L33 apart - help reading pistons/valves
12-09-2013, 07:53 PM
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Hi all. I just pulled the heads off of my motor due to a suspected HG issue, which turned out to not be the case. A few of the pistons look a little strange...I'm not sure what to make of them. I did a quick leak test on the valves and found one exh valve leaking. I plan to pull it out and inspect, then hopefully lap it in.
I'm trying not to get too caught up in making the engine perfect (my tendency is toward the slippery slopes, much to my wife's chagrin), though it sees regular track duty. I actually pulled it for other reasons, but now that I see the internals, it has raised some red flags.
I'm not quite sure what to make of the pistons with clean edges. They looks to be adjacent to coolant passages, but then again, most of the piston is close to them. Plus, the HGs looked okay...though this is my first time with MLS...still figuring out how to read them.
Rings? Really don't want to open the can o' worms that is the bottom end, but I do want to take care of any glaring issues.
Not sure about the color of the exhaust valves. It's not so much the color as it is the variance and range of colors.
The car has had some pin-holes and header gasket leaks that I have been tracking down, and I have had a heck of a time getting plug wires that I can connect reliably and do not melt on the headers (this is a swap car). The car now runs okay, esp considering it has a mail order, unrevised tune.
These piston tops are untouched.
I'm trying not to get too caught up in making the engine perfect (my tendency is toward the slippery slopes, much to my wife's chagrin), though it sees regular track duty. I actually pulled it for other reasons, but now that I see the internals, it has raised some red flags.
I'm not quite sure what to make of the pistons with clean edges. They looks to be adjacent to coolant passages, but then again, most of the piston is close to them. Plus, the HGs looked okay...though this is my first time with MLS...still figuring out how to read them.
Rings? Really don't want to open the can o' worms that is the bottom end, but I do want to take care of any glaring issues.
Not sure about the color of the exhaust valves. It's not so much the color as it is the variance and range of colors.
The car has had some pin-holes and header gasket leaks that I have been tracking down, and I have had a heck of a time getting plug wires that I can connect reliably and do not melt on the headers (this is a swap car). The car now runs okay, esp considering it has a mail order, unrevised tune.
These piston tops are untouched.
Last edited by TurboSportTSi; 12-09-2013 at 11:03 PM.
12-11-2013, 11:43 AM
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Do you know the history of the engine since it was a swap?
These pictures look to me like a High mile 150K plus engine with lack of regular oil changes and maintenance. A few "100K" engines I bought on ebay to say the least were not 100K more like 200K work truck engines with a lot of heat cycles thrown at them and a lack of maintenance..they look very simialr to what you have, they ran fine but I pulled them apart to do basic gasket changes and found the same..
I would have tried a leak down before pulling it apart or a compression test at a minimum so you could get an idea of the engines condition.
Also what plugs are you running in it... they look like they may be to hot of a plug or you are running a little lean... the timing looks ok but the porcelin is fairly white while the electrode and end are colored...on most of them.. Kind of hard to tell with just pictures
These pictures look to me like a High mile 150K plus engine with lack of regular oil changes and maintenance. A few "100K" engines I bought on ebay to say the least were not 100K more like 200K work truck engines with a lot of heat cycles thrown at them and a lack of maintenance..they look very simialr to what you have, they ran fine but I pulled them apart to do basic gasket changes and found the same..
I would have tried a leak down before pulling it apart or a compression test at a minimum so you could get an idea of the engines condition.
Also what plugs are you running in it... they look like they may be to hot of a plug or you are running a little lean... the timing looks ok but the porcelin is fairly white while the electrode and end are colored...on most of them.. Kind of hard to tell with just pictures
Last edited by speer13; 12-11-2013 at 11:51 AM.
12-11-2013, 12:18 PM
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Do you know the history of the engine since it was a swap?
These pictures look to me like a High mile 150K plus engine with lack of regular oil changes and maintenance. A few "100K" engines I bought on ebay to say the least were not 100K more like 200K work truck engines with a lot of heat cycles thrown at them and a lack of maintenance..they look very simialr to what you have, they ran fine but I pulled them apart to do basic gasket changes and found the same..
I would have tried a leak down before pulling it apart or a compression test at a minimum so you could get an idea of the engines condition.
Also what plugs are you running in it... they look like they may be to hot of a plug or you are running a little lean... the timing looks ok but the porcelin is fairly white while the electrode and end are colored...on most of them.. Kind of hard to tell with just pictures
These pictures look to me like a High mile 150K plus engine with lack of regular oil changes and maintenance. A few "100K" engines I bought on ebay to say the least were not 100K more like 200K work truck engines with a lot of heat cycles thrown at them and a lack of maintenance..they look very simialr to what you have, they ran fine but I pulled them apart to do basic gasket changes and found the same..
I would have tried a leak down before pulling it apart or a compression test at a minimum so you could get an idea of the engines condition.
Also what plugs are you running in it... they look like they may be to hot of a plug or you are running a little lean... the timing looks ok but the porcelin is fairly white while the electrode and end are colored...on most of them.. Kind of hard to tell with just pictures
I bought the motor from a junkyard--it said that it had high mileage (somewhere in the 200 +/- 40 range, IIRC), but it came with comp & leakdown info, which looked really good...I took a gamble and bought it, thinking that maybe it had been a replacement motor at some point, since the vehicle mileage was high and the engine seemed like it could be low mile.
I opened it up and the inside was a bit sludgy...deposits everywhere. I've been running Rotella all year and it has really cleaned up a lot of the deposits. Hopefully if it has sticking rings, it will take care of that too, in time. The motor hasn't had a whole lot of run time since I've had it, so more should help.
I did not do comp or leakdown due to lack of access to spark plug holes...header design. I had to pull it out anyway and figured a set of head gaskets couldn't hurt regardless.
The motor had Bosch single electrode platinums in it, which looked okay, so I kept them. I recently switched to TR55s, so the plugs you see have 1 track day and about a day of commuting on them.
I plan on a least hitting a dyno once it's back together just to make sure it's not running lean...with any luck, I can get a proper tune instead.
