operating characteristics of the EBC.  

What you really need is to be able to log knock, see where it's knocking, tune that knock out and figure out when you need to back out of it on long pulls up hills and the like.  I've got DSMLink in one of my cars and it's a great, easy to use, and quite powerful program.  It's alot more money than just a logger tho, but a logger won't let you change anything, only view, DSMLink does both.  I don't know much about the OBDII loggers because I'm a 1G guy.  if you can get something that runs on a palm pilot that can be real handy, I mounted mine up by the dash vents and use it like a guage sometimes.  It gives a real good idea of what kind of conditions cause knock and can give some other general feedback on your driving style/ECU operation as it relates to fuel economy, for instance.

A Wideband 02 sensor is also a great tool to have to monitor your engine tune.  

Have you taken the motor apart yet to find out what's wrong?  There should be some good signs in there of what went wrong.   Which will in turn tell you how to keep it from happening in the future.

[John Hartman]

oh and run 94 octane fuel if running more than stock boost and a bigger than stock turbo

[Wes Chapman]

What about a 6bolt replacement?

[lyle chavez]

just get a 6 bolt

[Wes Chapman]

almost done...  hanging off the the picker in my engine bay now!    I miss my car!

[Ryan Lore]

Unless that's special paint, you are going to have one hell of a smoke show when you fire that thing up.

[Wes Chapman]

Unless that's special paint, you are going to have one hell of a smoke show when you fire that thing up.

Aluminum engine enamel from CT


The smoke will come from my tires, when I leave the garage for the last time!

[Jeetinder Ghataurah]

Well dude, i can tell you that the paints heat capacity will onyl hold on certain areas.  You manifold, turbo, engine head and 02 housing will become too hot and the paint will discolor, everywhere else will be fine...trust me my engine is green

[John Hartman]

looks pretty now, but I agree, the exhaust manifold, turbine housing and O2 housing are FOR SURE going to smoke off very nastily and flake and look like crap.  Also anything close to them will also discolour and burn off.

Even the exhaust manifold heat shield(the top one) is double walled and needs 1200deg paint.  I tried it with high heat brake caliper paint(good to 450deg) and it lasted about 1 block from a cold fire-up.  And thats double walled and insulated.

[Wes Chapman]

fuk I hope it doesn't turn green!!    Oh well... too late now



Its mounted, and I'm just connecting all the remaining odds and ends.  Cant wait to have my wheels back, getting cold on my motorcycle at night.

[Artem Goloubov]

DSM is turning ordinary people into mechanics since 1990.

So is this a 6bolt? Did you taken apart old motor to see it inside?

[Wes Chapman]

DSM is turning ordinary people into mechanics since 1990.

So is this a 6bolt? Did you taken apart old motor to see it inside?

No, its a JDM 7-bolt.  I had to swap over pretty much everything.  Did a compression test, and all is good and even across the board, so I'm taking my chances on the internals being good.  I'm going to run 1030 penzoil synthetic, and keep a sharp eye on my oil levels, and new gauges.  Fingers and toes crossed, while knocking on wood that it'll be reliable for me.

[Wes Chapman]

Also, I've got 510cc injectors from the JDM motor I'm going to use.  The old ones were 450cc.  If set the BC to 12 to 15 will I be safe with the KT-28 or will I still have to be extremely careful of the boost level spiking or rising to quick?