Engine Clanking -WTF!!!
 

Well my car is screwed for awhile now I'm thinking. Here's a quick run-down of what just happened about 20 minutes ago.

** Just got my new TB installed the other day. I started up the car and got the TPS dialed in. Let the car warm up and set the Idle Screw so the car was idling nicely at about 1k. Everything sounded great, and I noticed the car was low on gas. Decided to make the 1 mile round trip to the gas station to fill it up. Got to the gas station, car seemed to be running just fine. Never even got it past 55mph, just a nice leasurly drive.

Filled it up, decided to get a car wash on it since it had lots of water spots and left over pink powder residue. Drove into the car wash, shut the car off. Car wash was done, turned the car on and drove through the dryer. About that time I realised my Tach wasn't working. Once I got back on central, it started bouncing around like maybe there was a loose connection or something. Figured maybe the water from the car wash was messing with the tach signal. I turned on DSMLink, and it was logging RPM's correctly, so I continued on since home is 2 stop lights away.

I'm still driving it normally, no hard accelleration at all. All of a sudden when I'm maybe 200 yards from the 2nd stop light, CLANK CLANK CLANK ***SH!T BOUNCING AROUND IN THE MOTOR *** CLANK CLANK.

Noticed a very very small amount of smoke coming from the rear of the car. Coasted it into the parking lot. First thing I do is pop the hood and look for something obvious. Nothing obvious. I look under the car for any fluids pouring out. Nothing. I crank the motor real quick and it sounds like the compression isn't so hot anymore.

I will be waiting a minute for the sun to go down and traffic to lighten up, and tow it home (only 30 seconds away).

I have no idea as of right now, wtf happened. Car seemed to be running fine. It was idling beautifully, running just fine. Then all of a sudden at maybe 4k RPM, 1/4 throttle, CLANK!

I'm so pissed right now, especially with the DYno Day on Saturday.

Anyone have any ideas or pointers? Is it a coincidince that this happened 1 minute after the RPM gauge stopped working?

Soon as I get it home, first things I'll be doing is removing the valve cover, spark plugs, timing belt cover, and draining the oil which I'm pretty sure will be completely full of metal shavings.

Re: Engine Clanking -WTF!!!
 

That really sucks Brandon :(

Re: Engine Clanking -WTF!!!
 

Damn :(

I wish I could help figure out what it could be. If you need a helping hand tearing into it, call me.

Re: Engine Clanking -WTF!!!
 

check plugs?
maybe you will have your answer!

lets hope you didnt break a valve(s)!

Re: Engine Clanking -WTF!!!
 

That's bad news!! I'm sorry man..

Re: Engine Clanking -WTF!!!
 

Opened up the valve cover, noticed this...
http://www.dsmstyle.com/photopost/data/538/IMG_1155.jpg

Then found this...
http://www.dsmstyle.com/photopost/data/538/IMG_1154.jpg

Pulled out the plugs. That broken rocker was from Cylinder 1. But when I removed the Cyl 1 plug, the gap seemed a little off, but I think I got it better now after getting some advice from Tom (Tpunx). :confused:

http://www.dsmstyle.com/photopost/data/538/IMG_1153.jpg

I compared all 4, they all look good right? Anyone have any advice?
http://www.dsmstyle.com/photopost/data/538/IMG_1151.jpg

I think my engine took a big :crapper::crapper::crapper::crapper::crapper:

Re: Engine Clanking -WTF!!!
 

Ouch! That sucks man.

Re: Engine Clanking -WTF!!!
 

On a positive note, I drained all the oil. The oil has, well, 1 mile on it, and it appears to be pretty clean.

I'll slowly be getting the head off the car to see how it looks inside and see how bad the cylinder walls look. I'm going to go ahead and assume the head is shot. Any body have a single roller rocker they'd be willing to part with?

Re: Engine Clanking -WTF!!!
 

Will you be listing it for sale in the classifieds?

Re: Engine Clanking -WTF!!!
 

as i figured man! lets just hope it was the rocker that was makin the clank! and not the valves! mine was worse! i still have that spark plug somewhere! but that sucks man! i also broke 3 valves off into pistons and scarred the walls bad!

Re: Engine Clanking -WTF!!!
 

Yes, along with those 4 slightly used spark plugs. Deal of the century!

I've been trying to figure out what the Tach runs off, because I find it odd that this happened right after the tach starting going bazerk. Does it run off the CAS? I just checked, and it seems to be plugged in nice and tight. I wonder if the CAS is on it's way out?

Re: Engine Clanking -WTF!!!
 

Yeah, but the rest of that spark plug has to be in there somewhere. Tomorrow after work it looks like I'll be ripping the head off.

Re: Engine Clanking -WTF!!!
 

yeah it melted/warped the shit out of my head too! mine happened right after a rebuild, my lil bro took it for the first test drive and came back without the car! dsmers worst nightmare! haha....

Re: Engine Clanking -WTF!!!
 

See if you can check the height of the top of the piston in cylinder 1 in relation to cylinder 4 with both at TDC. Stick two equal length pencils or somethign in there and measure the tops. Unless there something in there like a broken valve stem, there's not much that could do that to your spark plug. Hopefully it's nothing. I might be able to drop by later tomorrow night if you need an extra set of eyes.

Re: Engine Clanking -WTF!!!
 

That spark plug was very hard to remove. I'm pretty sure even if the rest of the head is somehow magically fine, I'll still have to put a helicoil or do something with that spark plug hole. The heads coming off.

If you want to stop by though, please do so. Maybe I'll have the head off by the time you're here, and you can give me some pointers on how the rest of everything looks (cylinder walls, piston tops, etc.)

Re: Engine Clanking -WTF!!!
 

Wow, that really sucks Brandon!

Re: Engine Clanking -WTF!!!
 

shitty. I have a few rockers and a compleat head sitting here

Re: Engine Clanking -WTF!!!
 

holy shit. I just dont understand how that happened to the plug?

Re: Engine Clanking -WTF!!!
 

wow, i would check for the rest of the parts of the needle bearing.....

Re: Engine Clanking -WTF!!!
 

and on the tach running funny, there is a "power transistor which deals with most of the dash readouts, it has a plug as wide as a 2g maf, when that gets loose or goes bad it would cause a bad readout to the dash, and the ecu... i had the same thing happen on my car, but luckily it was in my driveway and i had a spare...

Re: Engine Clanking -WTF!!!
 

I got a whole bag of em. and a lifter, and valve spring. I also have a head if you need it. Just let me know.

Re: Engine Clanking -WTF!!!
 

Did something somehow get into your IC piping and through the manifold into the engine? I don't know if that could have caused that to happen to the spark plug, just a guess. Maybe dropped something when you were putting it all together today?

Re: Engine Clanking -WTF!!!
 

You said you had just washed your car right?

Did you spray under hood? Could've hydro locked that cylinder but It would have happened right away possibly cracking a piston skirt.

Probably not what happened though as you would've noticed right away.

Re: Engine Clanking -WTF!!!
 

Thanks for the concerns everyone.

To answer some questions. Andrew, I suppose it is always possibly that somehow, something was inside a pipe that I didn't know about. It wasn't all that complicated to put the TB on. 4 nuts. And None of them were missing. If something is in there, I suppose I'll see it tomorrow when I have the head off. Maybe I've been missing a 10mm socket and I don't even know it yet, and it'll show up in Cyl 1!

Brian, yes I had just gotten the car washed. It was the Holiday gas station's drive thru touchless wash. My hood does have a big hole/vent in it, so it's possible that some water could have gotten into the engine bay. But to hydrolock the motor, I'm thinking that woul dhave happened instantly right? I mean, I drove for maybe 2 minutes after getting out of the car wash, and the car was running just fine. THen all a sudden, out of blue while in 3rd gear going a whopping 45mph, the horrible sounds started.

Tomorrow will hopefully shed a little light on things.

Re: Engine Clanking -WTF!!!
 

Ah didnt know it was just the TB you put on. Not likely then.

Sorry to hear man, hope the damage is minimal. I'll probably stop by tomorrow if you'll be home working on it before 9.

Re: Engine Clanking -WTF!!!
 

Sorry man! Same type of thing happened to me on Sunday. Car overheated so i put coolant in and went to start with the radiator cap off and it looked like a fountain gushing out. This is by the way what happened to me on the way home from getting my car from a fresh head gasket job!! Turns out that the head is warped and this has been my problem for the last year with pushing coolant and going through 3 different kinds of head gaskets.

Re: Engine Clanking -WTF!!!
 

Use a straight edge to check the head when you do a head gasket. It doesn't take a lot to warp a DSM head from overheating.

Re: Engine Clanking -WTF!!!
 

Fucking cars... :( Brandon, let me know if you need help wrenching in the evening this week.

Re: Engine Clanking -WTF!!!
 

Damn, sorry to hear about that. It crazy how one minute a car will be perfectly fine and then BOOM, its like night and day. :( Hope you get it back up adn running in time for dyno day.

Re: Engine Clanking -WTF!!!
 

sorry to hear b man let me know if u need something

Re: Engine Clanking -WTF!!!
 

That sucks so bad brandon. :( Im really feeling for ya, especially with the dyno day that was coming up. Ugh I hate cars.. never work when you want them too.

Hope the damage isnt too bad. Im still kinda stumped as to how that could happen, unless a rod broke and threw the piston up at the spark plug.

:(

Re: Engine Clanking -WTF!!!
 

I just noticed something in this picture....

http://www.dsmstyle.com/photopost/data/538/IMG_1155.jpg

Look how high up that valve spring is... I'm willing to bet that the valve is not connected to the valve stem any longer. :(

Re: Engine Clanking -WTF!!!
 

Yup, maybe broken valve. Sucky :(

Brandon, I washed my 1G once (under the hood) with a bunch of water, some directly on the CAS. The car would NOT start afterwards, I killed the CAS. No way this would cause this, but related info....is your filter still down by the wheel? There's almost no way you'd hydrolock the motor with it way down there, hanging downwards especially. The water would just drain out, unless the filter got absolutely soaked and then you sucked in some water as you started the car. Still fairly unlikely considering how your filter/mas is situated.

LOL @ the spark plug pic and comment, you are funny man! Keep your head up through this, I know it sucks. I have a head that needs a rebuild that you can have for cheap cheap, and a ton of parts to go with it.

Post more pics when you get the head off, but maybe do the TDC height check on Cyl 1 vs 4 before ya yank it off just for giggles.

I dunno, it almost has to be hydrolock, I don't know what else it'd be....

Re: Engine Clanking -WTF!!!
 

I had an intake just like brandon, with the filter down in the wheel well. One day driving home there was a huge rain storm and all of a sudden in front of me the road had about 6 inches of water, I couldnt stop in time and rolled right in it. Car died, trying cranking it over and it wouldnt run. So I sat there waiting for AAA. Got the car home, emptied probably a gallon of water from the IC piping and core.

Car started right up once everything was dry, I had a GM maft in blow through also.

Hope it didnt hydrolock, doesnt sound like it did, as it would have died right away.

Re: Engine Clanking -WTF!!!
 

It looks fine. You cant compare the spring to anything because the cam is pushing the valve open on cyl #2 and compressing the spring almost all the way down. So there for it looks like the spring on cyl #1 is way higher.


Can you turn the motor over by hand?

Re: Engine Clanking -WTF!!!
 

Which advice from me are you referring to?

Re: Engine Clanking -WTF!!!
 

Man, that sucks!

Is your air filter still on? Maybe the car wash knocked it loose if its in the wheel well area or low hanging? I'm guessing you already checked that.

later,
Curt

Re: Engine Clanking -WTF!!!
 

Time to pull the head, it looks like something look a trip threw your motor. The plug looks that way from stuff smashing into it.

~John

Re: Engine Clanking -WTF!!!
 

It was sarcasm. I just imagined you coming on here, and posting a real thread, asking how to gap that plug because you aren't sure where the gap is :) I joke I kid.

Re: Engine Clanking -WTF!!!
 

haha... and i dont think it was from anything gettin into the motor. it was the NOS!