atb

Hope your right Dan.
Just ordered the gaskets today from Precision Motorwerks. Like Tom pointed out, the clock is ticking. Hopefully this will quiet up the motor so I can get to other projects on this track car before May 12th.

atb

Lightning fast delivery from Precision Motorwerks on these gaskets.
I got the passenger side gasket installed yesterday (almost, more on this later) and realized what happened on initial installation.
I have a tendency to want to put the gaskets on the motor “face up”. Silly I know, when you should be lining up holes, etc. before installation. But I’m used to working on the 32v motors, and this 16v gasket is much more subtle to me. When you lay it on the bottom of cam cover, there really isn’t much to guide you on which way it installs. (Of course the big oil port on the head should be a clue).
Well, the cam cover gasket installs “face down”. May not be a distraction for many, but apparently was for me. When the gasket is cut, the various cut outs our punched through. This leaves one side of the gasket feeling smooth (the “top surface”) and the others side feeling rough with sharp edges (the “bottom surface”).
Here’s a pic of the gaskets. The one on top is what I would equate with the “bottom surface” of the gasket, and would rest on the head. The one below is what I would equate with the “top” surface of the gasket, what would be facing up on installation. Well, the big oil port cutout shows the opposite is the case.

So, just in case any of you DIY’rs find youself in the same situation, remember, install the gasket face down.

So of course, things were going so well that something had to happen. I was installing the last bolt, saving the easiest for last (center, top) and it dropped into the cam box. Looks like I'll be fishing for bolts with a magnet wand today. Heading out to HF soon to get one of those flexible jobbies.

atb

Installed the new gaskets.
The passenger side was installed incorreclty (flipped over) so the oil port was blocked, but the oil pressure basically created a new opening in the gasket. The driver side was leaking, coincidentally, right where the oil port is located, so I pulled off that cam box fully expecting that gasket to have been installed incorrectly as well. It would make sense that if the gasket was blocking off the oil port, the oil pressure would cause it to leak around the gasket. Cam box came off, and lo and behold the gasket was installed correctly. So the gasket was leaking just because.
Buttoned everything up, fired it up, and there was still a loud ticking, but quieter than before. Let the car idle and get up to temp. The Contour fans did not kick on, so the motor got pretty warm, above the third white line. I jumped in and took it around the block. Exactly as before, about 10 minutes out, the ticking got loud and I lost my idle. The oil pressure is fine, the car starts right back up, but will not idle below about 2K rpm.
Any guesses as to what's going on with this 4.7L K-jet motor? I'm truly back to square one. John Davis, who let me borrow the motor in the first place, says to just drive it and that he's doesn't care if the motor blows. So, while that takes the pressure off in running it, I still don't think its a matter of just running it and hope the noise goes away. To me, it really seems that whatever causes the ticking to get louder is causing enough drag on the motor so that it won't idle. Not good.

jpitman2

Maybe irrelevant, but with a CIS motor, have you put a gauge on the control pressure? If this gets too high hot, the motor will stop, or at least have very little power. Stethoscope hasnt help you to localize the noise?
jp 83 Euro S AT 54k

atb

Haven't put a gauge on the CIS. In all honesty, if i can get this motor to run without sounding like its going to fall apart, I've got a MSII system ready to go on.
When the ticking gets loud and I lose my idle, the car still runs strong as long as i keep it above 3K rpms. It revs freely, just makes a heck of a racket while doing it.

F18Rep

Adam ...ok this is a reach but ....I followed your thread because I had a similar problem - noise seems to get worse after a minute of warm-up. I was pretty sure I must have put the cam tower gasket on backward. In my case I did the usual things eliminating stuff by removing belts to be sure that wasn't a factor. Then, pulled the engine back out and found the factory cam gaskets were fine. But then with some head scratching I stumbled onto the problem. I had managed to put the bolt for the tensioner roller in backwards and the tip of that bolt was scraping on the backside of the harmonic balancer. Doh!
There are balance holes drilled in the balancer, which gave me a nice, speed-dependeant ticking noise . I can't believe I'm the only one that has ever done this but its easy to rule out. Just reach a finger in around the backside of the balancer (at about the 7 o'clock) and feel for a scraped groove, about a 1/4 inch in from the edge....Bruce

atb

Checked the balancer as Bruce suggested, no rubbing going on there. Fired the motor up and brought it up to temp. I was diligent with the idle adjustment screw as it was warming up, and got a solid hot idle going. Great!. Decided to take it for a spin around the neighborhood, a short 10 min. drive. Car is driving fine, pressure and temp is good. Still ticking, but not getting that angry clacking like before. Rev it up to 3K rpms. All is good. Go up to 3.5K, no problem. Last one for the night, try 4K. As the tach sweeps up to 4k the engine dies, big plume of steam. Put it in neutral and coast to the shoulder. Even with the engine off huge amounts of steam coming out the tail pipe . Look under the car, and water is gushing out of the seams where the exhaust system bolts together. Soon, I'm standing in a puddle of water. Well, I guess this one is not going to make it to the track day May 12. I was hoping to be one of the lucky ones to drop in a used 928 motor and have a quick fix. Not in the cards for me. Time to pull the motor and rebuild it correctly.

Lizard928

Sounds like you cracked a cylinder wall in that block.

Time to find another replacement.

BC

Time to go to 32v.

Lizard928

If you want to stay 16V I know of two good 16V motors up here.

S4ordie

Ugh. Sorry to hear this Adam.

Tom. M

he's still weighing options....We've got a spare 16v at the shop plus access to another locally.. and I did offer up the GT for him to take to the track..... But there's plenty of time for a late night engine swap party... I'm really interested in finding out what happened to this engine..

supercedar

Adam,
Very sorry to hear this.
This is not the direction for Spokane. Will you still be going? I wish I could offer you my car to beat but I just can't do it.
Thomas

atb

Thomas, you are showing your "virgin-ness" when it comes to PacNW track days.
I've still got a week. We've had situations where we were sitll turning wrenches until 2am the morning before the proclamation of "The Middleton Directive" which states that any and all mechanical work must be completed a week before the track day. Thankfully, the directive does not apply to items that break within that week.

Ken Osage has offered up Betty's motor, the original 4.5L to Brian's racer. I'm picking it up Saturday. It will be going in Saturday night. If there's time, we may be able to do a post mortem on the 4.7L and see what blew.

Randy V

Well, that's one way to fix that annoying noise.

To better days ahead.