Engine Rebuild
 

Hey guys,

I'm just after some opinions on some dramas I've had with my 8.

I've owned the the car for about 18 months. Its an 04 and when I picked it up it had 42,000km on it (I'm an Aussie, sorry about the metric). The previous owner had installed a:

• Procharger kit
• exhaust
• Konis
• PowerMod
• possiby a clutch.

I took it to a local rotary specialist for an initial service/dyno, and they said everything was in good condition, and it dialled in about 270kw on the dyno. However, it only registered about 3psi, and the supercharger is supposed to push about 8psi. But, I didn't think much of it, as everything seemed fine.

Short version: about 12 months after purchase I started to get a few CELs, and an occasional stall at low revs for no reason. Sometimes it would need 5 minutes before starting again. Then it began to consistently shudder quite violently at low revs at idle. About 2 months ago I was dropping a mate off to get his car, and white smoke started pouring out the exhaust. We managed to get to the car to his garage, they did a compression test, said the engine was screwed. I rang my local rotary specialist and had the car towed to them. The did some tests and came to the same conclusion.

Apparently the clutch was also screwed, and the supercharger internals had pretty much melted away. We decided on a rebuild of the engine and the supercharger, along with the following:

• lightweight flywheel
• heavy duty single plate clutch
• removal of powermod and reflash of original ECU for a little more flexibility
• new gaskets
• plugs
• RH engine mount
• oil cooler upgrade
• and the engine was ported.

I got the car back last Friday, and after 15 minutes the first thing I noticed was massive clutch chatter. The only was to avoid it was to launch at about 2500rpm, not cool for normal driving. Getting into a tight park or over a speed bump resulted in massive shudder. noise and vibration.

I took the car back the next day to have a chat. They said it was normal for a HD single plate clutch to do that, particularly with teh lightweight flywheel. Cool, no dramas.

30 minutes later I stall at the lights. Try to start her up, does a couple of turns and loses power within 2 secs. 2 minutes later it starts again. I managed to get the car away from traffic, but everytime I give it gas it jerks all over the place, and if I dont give it gas it dies. I let it rest for an hour, chat to some mates, give it a little test run and everything seems fine. I decide to get it home, and just before home the I get a CEL, the car dies at the lights again, and after 2 minutes it starts up and start pouring out a fair amount of white smoke again. I'm right near home, so I managed to get the car back.

And here I am. I haven't spoken to the shop yet due to Sunday action and closure, but I'll be calling them first thing Monday morning to get it all sorted. I really don't know a lot about cars, and would appreciate a few opinions on the matter so I can better equip myself to deal with all this, and not get knocked about.

The clutch really bothers me, and well, the car not going kind of sucks :D Any help is greatly appreciated.

Cheers,
Shud.

Bump because my shop is pulling their hair out trying to find a solution...

...and is it possible that the mass airflow sensor playing up could cause the above problems? Car smells pretty rich, stalling as the revs drop when coming to a stop, a little bit too much white smoke, not enough power for a few minutes after stall to keep the revs up.

I have already confirmed new plugs and coils, not sure about wires.

Any ideas?

Wow...
Forced Induction isn't something I'm real knowledgeable on, so hopefully someone with more insight can jump in to help.
But there are a lot of variables and things done its difficult to tell over the internet.

You mentioned they reflashed the PCM... what EMS (Engine Management System) are you using with your Procharger?
Maybe something isn't right with the tune?

Maybe if you could pull the CEL codes it'll help us out a little?
Sorry I couldn't be much help now... lets see if someone else can jump in and help.
If I think of something I'll let you know.

Make sure it's tuned properly..

How does the AFR look?

i'd be extremely concerned about the shop if it was the eshaft profile. that would mean to me they hadn't driven it after putting it back together. Im not saying it isn't because it was first thought also along with the tuning.

get the codes and look for any signs of a coolant leak. either a low overflow bottle or signs of contamination in the coolant etc etc.

Thank you all very much for your suggestions, I really appreciate hearing a few opinions.

I had a chat with them yesterday and mentioned the above, and they have confirmed that they have already checked or taken the appropriate steps on pretty much everything. Compression is great, MAF is fine, coils are new, plugs are new, cat is fine, e-shaft was reset.

The problem is that it seems to happen quite randomly, but usually after the car has already been running for a little while, and usually when it is coming to a stop. AT the moment the shob believes that the ECU is playing up, not that teh ECU is receiving the wrong information from one of the sensors, but that it is randomly sending out the wrong information. In order to confirm this and deal with the issue they have had to get in some specialised gear, as its beyond normal diagnostic and tuning requirements.

So, that's where it is. I'm a little bit skeptical at that, and it seems to me to be a shot in the dark when everything else has failed. But, these guys are up with the best in Oz, and the lead mechanic has worked with rotaries all his life, so I guess I just have to trust that its in good hands, and that they will find a solution.

Again, thanks for your suggestions. I'll post when a solution has been found, for the sake of reference.