How much oil does yours use?

[KateV8]

Bit of a thread bump but I wanted to update on the story of my 4.6 supercharged by Lloyds earlier this year, the thread will be of particular interest to Dave (Chimpongas) so here it is...I saw my engine yesterday completely stripped and laid out on Dom's workbench and saw for myself the extent of the damage. The engine had covered 8000 miles since built two years ago and has worn far more than it should over 100,000 miles. It's knackered, shot to pieces and needs a full rebuild including liners, new crank, cam, the lot. BUT.....it turns out the damage has nothing whatsoever to do with either the supercharger or Lloyds who installed it, there was no outside signs at the time of installation (of the SC) that anything was wrong, all the blower did was find the weakness. For obvious reasons I won't go into naming the original culprit but some on here, including Daz, know where my engine came from. So, onwards and upwards and all that, the engine should be done in time for Christmas complete with wideband and knock sensing and Kate should be back home with us. Moral: those who dare to go down the big mods route, your money is never guaranteed to be well spent no matter how careful you are.

[Sardonicus]

Oh dear, that's not good.

[ClassiChimi]

I had mine re built by Dom 2 years ago, 5,0000 miles since re build and it uses 500ml oil every thousand miles or so, pretty normal it seems, I quite like a bit of new oil gong in there as you go anyway.

Dom builds a good engine, mines proper quick for a standard engine.

[semaj]

My 500 has now done 119890 miles and uses no measurable amount of oil in between changes. I use the cheapest 15/40 semi I can find and add 500ml of STP oil treatment. Oil pressure is 60psi cold at tick over and around 50psi hot. My wife's 430 gets the same and obviously at 42k miles it has no problems but shows a little lower pressure as its a pre serp.
What really grinds my gears is all the stories of so called specialist rebuilds turning to crap but these businesses still survive! BS baffles brains I guess!

[KateV8]

I think they survive because not all that they do is bad but not all is good either. In the case of one who's ratio of good to bad tips in favour of good then that specialist will garner support through reputation and positive reviews on sites like this. But as I have found to my considerable cost reputation is no guarantor of money well spent.

[QBee]

Sorry to hear of Kate's woes.

On a happier note, and hoping not to tempt fate, my 500 built by Rob at V8D 18 monts and 17,000 miles ago is fine, despite regular track and sprint day abuse, which includes running at over 90 degrees for 15 minutes at a time and regularly being kept between 4,000 and 6,200 rpm at the same time.

To help cope with the combination of the above plus regular winter running and shopping trips, it is irrigated with 9.5 litres of Shell Helix Racing fully synthetic 10w60 in its baffled, large capacity sump and uses about a litre every 1,000 miles.

[portzi]

KateV8 said:

I think they survive because not all that they do is bad but not all is good either. In the case of one who's ratio of good to bad tips in favour of good then that specialist will garner support through reputation and positive reviews on sites like this. But as I have found to my considerable cost reputation is no guarantor of money well spent.

Have you given us a hidden clue in the above text Mark?

Mark

[KateV8]

portzi said:

Have you given us a hidden clue in the above text Mark?

Mark

I don't think so but in the interests of protecting the blameless I should point out it wasn't V8 Dev nor Powers. Not many left!
Anthony, I'm happy you have a good engine from Rob, nobody should be without the pleasure these cars can bring for long periods like we have. Still, seeing the remedial work begin and talking to Dom yesterday has left me feeling much more positive :-)

[carsy]

KateV8 said:

It's knackered, shot to pieces and needs a full rebuild including liners, new crank, cam, the lot.

Crickey, What an earth has happened for it to need a new crank and liners etc. Has Dom told you what the root cause was.

Glad you are getting it sorted.

[ChimpOnGas]

KateV8 said:

Bit of a thread bump but I wanted to update on the story of my 4.6 supercharged by Lloyds earlier this year, the thread will be of particular interest to Dave (Chimpongas) so here it is...I saw my engine yesterday completely stripped and laid out on Dom's workbench and saw for myself the extent of the damage. The engine had covered 8000 miles since built two years ago and has worn far more than it should over 100,000 miles. It's knackered, shot to pieces and needs a full rebuild including liners, new crank, cam, the lot. BUT.....it turns out the damage has nothing whatsoever to do with either the supercharger or Lloyds who installed it, there was no outside signs at the time of installation (of the SC) that anything was wrong, all the blower did was find the weakness. For obvious reasons I won't go into naming the original culprit but some on here, including Daz, know where my engine came from. So, onwards and upwards and all that, the engine should be done in time for Christmas complete with wideband and knock sensing and Kate should be back home with us. Moral: those who dare to go down the big mods route, your money is never guaranteed to be well spent no matter how careful you are.

KateV8 said:

BUT.....it turns out the damage has nothing whatsoever to do with either the supercharger or Lloyds who installed it

Hi Mark,

Where others may have jumped to conclusions early on, you have throughout this whole painful saga shown yourself to be patient, fair, and very careful not to apportion blame until an independent qualified engineer had completed a comprehensive autopsy.

You have my utmost sympathies for what happened and while its good to hear the supercharger and Lloyds have been absolved of all blame I'm sure this offers little solace right now.

I commend you for making sure the question marks surrounding the source of the problem have been professionally & conclusively answered, rather than letting people make up their own assumptions over what happened.

Without your post the disappointments you've experienced could potentially have had a negative impact on the reputation of an excellent & honest business that has now been proved to have had no part in the origins of the engine failure.

TBH I'm also surprised the original respected engine builder was found to have let you down, but at least its clear to everyone now that the team at Lloyds had nothing to do with what happened. Moving forward and trying to be positive, I guess you can take comfort in knowing your engine will be built correctly this time and with forced induction in mind.

In summary you have respected and followed the name & shame rules on PH to the letter and made sure everyone is 100% clear that the engine failure had nothing to do with Lloyd Specialist Developments, Powers Performance or V8 Developments.

I wish you all the best for your new engine & supercharger project and thanks for making sure the record has been put straight.

Dave.

[TV8]

Very sad for everyone when things don't go the way they should or the way you want them to. Its how suppliers act in such a situation that is most important. Sorry to read stories like these and hopefully, the engine builder will see sense and help out.

[KateV8]

Many thanks to all concerned for their kind words and sympathies, to your good self Dave I will be emailing Dan and Nathan tomorrow with more detail than I'm willing to go in here but yes, they are completely blameless and could have had no way of knowing what was going on in the engine at the time the supercharger was fitted. They are dedicated proffesional engineers and I know they were as frustrated as I was at the persistent nature of the problems, when it is explained to them it will all make sense. To anybody reading this with curiosity the engine's fate was sealed very early on it's life from a combination of poor build quality and massive over fueling ( long before Canems) resulting in bore wash and heavily contaminated oil. Unfortunately I'm unable to post photos at the moment but I have pictures of crank shells in terrible condition, scored and pitted to death as is much else including the crank itself. Thankfully the car was always going to be with us for ever so investing in a fix wasn't a difficult decision, we couldn't be without our
Kate :-(

[SILICONEKID345HP]

KateV8 said:

Bit of a thread bump but I wanted to update on the story of my 4.6 supercharged by Lloyds earlier this year, the thread will be of particular interest to Dave (Chimpongas) so here it is...I saw my engine yesterday completely stripped and laid out on Dom's workbench and saw for myself the extent of the damage. The engine had covered 8000 miles since built two years ago and has worn far more than it should over 100,000 miles. It's knackered, shot to pieces and needs a full rebuild including liners, new crank, cam, the lot. BUT.....it turns out the damage has nothing whatsoever to do with either the supercharger or Lloyds who installed it, there was no outside signs at the time of installation (of the SC) that anything was wrong, all the blower did was find the weakness. For obvious reasons I won't go into naming the original culprit but some on here, including Daz, know where my engine came from. So, onwards and upwards and all that, the engine should be done in time for Christmas complete with wideband and knock sensing and Kate should be back home with us. Moral: those who dare to go down the big mods route, your money is never guaranteed to be well spent no matter how careful you are.

Was it running well with normal oil consumption before it was supercharged ?

If the engine had gone when NA you would of had a chance for it to be rebuilt for free .

Its now complicated with the supercharger fitted .

Was lloyds 100% sure of the build spec,compression etc before commencing works ?

You could of gone LS for less money than you have spent or going to spend ..

Just hope it all works out for you ..Daz

Edited by SILICONEKID345HP on Sunday 2nd November 20:54

[KateV8]

Thanks Daz, the engine had always had slightly high oil consumption considering it's age and mileage but nothing to cause concern. Which isn't to say the SC caused any further problems, it just highlighted them by increasing the amount of blow-by gases. The biggest headache for poor Dan and Nathan Lloyd was why the hell was the crankcase pressurising so much? Now we know. To be honest the chance for a free rebuild probably disappeared a long time ago when Canems went on. It's a fine system but if you pay someone to build you an engine and then change the way it's managed then it's game over for most warranties. The irony is that Canems was installed to sort it's fuelling out, fuelling problems left by the builder which at the time weren't thought to have long reaching consequences. Unfortunately they did.

[KateV8]

By the way Daz Lloyds knew the engine specs etc and did a compression test. The damage was well hidden, not always evident until its too late. Even without the SC the engine would have had a very very short life.

[Pupp]

How was the breathing configured Mark? My oil consumption has actually improved since going FI (suspect the additional pressure is forcing the rings out), and have been very surprised by lack of crud in the separator tank.

[SILICONEKID345HP]

[quote=KateV8]By the way Daz Lloyds knew the engine specs etc and did a compression test. The damage was well hidden, not always evident until its too late. Even without the SC the engine would have had a very very short life. [/quote

I was pushed in to a corner when i drove off with my new engine ,the fueling was way off so i had to go after market ,there was no way i was going to pay up and over 1k for a 14cux remap .

Have you been offered some compensation ? or some work done for free ?

[Sardonicus]

A leak down test early on would have been far more telling concerning the excess blow by............ but if the build was st it was st and would of expired sooner or later anyways, hope it works out for you and soon.

[KateV8]

Thanks again to all for the PH support. The breathing was originally configured as per the SC Power kit and should have been adequate, when it became apparent the engine was breathing very heavily Nathan Lloyd devised his own system using check valves and his own design of catch tank. This system would be very successful on a healthy engine but even that couldn't defeat the blow by my engine was producing at that time. At least future customers of Lloyds will benefit from the development work on Kate, I'd hate it if all the time and effort was wasted.

[Trevor450]

A little update on my issues - I spoke to Dom this morning and the cause of my massive oil consumption was poor honing when the engine was rebuilt. Power have my engine in build at the moment and it should be ready in a week or so. Can't wait. I just wish I had sent it to Power in the first place. I have a feeling my TVR specialist thinks the same as it will have cost him dear and he is now sending all his rebuilds to Dom. It's a shame as the guy he used had done numerous RV8 rebuilds for him in the past without issue but this rebuild has been a nightmare from day one.