I shoulda know, I felt it, but ignored it, but who knows I usually have bad things happen to me. Anyways few weeks ago I took my car out finally after dusting it off and wanted to take for spin and update the tune since it was much warmer outside in NJ. My LC1 has always given me problems and from one day to another readings would be so so consistent until the car runs hot and it craps out. When tuning I did a WOT run and all my readings were pinned pig rich at 9.0. WTF?? Done with LC1.

Few days ago, install the NGK wbo2 sensor and readings seemed much more stable, but a little different than what the LC1 read. Go for a tuning session to update my VE table for the 100* weather and all seemed fine, not doing any WOT runs. Would still get a little bit of a weird reading here or there. Do a couple WOT runs in 3rd when already cruising on up to 6krpms and all was fine. Did a good 4th gear pull up to red line and then let go the gas and put into neutral and use my brakes to slow down. Wasn't paying attention to anything else as was about to get caught by an upcomming traffic light so I popped it into 5th to step on the gas and low behold behind me was a pile of smoke. Pull to side of the road pop the hood real quick and notice the oil dip stick popped out and oil spilled all over.

Cleaned everything up today, washed down the engine, analyzed everything I could possibly see and my conclusion is the dip stick blew out for some odd reason. Car seemed to run fine on way back home but I limped it in fear something was seriously wrong.

Tonight after cleaning everything off I go to start and whatdya know, it doesn't start very well,.... at all!!! I had to keep the rpms up till the car warmed up. Car started to run fine, heated up, rev'd it up to around 3krpm and all seemed okay. Then smoke comes out the exhaust.

Did a before after cylinder balance test. The before test was hard to do because the IAC control only goes up to 127 steps. Car doesn't idle all that well. Did a few runs with the test and put on a word doc. The after blow out I did another cylinder balance test and it was very hard to keep the car running at IAC 127 steps, very hard, but ran through the test anyway.... very dismal results

Did a scan at idle reving up a couple times. Posting that too.

What does everything thing. Bent velves, pushrods, rings are gone???

 

Sounds like you have a Ring issue, Looks like the Famous #7. Do a good run down of the easy to verify items.. Then I would pull a head if that didnt yeild a bad coil/plug/pushrod/valve/rocker/injector.

 

Only one way to find out for sure. You know the answer, tear it down.

 

I agree with nysbadmk8, I had a simular issue right before I put #7 through the side of my block. My tune was way to rich and I washed the rings out, car started to smoke, blew the dipstick tube out, wouldn't idle worth a crap looking back on it I never ran a compression check but I am sure that is why it was running poorly.

Here is an easy way to check for a ring issue. Start the car pull the dipstick out with it running put your finger over the hole for a few seconds, then take your finger off. If it has a vacuum you might be alright. If it builds up pressure then you have a problem.

If it has pressure shut the engine off and dont start it again until you get into the bottom end. Running the car with a ring problem will tear up the cylinder walls costing you more money to repair the block also ultimately the piston skirts will break, and it will throw a rod. That is not a question of if only when mine ran a week back and forth to work babying it.

I hope for your sake it doesnt build up pressure.

 

What really sucks is I do not have the time, tools, or $$ for tearing down and rebuilding. Ever since I got my house (reason for car sitting in garage for so long) moneys been tight.

My brother has a pressure tester (ford techie) and is going to bring home for the weekend, but as mentioned above, I don't think the pressure tester is going to tell much if there is a ring issue. I did pull the PCV valve while the car was running and the intake portion was sucking pretty good, but the valve cover side was blowing air pretty steadily with some smoke in it. Not a plum of smoke or anything like that, just enough to visibly see easily.

 

Nevermind

 

A leakdown test will tell you everything you need to know........

 

yeah, unfortunately that requires me to bring to a shop regardless

Upset and really wanna right now. Car only has 30kmi that's it! And I rarely ever beat on it other than a few tune sessions. Could throw the car back onto the showroom floor and people would think it sat in a bubble since '02.

 

Your ford tech doesnt have a leakdown tester or can borrow one from someone at his work? Thats what you need right there and will tell you if its a ring issue or not.

 

^^^^


only way to know for sure...

 

Maybe it was the tuning that did it? Just food for thought..

 

I dunno, could be anything at this point. There was knock retard going on but at lower rpms and lower loads i was going to pull some spark at or add some fueling. No knock at WOT and a little lean since was 100+ degrees out but that's why I wanted to fine tune, esp in this weather as it's perfect as the car will run a little richer when cooler out but good during hot days of traffice on the highway.

Pull plugs 3, 5, and 7. Plug 7 had a little oil on the threads and a tiny bit on the arch of the ground on the plug

 

Well I guess your dip stick was forced out by high crank case pressure. And I guess that's happening because your piston rings aren't cutting the mustard. Does the oil smell strongly of fuel?

 

Drained the oil last night, nothing came out metal wise, and there was nothing on the end of the drain plug where the little magnet is. Didn't smell the oil, but I don't remember anything being off. Still have the oil filter to the side so maybe I'll stick my nose in it and smell when I get home from work, lol!

So thoughts are maybe fuel is passing by the cylinder? Also curious as to why the WBO2 sensor would pick up the exhaust mixture as being rich after the dip stick blew out?

Pulled the drivers side cat down a bit, or as far as I could wrench it without removing my exhaust system and didn't see anything floating there. No rattle either when banging around. Didn't have time last night to do the passenger side. Was thinking this was a good area to check for metal fragments as well.

 

Think of what happens inside the engine if the ring(s) aren't sealing. It makes sense with what you are seeing.

The compression stroke is not properly compressing the combustion charge. The actual dynamic compression is low and combustion is poor. Also, some of that mix of air and fuel is blowing by the rings, not getting burned, and instead it's ending up below the piston and in the crank case. This would lead to fuel and increased vapor pressure down in there. (Why the dipstick blew out.)

The intake stroke might not be working so well either. Poor oil control. I imagine there could be a mixture of oil and oily vapor from below being mixed in with the "normal" intake charge. Plenty more could be going wrong throughout the rest of the cycle...

Do it over and over and what you end up with is oil where there should be fuel mix, and fuel mix where there should be oil.

It follows that you would see rich exhaust readings from a wo2 sensor.

I'm not a tuner or an expert on any of this ****, but I think if you look at your fuel trims for each bank, it may be revealing and narrow it down to which bank is having a problem. Certainly a compression test would tell a lot.

How may miles on this rig? And is it knocking or ticking at all? These stock piston tend to break ring lands when thing go wrong. (Especially #7)

I hope I'm mistaken but I think you have internal problems.

 

This tuning approach is not consistent with reality. You pin down your fueling to get the desired air:fuel ratio (stoich for part throttle, 12.8 or whatever you like for WOT) and then optimize your timing advance.


This is also hard to interpret. If you're running closed loop, and have MAF and VE tables that are reasonably accurate, the PCM will trim the fueling up or down as needed to maintain stoich target at part throttle.

Are you running MAF-less speed density and/or open loop?

 

You'll likely find you have damaged a piston, which is allowing the crankcase to become pressurized. It's time for the engine to come out.

There are good shops to choose from in NJ, depending on where you're located. ECS, TTP, etc. are all established LS1 specialty shops that can get you back together.

 

Car is full heads/cam/intake, etc and running mafless SD, so no such thing as fuel trims for me. Fueling was good except for a few cells that were outside normal stop/go traffic type driving which I was trying to flatten out which, depending on what cells the knock occurred (which were far below 100 in the VE table for WOT) I would have pulled spark. The knock could have been those lean areas, or too large a difference in certain transitions but not sure. Since this happened I haven't dug in to see deeper.

WOT up to top is commanding 12.8 and around 22-24*, and before redline I richen it up a little to be safe, somewhere around 12.6-12.4. Don't have my laptop with me right now so not sure.

Since heads and intake were put on (I've had the cam for a while), I've only driven the car 2kmi through the past 2.5 years. Maybe the added compression just took the ring out or something?

Dunno, in either case my car is on a flat bed on it's way up to Matt at TTP. Crossing my fingers...

 

You're in very good hands w/ Matt and his guys. Do your engine a favor and pay him to tune it, especially if you've just got to run SD with no closed loop.

 

Can almost guarantee you that there is a busted ring land or something with one or more of your pistons. If you were running high compression, real fat fuel, and washed down the rings...AND there was ANY pinging going on...good chance you rattled the ring lands off one or more of the slugs.

I agree with the above. Pay someone to tune it for you and ask if they can talk you through what they are doing.

I will be doing this for my build.

Good luck!!!