Has anyone come across reliability issues with sleeved S2000 blocks (Laskey, Eagle, ERL)? Requesting your insights & experiences please, as I'm trying to assist on failure analysis as described below. Please note - this thread's purpose is to collect research & insights on testing and design tenets surrounding thermal management and associated failure analysis on Honda forced induction motors. It is NOT intended to spur holy wars about tuners, builders, etc. Thank you...

My wife gave me a gift this year, providing me discretionary budget for a professional to tune out the pop & black smoke at 0:23 in this link. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DIxjm...feature=relmfu Changing from RC1000s to ID1000s was a first step, idea being to reduce transitional (6000 RPM mid-throttle on/off) black smoke, likely from the RC1000s poor idle/transient atomization.

I left the car with a shop in January to install & tune it with the ID1000s they had in stock... and the engine failed 15 runs into their tuning process (several 4th gear pulls on a Dynojet back-to-back with 2 minutes between pulls).

Coolant temp has always been 170-175F and the tuner remarked as such, complimenting the over-engineered big radiator, big oil cooler, etc. However, the engine began knocking which it never has. I've run this Laskey (Benson sleeved, stock bore size) 9.0:1 CP forged piston F20C for 5 years (in TX heat, pulling a trailer, with air conditioning, to/from autocross events...) having no issues other than low compression (145 PSI cranking, but no oil loss, and 438/290 at the wheels on 16.5 PSI / 93 octane).

A post-dyno-carnage compression test then showed 110 PSI in holes 1 and 4, so we agreed to tear it down for failure analysis. Analysis revealed that the pistons and bores were scored, with some oil carmelization under the pistons. Link to pics here: F20C_Dec2007-Jan2012 Failure analysis team's conclusion at that time was that the tune I'd been running for 5 yrs prior may have been the primary culprit - even though all my datalogs show knock to be under 1.5v (sleeved block renders knock sensor data nearly useless due to different resonant freq of the block, so I just tuned for minimal knock / smooth curves on dyno & maps, conservative timing, 11.3:1 air/fuel, etc.)

Failure Analyst team did not note any concern about the lack of oil squirters at that time (Lambos and other sleeved blocks run the TX mile no prob without them), and we moved forward with a rebuild. Laskey's approach is to plug the oil squirters underneath the pistons (idea being more oil for the bearings), while ERL and Eagle may leave the Honda squirters in place. If Laskey would have asked me in '07 when he built my motor, I'd have elected to retain the factory's cooling solutions wherever possible, especially in a sleeved, forced induction motor living on the street. Figuring the sleeves conduct less heat from chamber/piston to water jacket (vs. OEM FRM cylinder), the heat has to go somewhere. But Laskey's motor is also the best rebuild I've had in 20 yrs of engine work (never burned oil, no funny noises, etc.), and 5 yrs in Texas heat tuned by an amateur (me) tune is pretty impressive testament; word is he has over 800 motors out there with no problems like this. Not trashing Laskey at all here - solid guy and has provided ideas / support long after the date of sale.

Based on their failure analysis, my tuning/building shop prescribed the new parts (new oil pump, studs, pistons, block work etc.), they re-assembled the motor by April (machine shop delays...) & had 215 PSI compression before firing it up, then 200 PSI after gentle break-in, blood-curdling knock is gone. After some dyno break-in time, they began tuning it in on the dyno... and that build failed 29 runs into the process. Not kidding. Piston scuffs look identical to the pics of the engine failure from January. Cyl 4 is the worst, then 3, then 2. F22C_Apr2012_29Pulls

So now we're wondering if the sleeved block is causing pistons to overheat, exacerbated by the lack of cool-down time (2 minutes) between full-throttle 8+ second 3000-8400 RPM pulls)... and overheating the piston/cylinder oil film / breakdown. Consensus is that the oil squirters would help reduce piston temps, so I'm having fresh oil squirters (with 4-hole bolts) re-installed in the next rebuild.

Have you seen similar failure in other sleeved S2000 motors in general? With or without oil squirters?

Do you recommend other pistons instead of forged CPs at standard clearance?

Do sleeved or stock blocks experience piston scuffing when subjected to back-to-back 2500 to 8500 RPM pulls in 4th gear (which showed line irregularities vs. smoother lines from 3rd gear pulls - possible detonation / overheating the cylinder-pistons). Really appreciate any insights you can provide. Format below is what I'm thinking:

Block: 2.2L Laskey-sleeved, 87.5mm bore, no oil squirters (this will be changed to 88 mm with squirters on next build)
Pistons: 9.6:1 forged CP at standard clearance (thirty-five thousandths)
HG: Cometic custom thickness to yield 9.4:1
Gas: 92 Octane
Dyno: Dynojet, 3-4 fourth gear pulls from 3000 to 8400 wide open, with 2-3 minutes in between pulls, 64F ambient / 110F IAT...
Coolant Temp Range: 165F - 175F (Koyo radiator, PermaCool 600 HP oil cooler, Precision 600 HP intercooler)
Boost: 12 PSI

Next time we plan for no 4th gear, full-span loading. Only 3rd gear pulls of 3000 RPM spans (e.g., 3K-6K, with 10+ min cool-down btwn pull, then a 4K-7K pull, cool-down 10 min, 5K-8K pull, cool down 10 min...)

 

What are your power goals? You should perhaps look into finding/grabbing a stock shortblock if your only running 12psi.

But all in all im thinking a different tuner/shop. A built bottom end should not be failing under 12psi no matter how many pulls you are doing back to back. Either the motor went together wrong or your tuner needs to find another day job.

 

Sorry about your run of bad luck! There could be a couple a key factors at play here, let me try and break it down a little....

1. The oil squirters being removed is NOT the problem, people have done this to Hondas since the get go, and they are probally thousands of B and F series engines out there with no issues, not running the squirters. the whole purpose of them is to lubricate the wrist pins, and piston skirt, but your problem is strange, and if you were having a lubrication issue you would have seen it ALONG time ago, not five years later. I think you are over looking the problem, you have to narrow down your recent changes that have initiated the problem, which brings me to my next point....

2. Cylinders 1 and 4 failed twice in a row, right after an injector change, seems to me like those cylinders could have bad leaky injectors that are possibly sticking open, causing a cylinder wash out, and there for scuffing your pistons/cylinders. Injectors Dynamics makes the BEST injector on the market hands down, but there is ALWAYS a chance of bad injectors, there is always a failure rate in production items, and you could have amazingly got bad injectors. I would flow test and make sure they are behaving like they were designed. Are the battery offset tables (dead times) setup properly for these injectors? Maybe its just 2 bad tunes in a row, but it seems to me its either a bad set of injectors, or bad tuner.....

Good luck my man, I hope you figure this out

 

I remember reading a post somewhere where Billman talked about the need to upgrade AP1 oil bolts. Gave an example of AP1 supercharger's cylinder bore scoring after a couple wot runs after supercharging.

found it...thanks to google. skip to post #20. https://www.s2ki.com/s2000/topic/884...-oil-sprayers/

 

Thanks guys - and an excellent link to the Billman thread, which further supports my premise to retain Honda's thermal management / lubrication solution with those oil jets.

Steel sleeves transfer chamber heat to water jacket slower than aluminum cylinder walls, so heat is more likely to cook the oil btwn cyl wall and piston, and removing the oil jets removes cooling protection from below the piston.

Power goal with this new 9.4:1 2.2L build is simply a little earlier torque and a little more torque vs. my old 9.0:1 2.0L build. Link here is my old 2.0L build with the RC1000s in blue and the shop working their way rightward enhancing the red curve with the ID1000 pro tune. Engine failed during that tuning process, likely due to the lack of time to dissipate heat from the cylinders between runs (exacerbated by lack of oil sprayers). http://picasaweb.google.com/10690396...84320248494226

Keep in mind this was with a 5-yr-old sleeved motor (20K on the build) blowing 145 PSI on compression test. I was told simply freshening up the rings would bring another 10 HP, and I estimate the additional 0.2L in stroke will get me another 10-ish HP and similar torque bump, hopefully 500 RPM earlier than the 2.0L (and yes, I'm reducing redline by 600 RPM due to piston foot-per-second load/calcs to be similar to the factory's 2.0L/2.2L FPS limits).

So figure 450-ish RWHP, maybe 325 lb/ft RWTQ on a more conservative tune & less boost (14-15 PSI), with oil squirters, a VERY gentle break-in and tuning process as I described in my initial note, and about every oil cooling trick I can throw at it. I'll give up 20 HP if it adds reliability, every day of the week. So any ideas are welcomed on that front.

 

PM wadzii and ask for his opinion. I think he'd be a great help here.

 

My personal opinion is that you won't have a "reliable turbo track car" without routine rebuilds and lots of cost. That's why our heavy use autocross and club racing W2W cars are NA. We spend the money on towing and tires, instead. I bought our caged SSB SCCA Club Racing civic fully prepped with spares for $10k. I've spent more than that on motors for the turbo car. I think this is 3rd motor we're on...

 

Id agree, even after speaking to many reputable motor builders, cant really beat the reliability of the OEM block unless youre trying for like 700+ Rwhp.

 

I don't deviate from stock if at all possible, although it's hard to think a sleeved block WITH oil squirters and a conservative tune would be that inferior cooling-wise to a stock FRM situation, assuming really, reeeeally OCD tuning as noted below. I went sleeved in '07 because there were no FRM-friendly pistons available at that time for me to drop compression.

Knock - I don't trust the stock knock sensor on a sleeved motor (different resonant freq than OEM sensor's tuned to "hear"). Baseline knock signature I built in '07 was to make a gentle low-load pull (assuming timing & air/fuel are safe & conservative first) with the wastegate opened (apply enough compressed air to the wastegate port to open it w/o damaging the system, basically turning the engine into a naturally aspirated engine. If memory serves, the knock range without boost was in the 0.5 - 1.2 volt range on the old 2.0L motor in '07 (but I lost my logs from '07). Start gently then apply low-boost (7 PSI) to see what the delta in knock looks like and make adjustments from there before adding boost.

Cyl-to-cyl variances - Since Cyl 4 seemed to suffer the worst damage in both Jan & April failures (and the shop is tagging which injectors are which cylinders from the Jan-Apr build to this new build), is there any injector or timing trims / phasing / offsets that look different for Cyl 4 vs. the others on the current/proposed map (or other S2000 maps the shop / other tuners have done)? Is it advisable & feasible to use the most damaged cylinder (4) as the "weakest link" tuning-wise - ensuring it gets 11.3:1 air/fuel and a hair short of MBT using 92 octane with absolutely minimal knock? Maybe it winds up getting more pulsewidth than the others to ensure safe air/fuel and knock. Taking it further, find out the incremental cost & feasibility to weld a bung in Cyl 4's exhaust runner up top so we can plug an O2 sensor there to keep an eye on it. I'll also volunteer to take vacation and aim an infrared thermometer at #4 and #1 (our best Cyl, IIRC) to minimize discrepancies. I know the injectors checked out flow-wise, but I'm still leery of intermittent issues since the ID1000s are the first thing we changed & caused failure vs. 5 yrs on the RC1000s.

Compression - Is the engine builder delivering a 9.3:1 compression ratio this time, factoring in the measurements they took for combustion chamber volume, block/piston volume, head gasket volume/thickness? Is 9.3:1 too much for pump gas 92 oct targeting 450-ish RWHP/320-ish RWTQ on this build? My calcs show 9.325:1 for a 0.062" / 1.397 head gasket assuming the chambers are 57.7654 ccs, 88 mm bore but that doesn't factor measuring the volume of any dome/dish in the piston, ring lands, etc. I humbly defer to the builder's actual measurements & calcs; just wanted to ask if 9.3:1 is our upper limit & is a head gasket available to hit that. Might be interesting to compare compression from our measured & calculated 9.3:1 build this time vs the 215 PSI from the prior (April) build had (which we thought might be > 9.4:1 given that we were expecting to see 190-ish PSI cranking compression)

Tuning - gentle, China-doll approach. 2nd or 3rd gear pulls only and ideally avoid full-span 3rd gear pulls until we're 97% done. What I mean by part-span pulls is to do a 3K-6K pull, cool down 7-10 minutes, then a 4K-7K pull, cool down 7-10 minutes, 5K-8K, cool down 7-10 min, 6K-8.4K, cool down 7-10 min. Work to a low boost, 7 PSI max map. Goal is to be able to get the cells tuned while reducing the time the pistons/walls see full-load, and giving them time to cool down. I do not want a rolling 3000 to 8400 RPM 4th gear pull. I don't want to risk it on that dyno, and I've never done a rolling start from 3000 RPM to 8400 in 4th gear on an S2000 - not at the dragstrip, not on a road course, not at auto-x (mostly 2nd gear in auto-x as you saw in the vid link I sent you when we started this project). Big HP numbers may be fine for dyno bench racers, but I'd much rather forego bragging rights if I can instead get a car I can trust for years (vs. risking scored walls/pistons - no thanks)

 

you know the KS isn't reliable why do you keep going back to it for setting timing? use the dyno uncorrected to see the tq spikes and dips check the plugs and read up on some plug "reading"!

I street tuned my 200,000 mile turbo civic on 15psi just pulling plugs and I pulled the motor running with 190psi at 250,000miles

sensors and electronics are only so good sometimes going old school is the way to go

as far as the ID injectors being junk I doubt it they are a bosch injector, the germans dont mess around much with precision.

I think your theory of poor cool down cycles and heat building up and tightening clearances to close is the one that makes the most sense to me.