Concealer404's KLZEscort thread

[concealer404]

4/4/13


I think we should be referring to this particular motor in the past tense at this point.

I idled it today to burp the cooling system and just to circulate the oil a bit. Made it about 5 minutes, up to 133 degrees water temp, oil pressure holding at 83psi (idle high due to base map).

Then it died. Wouldn't restart, starter making horrible noises, but no crank. Figured maybe it vapor locked (running crazy rich on base map.) since there was gas coming up out of the throttles once it died.

Pulled the plugs, threw the car up in the air to drain and change the oil. Oil looked good.

While it was in the air, threw a 1/2 ratchet on the crank to turn the motor over by hand. Seemed really hard to move.

Then the timing belt skipped. Belt is frozen. I'm guessing a seized cam. Pissed, i went home.

Full post-mortem to follow tomorrow as i investigate. I'm finding it really difficult to love these KL motors if i must be honest. Been a total pain in the ****ing ass the entire way. These are fresh rebuilt heads with all clearances to factory spec, the cams had zero damage, beautiful finish on the contact surfaces. All torque specs perfect and dead on, cams turned easily by hand prior to this.

Turbo BP may have been the correct answer.

[concealer404]

4/5/13

But hey, at least i got my new Pierce Motorsports strut tower brace installed!







CARNAGE

Well THAT'S not gone well!


The offending cam.

[concealer404]

4/11/13

I see nothing wrong here.



This is what's known as self-clearancing. It's good.



I'll just pop the cap off and take a lo- ****.



Well THERE'S my problem! The other part of the cap is on my headlight instead of in the head! DUH.



Upon receiving this picture via text, my beautiful fiancee asked the question: "Are those metal shavings?" No darling, it's potting soil.



More potting soil.



Front exhaust cam. The crack is starting where the locator pin was.



MONEY SHOT.



How neat. Proof that you CAN machine polished hardened steel with aluminum.

[concealer404]

Anyways... i COULD slap another set of heads on my bottom end and just flush it out real good, get Delta to copy my front two cams, have the rear cams polished locally, and be up and running again for about $500.

Just not worth it right now. I'm going to sell this bottom end. ($200 for anyone on CP that wants to come pick it up.)

Waiting on my 01-02 626 motor to get here and i'll slap my Wiseco/Scat combo in there and start working on another set of heads. We should be making 300whp in August.

[Mazda_Powered]

damn, the rumors were true! That sucks man...that's quite the cam carnage. Sorry to hear things went sour pretty quick...

Otherwise, sweet baby jebus does that thing sound like a BEAST. I bet NO ONE will expect that to be coming from an EGT!!!

I wish you luck with the KLG4 setup though, hopefully you don't have issues after this time around!

[concealer404]

damn, the rumors were true! That sucks man...that's quite the cam carnage. Sorry to hear things went sour pretty quick...

Otherwise, sweet baby jebus does that thing sound like a BEAST. I bet NO ONE will expect that to be coming from an EGT!!!

I wish you luck with the KLG4 setup though, hopefully you don't have issues after this time around!

**** happens buddy.

I should have seen it coming, though. This car has fought me every step of the way in every way that it possibly could. As soon as Jim's strut literally dropped over the towers with no sort of force of any kind needed (Amazing for a bent chassis), i knew i was in for some horrible coming from the car that day. Nothing ever goes that well.

I was right.


Anyways, final plans have been made for the next motor:

01-02 626 block
Wiseco 12:1 pistons
Scat 347 Stroker I-Beams
Clevite race bearings
ARP rod bolts

DE heads (These heads are only going to be temporary, used for a few months at most, just to get the car moving again)
RD Racing titanium retainers
Interprep springs
Cromoly locks
Ported
CZT 218 Race cams. (I went through hell to get these cams, i'll be damned if i end up not running them)


"End Game" heads:
01-02 626 heads
Supertech Titanium retainers
Supertech titanium dual valve springs
Ferrera locks
Zetec shimless buckets
CZT 218 Race cams (Or... i talked to Delta last week about welded cams if i want to get real crazy. The problem is that with the CZTs, i'll probably just be cams away from the N/A KL record. Last time Leo ran at the strip, his motor was a bit less crazy than this one will be)
Big port job


I'm looking for upper 200s with the stand-in heads, and over 300whp with the full-bore race bomb.

[Turpro]

Thats why we name our cars girls names. They act like them. Always fighting you but you keep wrenching them because of that awsome ride they give you.

[KAinjection]

Yikes! Those heads look awfully dry like you were getting zero oil up top.

Too much potting soil maybe???

[atomicEGT]

dang.

[DeeAOne]

Sorry for the loss broski. You ran solid lifters with those cams correct? How did that work out? Or at least before the destruction..

[FE3-323]

Yikes! Those heads look awfully dry like you were getting zero oil up top.

Too much potting soil maybe???

I do have to agree here.... were you getting oil to the top end??
pressure at the block means nothing if theres something stuck in the oil gallery /oil restrictor in the block

[concealer404]

Thats why we name our cars girls names. They act like them. Always fighting you but you keep wrenching them because of that awsome ride they give you.

This one is named "The DeathScrotum."

Yikes! Those heads look awfully dry like you were getting zero oil up top.

Too much potting soil maybe???

Turns out there WAS an oiling issue. I know exactly what caused it now, and it's not something that will be an issue on the next motor. Either way, the oiling is secondary to what happened. The cam cap issue is what initially killed this motor.

dang.

Sorry for the loss broski. You ran solid lifters with those cams correct? How did that work out? Or at least before the destruction..

Nope, HLAs.

I do have to agree here.... were you getting oil to the top end??
pressure at the block means nothing if theres something stuck in the oil gallery /oil restrictor in the block

There was definitely some oil getting up there. Probably not the full amount that should have been, but there was some. (It's not as dry as it looks in pictures.) Oiling would have been an issue down the road, so it probably doesn't matter that the cam caps killed this motor, it would have died eventually anyways.

[DeeAOne]

Happens to the best of us. My initial kl grenaded within a month of finishing the swap. Just gotta not let it get you down.

[FE3-323]

what was the oiling issue?

[concealer404]

Filter housing check valve.