HSV Dyno day Oct SRR
Discussion
stevieturbo said:
EmmaJ said:
It's definitely oily smoke from the exhaust not oil and the catch can is plumbed "inline" with the breathers coming from the crank case to the catch can and then onwards to the air intake. The can also has a manual oil return line back to the sump (which will ultimately have a non-return valve fitted so that it'll automatically drain down but for quickness it's currently fitted with a temp manual drain tap.
The reason for fitting the catch can was that I had oil misting issues and oil was being chucked out of the breathers and into the air intake and I use to get a puff of smoke on upshifts. That's been solved by fitting the can so oil must be getting in the exhaust some other way (I think) either past the piston rings or via the exhaust valve seat seals - maybe.
Next steps is the vent the catch can to somewhere other then the air intake and see if it's allowing oil through it (which I doubt). If it isn't then we'll be looking at something internal in the engine .
That's the gory truth and it sounds worse than it probably is, so there isn't much point in speculating further without hard facts.
Where in the air intake ? open air near the air filter inlet ? Or do you mean within the sealed area of the intake manifold ?The reason for fitting the catch can was that I had oil misting issues and oil was being chucked out of the breathers and into the air intake and I use to get a puff of smoke on upshifts. That's been solved by fitting the can so oil must be getting in the exhaust some other way (I think) either past the piston rings or via the exhaust valve seat seals - maybe.
Next steps is the vent the catch can to somewhere other then the air intake and see if it's allowing oil through it (which I doubt). If it isn't then we'll be looking at something internal in the engine .
That's the gory truth and it sounds worse than it probably is, so there isn't much point in speculating further without hard facts.
It should be easy to see if the can is allowing oil past...as well...you'll see the oil in that area.
Oil past the exhaust guides/valves is rare, simply because there is almost always higher pressure in there to prevent it happening other than at shutdown. Plus the valve stem seals should eliminate oil there too. Certainly it would need to be a major problem to cause visible smoke, especially under load due to a valve guide problem.
Pistons/rings, unless the seal is very poor, they still shouldnt smoke.
My engine's been used and abused for 4 years now, had a few problems and does breathe much heavier than I'd like.
But with a good can/breather setup it doesnt pass any oil at all externally, and exhausts are always clean and smoke free.
A drain back to the sump from the can should be fully automatic. This drain ideally should be below the level of the oil in the sump so crankcase pressure doesnt blow back up into the bottom of the can. Not totally critical, but ideal is below the level of oil
A can with a return in that manner requires almost no maintenance.
Does the engine actually use much oil ?
Was a good day and nice to put a few more faces to the online usernames.
My little CV8 surprised me and made a bit more power than I expected it to (276rwhp with only mod being stubby headers and a cat back). Was running the standard lean map, so looking forward to doing either stigmund's or MF's magic remap before trying another run.
Thanks to Vixpy and crew, 007 for the sarnies, R8VXF for the excel charts, and hardcorehobbit with the VRS Skoda and a bootful of tools
My little CV8 surprised me and made a bit more power than I expected it to (276rwhp with only mod being stubby headers and a cat back). Was running the standard lean map, so looking forward to doing either stigmund's or MF's magic remap before trying another run.
Thanks to Vixpy and crew, 007 for the sarnies, R8VXF for the excel charts, and hardcorehobbit with the VRS Skoda and a bootful of tools
ringram said:
R8VXF said:
Follow the link in the first post. A nice spreadsheet and graphs are available.
Yeah ok I can see about 25% of the results from the day. A few gaps! Huge thanks to everyone for today. Really good to meet up with you guys as always.
I've updated the online Excel sheet. My results were 521HP and 480FtLb at the wheels, estimated 646HP and 574FtLb at the fly.
Now here comes the excuse. I gave it some beans on the way there, didn't lift the bonnet while car was parked and so suffered heat soak while the car was standing before it went on the rollers. Also I saw a black cat cross the road on the way there, and Mars, Jupiter and Saturn were not in alignment which definitely cost me 20hp
I've updated the online Excel sheet. My results were 521HP and 480FtLb at the wheels, estimated 646HP and 574FtLb at the fly.
Now here comes the excuse. I gave it some beans on the way there, didn't lift the bonnet while car was parked and so suffered heat soak while the car was standing before it went on the rollers. Also I saw a black cat cross the road on the way there, and Mars, Jupiter and Saturn were not in alignment which definitely cost me 20hp
ringram said:
wormus said:
+1 the WP cars seem to go very well. I would have kept my little 122 if I could get results like Gary's.
Helps to use a cam with lobes on it Thanks to Mr & Mrs 007 for organising the day and for the food. Good on Charlie for finding a more suitable premises. Pristine toilets and great viewing room made the whole thing much more inviting.
Nice to meet up with all the forum guys again to sip petrol and breath the fumes.
I think GSD must have knackered my Monaro burning rubber in Sweden It gave up at about 4500rpm and made 234 at the wheels
Nice to meet up with all the forum guys again to sip petrol and breath the fumes.
I think GSD must have knackered my Monaro burning rubber in Sweden It gave up at about 4500rpm and made 234 at the wheels
GaryNoGrip said:
-9 on timing of that means anything to you? Bad fuel/hot engine likley culprits according to Roger and Charlie
Working as designed Id say. Though you definitely want Shell 99 in there anything else is bound to hurt.As for heat, thats by design as I indicate. Get a decent cam in there which will drop boost and raise airflow.
What CAI are you running? Do some calcs on that too. But -9 is likely most of the answer. How do you know it was -9?
Was it logged? In which case you can ask if it was knock retard or intake temp spark adjust. Knock means bad fuel or bad tune. Only you will know what fuel was in there.
Intake temp means bad mechanical/thermodynamic configuration. Aka supercharged
The good news is remedies exist for all eventualities. Thats the benefit of the dyno. Lets you diag and tune the car properly with good logs etc and answer the questions above. Now you have a baseline for changes. I gained 50rwhp just by taking the filter out of a restricted intake I had for example.
Gary's HH122 numbers show whats possible with a thought out setup.
wormus said:
How did you get on Roger?
I didn't bother as its only doing 8 psi with more or less stock most else. When young Richard gets me a price for a whole system and headers and I can throw a stick into it il then have a crack. TBH il throw money at it till it breaks the 700hp mark or breaks! ringram said:
GaryNoGrip said:
-9 on timing of that means anything to you? Bad fuel/hot engine likley culprits according to Roger and Charlie
Working as designed Id say. Though you definitely want Shell 99 in there anything else is bound to hurt.As for heat, thats by design as I indicate. Get a decent cam in there which will drop boost and raise airflow.
What CAI are you running? Do some calcs on that too. But -9 is likely most of the answer. How do you know it was -9?
Was it logged? In which case you can ask if it was knock retard or intake temp spark adjust. Knock means bad fuel or bad tune. Only you will know what fuel was in there.
Intake temp means bad mechanical/thermodynamic configuration. Aka supercharged
The good news is remedies exist for all eventualities. Thats the benefit of the dyno. Lets you diag and tune the car properly with good logs etc and answer the questions above. Now you have a baseline for changes. I gained 50rwhp just by taking the filter out of a restricted intake I had for example.
Gary's HH122 numbers show whats possible with a thought out setup.
EmmaJ said:
Yeah I heard it's rare to have issues with the whole valve guide / valve seal thing but it's definitely got a very oily exhaust. The chaps at SRR commented on it so regardless of how it's 100% happening. Re oil usage I'd say about a litre every 1000 miles but I've got a feeling it's gotten worse recently but I've not be keeping a close check on it It was quite low this morning but still above the min line so I put a litre in. I'll check tomorrow and see how much I've "used"and then drain down the catch can and see how much is returned back into the sump.
Several things.The crankcase must have adequate ventilation to fresh air under boost.
You need to establish exactly where the oil is coming from. If you have excessive crankcase pressure it could either be past the rings into the chamber, or more likely it's causing poor oil draining from the turbos, and it's getting chucked and burnt out past the turbine.
Remove the downpipe and a visual should give you a clue there. Look at the plugs, any signs of oil there ?
Intake system ? any oil there ?
What is the drain on the turbos like ? Turbos high or low ? gravity drain or scavenged ?
Most of these poxy PCV type sealed catch cans are literally that. Sealed. We couldnt breathe if our lungs were sealed, and an engine cant breathe no matter how many sealed cans you add.
People buy them, plumb them up and think they're fantastic. Except they may offer PCV ventilation off boost...but they seal the damn crankcase up under boost, or worst still feed boost into it !
Whether that's downright bad design or installation by end user, I dont know. I'd certainly never pay money to buy one and find out.
PCV is nice, but IMO keep it simple, especially as you're having issues.. Good and proper oil/air separator, catch can, whatever you want to call it. But run rocker covers, valley cover etc to this can and let it vent to atmosphere. Proper free breathing. Although even the small weedy 10mm outlets on the rocker covers could be bigger. You can then route the can vent somewhere back towards the air filter area if desired, or somewhere the fumes will not annoy you.
My preference would be to route the base/discharge of the can to the sump ( below level of oil is preferred ) for almost zero maintenance operation.
If you wish to add PCV operation to this, work away. But proper ventilation under load is far more important than having PCV under no load.
Simple and free test.
Run all your breathers into a simple plastic or metal bottle for now. Run it like that for a few days with crankcase allowed to breathe and see if the smoke issue clears.
MyM8V8 said:
Thanks to Mr & Mrs 007 for organising the day and for the food. Good on Charlie for finding a more suitable premises. Pristine toilets and great viewing room made the whole thing much more inviting.
Nice to meet up with all the forum guys again to sip petrol and breath the fumes.
I think GSD must have knackered my Monaro burning rubber in Sweden It gave up at about 4500rpm and made 234 at the wheels
We did have MAF issues in France and chose to ignore it.Nice to meet up with all the forum guys again to sip petrol and breath the fumes.
I think GSD must have knackered my Monaro burning rubber in Sweden It gave up at about 4500rpm and made 234 at the wheels
Still made plenty of smoke with only 234 rwhp
EmmaJ said:
Re oil usage I'd say about a litre every 1000 miles but I've got a feeling it's gotten worse recently.
At the risk of sounding like an unhelpful internet speculator, I'd say that doesn't sound right. So it's either the turbo seals leaking or it's getting past the rings, either way get it looked at while it's still running and hopefully not too expensive to fix. For reference, mine's forged too, making about the same power as yours did and uses absolutely no oil. If it's using oil it's either a stroker or a bit broken IMHO.wormus said:
EmmaJ said:
Re oil usage I'd say about a litre every 1000 miles but I've got a feeling it's gotten worse recently.
At the risk of sounding like an unhelpful internet speculator, I'd say that doesn't sound right. So it's either the turbo seals leaking or it's getting past the rings, either way get it looked at while it's still running and hopefully not too expensive to fix. For reference, mine's forged too, making about the same power as yours did and uses absolutely no oil. If it's using oil it's either a stroker or a bit broken IMHO.Thanks to everyone who came, hope your all enjoyed our new premises.
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