Repair to Build/Build to Repair

Not sure if this is going to be a real build dairy or if it’s going to just say what I’ve done and ask a few questions and hope for some info. Probably more the latter

Anyhow. I picked up my 2012 back in 2014 with about 30k miles on it. It’s now got 175k and boy, have there been many proverbial and literal roads traveled.

In a way the current build starts about 3 years ago. The car was 100% stock until just about 130k miles when the engine let go. It started with a ticking which was attributed to timing chain slack or general noise. It may very well have been since the chain seemed to have stretched and was pretty damn loose when we did it but it wasn’t the actual issue. The noise never entirely went away and got a lot more... knocky after a month or so and i also noticed I was going through a good bit of oil. My assumption was bad oil control rings and then oil deprivation. I knew it was just a matter of time, but I also knew aside from stopping then and there and doing an engine swap or rebuild there wasn’t much to do so I just sort of kept driving on it – this car has been my daily since the day I got it.

It finally let go on the highway doing about 80. Everything sounded fine(ish) and seemed okay and then suddenly KNOCKKNOCKKNOCKKNOCKKNOCK, car died and wouldn’t start. Had it towed back to my shop and got it inside the next day, pulled the pan and balance plate off and number 2 was basically bearing-less.

I took a couple days and decided that I was going to keep the car, put an engine in it and while I was doing that I might as well…..

That might as well list ended up VERY long. I replaced the front end; control arms, tie rods, end links, bar bushings, struts and mounts (all with stock stuff) did the rears shocks and links and bushings too, did a clutch and flywheel while I was there (also stock) and then got on to my list of upgrades. Corksport CTS4 turbo, Corksport 3in intake, Corksport high-flow cat downpipe, accessport (of course), Corksport HPFP internals, as well as a new Corksport steering wheel and shift knob. All that got bolted on to a NAPA IronClad reman engine.

It was pretty smooth sailing from there, we got the engine and new parts in, got a base map from Justin over at Freektune and then he got me all dialed in on the actual tune. Even managed to figure out for me that my injectors were failing thanks to the data we were getting on logs. As someone who runs an auto shop for a living what that dude can do with just data and logs is honestly magical.

So, it’s been great since then, a solid 35,000 miles of daily commuting plus some little bit longer trips. I drive about 25 miles each way to work so it’s not like the thing sits.

A few weeks ago I started noticing some issues. Firstly I noticed on my oil change that it looked like I was leaking. Took some pictures and sent them to corksport as it looks like the center seal on the turbo and the whole turbo air system is oil soaked. Not dripping, mind you, but it’s all got oil in it. The intercooler, the hoses, all of it is just generally coated in oil. They get back to me with the speed they usually do (IE about 8 hours I think) and suggest that with what I’m seeing It’s probably NOT the turbo and more likely blow by, do a compression test and leak down.

Compression is okay-ish at about 140PSI on all 4 and it takes a few days to get my leak down tester and do that. Meanwhile I notice that I’m not getting the bosst I should be. Granted I probably have been losing boost for ages but I finally notice that on WOT in any gear I’m not even able to peg out the factory boost guage and the last data we got when we were finalizing the tune was 24Psi so yeah. Very low. I might have notioced sooner but I don’t drive with et accessport intstalled. The tune is good, the car is good, I just don’t like having it in the car hooked up all the time.

So, from there it takes a couple days and I do the leakdown test, the results are, well, AWFUL. At 75 psi the cylinder holds about 20 psi and I can hear it in the exhaust so what something like 80% leakage? I actually thought my gauge was broken. So between that and the blow by it’s time to just do a rebuild. The engine hasn’t let go yet so I’m not worried about block or crank damage and if the new engines are only good at my tune/build for 30k that doesn’t seem like a very good value.

The current plan is:

Manley H Beam Rods

Manley 2618 Platinum 87.5MM Pistons

Clevite Bi Metal Main bearings

Clevite Rod Bearings

OEM Head Bolts and Gasket – I read the whole discussion/information form here on that about 3 times and I think that makes the most sense.

-all that comes in a kit from Graveyard Performance

Supertech 6mm Valve Set

I intend on posting more updates and some pictures as I have them though if anyone has any more suggested reading for me, I’d be happy to look that over and any ideas on the whole valve spring thing would be cool too.

I’m not actually concerned about the mechanical doing-the-work portion of this as I’ve done a couple rebuilds in the past and have a couple amazing techs that work for me that are going to help out but the performance upgrade portion of this build is something new for all of us.

 

Thought I’d post an update as a handful of things have happened – most of them not good.

So firstly the delay – car got in an accident. Traffic stopped and the guy behind me didn’t and gave me a good ol shove into the guy in front of me. No insurance of course but I’m insured. 6500 dollars of Progressive’s money later and she’s back. The best thing is it’s needed a new front and rear bumper and both fenders for a MINUTE now so I’m actually pretty glad it happened.

Drove it for a day or so and then decided to finally get started, the 8 or so weeks in body meant I’ve had a multi-thousand dollar pile of parts sitting in my living room for a lot longer than I was hoping for.

Managed to get the engine out in an afternoon – probably took about 4 or 5 hours I think? Maybe more. Not exactly sure, took my time, took it easy, made sure to bag and label pretty much every set of bolts so I’d have a hope of remembering where things go.

At that time the plan was pull the engine Sunday, get it apart through the week and the head off for machining and new valves and then the next Sunday get the bottom end put together with the new pistons and bearings and then get the head back, back together through the week and back in the next Sunday. Except her ewe are the Tuesday after what was supposed to be the reinstall Sunday and… No.

So coming apart was pretty easy, cleaning all the surfaces getting set up to while away my afternoon doing ring gaps and something was very wrong. The gap was WAY too big on the rings. Something close to 0.1mm (and not 0.01) and the pistons are also too small and just flopped all over in the bore. About 2 days of emailing back and forth with graveyard performance – who have been fantastic - and doing a ton of measuring and I’ve come to find that the bottom of this block has been bored. The pistons are more like 88 mm instead of the factory 87.5mm which isn’t awful, looks like a somewhat standard bore-over actually, buuuuut I got itout to another shop that does engine block work and had it properly measured to find that number 2 cylinder is not actually round and the machine shop said likely cracked.

To make it even better, in the middle of all that I get first a call from the machine shop my head is at that they need new valve guides – no biggie, got those and then once they get those I get another call that the valves are wrong and they don’t sit in the guides. Lots of back and forth with edge autosport – who were fantastic as well, and while they can get me the right valves, since the box of parts sat for so long it’s outside their suppliers return window.

Thankfully the silver lining to that is that I got in touch with Supertech directly and they are going to take the valves back and give me a credit towards the right ones. It’s not ideal but it’s better than throwing away 500 bucks worth of valves.

At this point the plan is to try to source a block and crank (since this one has almost certainly been honed as well, which I wasn’t considering) and see where I get from there. At this point I literally have no idea how long this 2 week project is going to take, probably another couple months at least. Ugh.

 

Don't forget you do have the option to throw Darton Dry Sleeves in and start over at 87.5mm. You'll need the machine shop to install the sleeves and that's not the cheapest thing, but you should end up with a bulletproof block that can handle everything you throw at it! And by going back to 87.5mm you have the opportunity to blow it up and bore it out too so its a win win lol I've found 2 shops local to me that will do the sleeves with final bore and hone for around $200 per cylinder. The sleeves cost $400 so you're looking at a brand new block essentially for $1,200 - probably cheaper than you'll find a good shape block IMO

 

Looking at it, that seems like it might be a great option. I'm going to reach out to them and make sure that will work on this block but I really like that idea.