02 WRX Engine Teardown...
 

Well its been a while everyone, as I have moved out of the area and I have been up here visiting for the last week or so. Well I'm heading back down to SoCal last night and Im coming down hill out by Topaz and my cruise kicks in just slightly and I start to hear and exhaust leak type of noise, but it gets continuously louder, I lose power, check engine light comes on and I yell some obsenities.

I get it into a parking stall and pop the hood, start the engine back up and try to find out what the hell happened. Its coming from the left side of the engine right under my filter. I reach my hand down and feel air pulsing out from where my front plug is (excuse my lack of cylinder numberology). No smoke, No leaks of any fluid...

Any one have any ideas? Im going to tear it down this evening and see what i can find... I appreciate the help everyone.

Thanks!

Did you spit out a spark plug?

You probably don't want to run the motor anymore until you know what's broken... there may be spark plug bits bouncing around in the motor!

Well that's what I was thinking, like I said I haven't been able to tear it down, but that's where the clues I've gathered are leading. I could also smell raw fuel when it was running so obviously the fuel isn't burning in that cylinder. Everything looked normal down in that general area, no burns, fluids or anything else out of the ordinary. I'm waiting for a trailer to arrive so I can get it to my local shop...

do you still have an EGT sensor? It sounds like what happened to me when mine backed out.

Ooh right... if by "left side of the motor" he actually means "passenger side of the motor" (which is technically the right side of the motor), then yeah, the EGT popping out of the up-pipe makes plenty of sense... loss of power due to the lack of turbo spool, sounds like an exhaust leak 'cause it's a massive exhaust leak, plus the exhaust would blow out around the side of the engine.

Just hope the EGT didn't break apart and go through the turbo messing anything up!

Yeah, I mosses the left side remark and just read "under my filter" assuming he meant air filter? Mine was pulsing around so much air it was hard to tell where it was coming from. I still vote for that. I too thought my engine was coming apart it made so much noise.

UPDATE!

So I pulled everything out of the Passenger side of the motor and the air was 100% coming from the engine. I unbolted the front left(passenger side) Coil-on-Plug pulled it out to find my spark plug resting inside of it! So yeah, i kinda figured thats what happend. So next step Heila Coil? Anyone know where i can find those at locally? I have access to the tool to put them in, just not the part itself. I also attached a picture of the plugs i pulled out(figured i might as well change them all while I'm at it), can someone tell me why there is no gap in the one that stripped out?



Thanks Again...

That's bad news... The only plugs I've ever seen that looked like the one on the left had been hit by broken engine parts riding on top of the piston...

To do it right, the head probably should come off the car. As long as you have the OEM head bolts, and not aftermarket studs, you should be able to pull the head w/o removing the motor from the car.

A tapped-in insert may work well, but IIRC there's not much material in the head where the plugs go, so I don't know how well an insert would work. You might be best off just getting your hands on a used passenger head for the WRX motor. They shouldn't be all that expensive, since everyone wants the STi ones.

The good news is that it doesn't look like anything fell into the motor. The bad news is that it looks like something hit the spark plug! :eek: I hope it wasn't pushed out of the head by the piston somehow!

Yeah thats what i was thinking... although im in denial about it all lol

Engine is completely stock except for a couple minor bolt-ons, can someone point me in the direction of an in-car head removal thread? or does someone perhaps have an WRX service manual? I have a 2004 STi Service manual in PDF if someone is willing to trade ;)

anyone have or know where i can loan a borescope from?

I'd like to see whats going on inside the cylinder before i get too adventurous removing the heads. If the piston is toast from something riding inside, I might as well just buy a new engine...

Well got the engine out in about 12 hours, not bad for soloing 95% of it and being my first time...

http://www.camswrx.com/WRXStuff/motor1.jpg

I was able to see through the stripped out plug hole at the piston sitting at near TDC and couldn't see any marks or dings, so that is encouraging.

http://www.camswrx.com/WRXStuff/head1.jpg

A few more hours worth of bench work should get me to where I can pull the heads off..

Good luck!

Props to you for going all the way...what is with all the engine removals around here lately?

Finally got everything removed and good news! Nothing in my cylinder, nothing abnormal that I can tell. Piston/Cylinder and the Head all look good, except for the nasty Carbon Deposits.

http://www.camswrx.com/WRXStuff/block1.jpg

http://www.camswrx.com/WRXStuff/cylhead1.jpg

Now I just need to find a new cylinder head...

On a side note... Those Cam Bolts were a BI#@H to get off...my god I broke $50 worth of tools before i decided to just weld 1/2 steel stock to the bolts themselves and use a pipe wrench(Which btw worked amazingly!)

http://www.camswrx.com/WRXStuff/cambolts1.jpg

:lol: YES! That cracks me up because my dad and I have done that with bolts before.

Drilling the bolts is muuuuch easier.

Update!
 

So folks, well i finally got my motor put back together, with the helicoiled spark plug thread(which works amazingly btw). I even put it everything back together and in my car all by myself! It was a ton of work but well worth it. So taking it out for the first test drive everything is going fine and I'm driving pretty reserved. The first time I hit about 11-12psi my pressure line comes off my BOV and obviously the BOV shuts and im sure i got a fair amount of compresor stall action. The reason I mention this is because I now have a coolant AND oil leak from my turbo. Im not sure if it is due to this incident, or simply something else. When I remove my downpipe I have coolant Inside of it and basically all over the inside of the hotside of the turbo. The oil leak from what I can see is coming from the turbo as well, it is coming out from under the heat shield on my up-pipe. So my question to everyone is WTF? Cracked Housing? None of the lines are leaking and the coolant INSIDE the downpipe is the most alarming thing by far.

Thanks for the input!

Oil lines...

1. It is a pain to reach once it is all back together, but you have to make the short low pressure rubber hose is on both the turbo and hard pipes at least an inch and the spring clamps are in place. It is easy to push the hose down when installing the turbo so the hard line on the turbo is really just barely in the top of the rubber hose.

2. High pressure top line: Make sure the banjo fitting has both top and bottom washer. depending on how your hard line looks, it may be cracked. The compression fitting on the side of the head is often the culprit. Either the seat itself, or the line itself at the back of the flange.

Coolant... That is weird. I do not think there is coolant anywhere near the shafts which should be the only way INTO the turbo housing itself and thus the downpipe.

Oil Lines: Well at first I thought it was the oil line you speak of, so i pulled my downpipe off and changed the spring clamps on the hose to screw-type pipe clamps to make sure they were secure. This, however did not solve the issue. The banjo fittings were never removed when i took the turbo out so those are secure as they were before. I have looked at the turbo with the heat shields off and no leaks or spray anywhere, even from underneath i cant see anything, the oil simply runs out from under the bottom heat shield on the uppipe

And the coolant thing... weird right? its obviously not the head gasket or anything becuase it would get burned up in my cat before it got to the turbo. I am wondering if anyone knows of an internal diagram for the TD04 turbo that would show me the coolant and oil passages within. I plan on pulling the turbo out anyways but it would still be helpful to know the internal structure of the turbo.

How can you pull the turbo without removing the high pressure oil line (Top one)? Either the banjo or the compression coupler 6" or so down the line has to be opened. The later is the one that cracks. It is probably one of those causing the oil in the heat shield. Neither is likely to spray and

The lower oil hose just needs the spring clips. It is a large diameter, low pressure hose. Just have to make sure it really goes a ways over the bulges/barbs on the hard lines and is clamped. Screw clamps are overkill and probably even more of a pain than the spring clips.

You may have somehow cracked the housing on the turbo for the coolant symptoms you describe.

[QUOTE=Dean;126004]How can you pull the turbo without removing the high pressure oil line (Top one)? QUOTE]

I think he pulled that line off at its source when he pulled the engine instead of disconnecting from the turbo. That's just what I got out of it.:~:

If it is remotely similar, that hard line runs all the way to the front of the engine as well as connecting at the back.

If he did not undo it at or near the turbo, that length could even be the source of the leak as bending it could easily crack it.