Air bubble in cooling system

[MDFMac]

had a issue the other day with it overheating. went to all 4 bars. fan was on, when i checked radiator it was cold. loosened the cap and it shot out a bunch of air then it almost instantly started cooling down. must have been air locked. so this was lingering in my mind for about 2 weeks now that this happend, and actually i ordered a gasket kit just in case. played around with it over my Christmas vacation and it didint do it again. but still lingered in my mind. so today i removed the head, kinda wanted to check the valves 2... lol and here is what i found.

so what i can say for sure it,,,,,, the head bolts are beefy as hell. but only at 55 ft lbs. so what i think happened here is i finally found the limit of the stock engine setup.
this most likely blew out when i was playing with my boost controller a few months ago and was up to like 18ish lbs of boost. and did a boosted launch to see how it handled it. and it didn't do well so i turned it back down to 14 and that is where it has been since, and i think i have drove it like 500 mile since then or more. but since the gasket is a sandwich of 3 metal layers it resealed it self when the head set back down. but it was letting very small amounts of combustion through, till it air locked my cooling system.

any way installed new head gasket and checked valve adjustment. put back together and ran it a bit and she is all good now.

i find it pretty neat now it squeezed between the layers and bubbled it out into the block till it burst.

fyi adjusting valves on this engine is a PITA compared to a 450r . but changing out the head gasket was pretty easy. lol go figure. i do like how you dont have to take much apart to get to the engine to do work like this. seats , lower cabin wall, after cooler/air filter if its not turboed and your there.
head bolts m12 118mm long and 1.50 thread pich

 

[Admin]

 

[Glock21user]

Nice work, glad you found it and were able to get it fixed before it became a big problem.

 

[HondaTech]

had a issue the other day with it overheating. went to all 4 bars. fan was on, when i checked radiator it was cold. loosened the cap and it shot out a bunch of air then it almost instantly started cooling down. must have been air locked. so this was lingering in my mind for about 2 weeks now that this happend, and actually i ordered a gasket kit just in case. played around with it over my Christmas vacation and it didint do it again. but still lingered in my mind. so today i removed the head, kinda wanted to check the valves 2... lol and here is what i found.
View attachment 243532

so what i can say for sure it,,,,,, the head bolts are beefy as hell. but only at 55 ft lbs. so what i think happened here is i finally found the limit of the stock engine setup.
this most likely blew out when i was playing with my boost controller a few months ago and was up to like 18ish lbs of boost. and did a boosted launch to see how it handled it. and it didn't do well so i turned it back down to 14 and that is where it has been since, and i think i have drove it like 500 mile since then or more. but since the gasket is a sandwich of 3 metal layers it resealed it self when the head set back down. but it was letting very small amounts of combustion through, till it air locked my cooling system.

any way installed new head gasket and checked valve adjustment. put back together and ran it a bit and she is all good now.

i find it pretty neat now it squeezed between the layers and bubbled it out into the block till it burst.

fyi adjusting valves on this engine is a PITA compared to a 450r . but changing out the head gasket was pretty easy. lol go figure. i do like how you dont have to take much apart to get to the engine to do work like this. seats , lower cabin wall, after cooler/air filter if its not turboed and your there.
head bolts m12 118mm long and 1.50 thread pich

With a stock skid plate you can adjust the valves by removing the skid plate and turning the flywheel while you watch the timing mark. No need to remove anything else even the airbox, atleast on a N/A engine.

If you have the head off, its easy to adjust the valves on the bench.

With a stock cage the bed comes out pretty easily as well.

Heck when we installed the JR on the two units we had. We didn't take any plastic off, just flipped the back firewall over to install the turbo drain. Everything else was done through the airbox hole.

 

[Adam_20_Adam]

had a issue the other day with it overheating. went to all 4 bars. fan was on, when i checked radiator it was cold. loosened the cap and it shot out a bunch of air then it almost instantly started cooling down. must have been air locked. so this was lingering in my mind for about 2 weeks now that this happend, and actually i ordered a gasket kit just in case. played around with it over my Christmas vacation and it didint do it again. but still lingered in my mind. so today i removed the head, kinda wanted to check the valves 2... lol and here is what i found.
View attachment 243532

so what i can say for sure it,,,,,, the head bolts are beefy as hell. but only at 55 ft lbs. so what i think happened here is i finally found the limit of the stock engine setup.
this most likely blew out when i was playing with my boost controller a few months ago and was up to like 18ish lbs of boost. and did a boosted launch to see how it handled it. and it didn't do well so i turned it back down to 14 and that is where it has been since, and i think i have drove it like 500 mile since then or more. but since the gasket is a sandwich of 3 metal layers it resealed it self when the head set back down. but it was letting very small amounts of combustion through, till it air locked my cooling system.

any way installed new head gasket and checked valve adjustment. put back together and ran it a bit and she is all good now.

i find it pretty neat now it squeezed between the layers and bubbled it out into the block till it burst.

fyi adjusting valves on this engine is a PITA compared to a 450r . but changing out the head gasket was pretty easy. lol go figure. i do like how you dont have to take much apart to get to the engine to do work like this. seats , lower cabin wall, after cooler/air filter if its not turboed and your there.
head bolts m12 118mm long and 1.50 thread pich

Can I ask how you are getting to 14lbs of boost? I would love to crank it up a bit. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks
Adam

 

[HondaTech]

Can I ask how you are getting to 14lbs of boost? I would love to crank it up a bit. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks
Adam

Sounds like he's using a boost controller instead of stock blow-off/wastegate combo.

Have to be careful, any more boost and it'll run lean. The injectors are at max duty cycle already.

 

[MDFMac]

the injectors are not at max duty cycle. i have adjusted them to fuel my 14 lbs of boost. but at 14 they are near max. i have a boost controler and i can tune my fuel system. you have to do both. you cant just put more air in without putting more fuel.

 

[HondaTech]

the injectors are not at max duty cycle. i have adjusted them to fuel my 14 lbs of boost. but at 14 they are near max. i have a boost controler and i can tune my fuel system. you have to do both. you cant just put more air in without putting more fuel.

The guys we've talked to said the injectors were over or close to 80% which is max to be safe. At around 90% they can go static and shouldn't be run over 85%.

 

[MDFMac]

well i have talked to people that made what i run and they said the fuel system can do what im doing but no more. either way it works fine. i have 1000 miles on my turbo kit and the only thing to go wrong was a head gasket... and that was because i have been testing the limits. and i am currently getting the parts together for a new fuel pump and a fuel pressure reg. what sucks is i know there are race teams that have had to have done things like what im doing but no info out there about it. and people like Jackson are not giving much info so it is all guess work and research to get it right.

 

[Adam_20_Adam]

well i have talked to people that made what i run and they said the fuel system can do what im doing but no more. either way it works fine. i have 1000 miles on my turbo kit and the only thing to go wrong was a head gasket... and that was because i have been testing the limits. and i am currently getting the parts together for a new fuel pump and a fuel pressure reg. what sucks is i know there are race teams that have had to have done things like what im doing but no info out there about it. and people like Jackson are not giving much info so it is all guess work and research to get it right.

So any chance on getting the parts list that you have used. Which injectors, boost controller, fuel pump/fuel rail. I am a decent mechanic however I don't know enough to just guess which parts to use. If I know what parts to use I feel confident in installing them and getting it to work.

 

[MDFMac]

Our sources are saying the weak point is really the pistons/clutch. Anything 160 at the wheels and the clutch is on limited time. They won't attempt to modify anything without swapping the stock pistons out.

But then again they all told us we'd never make the full 12 hour TexPlex race without destroying the engine either. But so far our only fault seems to have been the sub trans.

Our setup for next year is to balance the crank, new pistons, PV3 with a tune and a new radiator with integrated oil cooler since anything over 250 degrees in oil temp will pull the engine down to save the clutches.

We've also been told any other exhaust besides stock on the JR stock setup will run dead lean on a full dyno pull. Too lean to even be safe running it without injector swaps.

This is all from Hess, Fowler, Cook and Proctor directly.

i want to buy all the stuff for the pv3 but i dont know how to do that stuff and starting from scratch with out having the jackson tune unlocked would be very difficult for me. i cant wait till some one has tunes for me to get. im sure i would figure it out with my knowledge but i dont have the time right now. im sure it would take me days to get a stock tune all upgraded and right to operate the stock turbo.

the pistons definitely need to be changed. even just to get the lower compression ratio.

the exhaust is bs. im running evo with no problems. yes i had to add a pinch of fuel for it but it was very little. i dont plan on going any higher with what i have. but i am getting good af ratio at 14 lbs of boost. as a matter of fact the last jackson firmware update made my rig run very rich so i had to take out some fuel. it bottomed out the gage at 10 at full boost.

i would like to do a injector swap but until i have a fully unlocked tune that just wont work for me.

as for the clutch. yea i think ill be changing mine at some point in 2021. i can tell im beating it up. and the last update from jackson has some issues relearning. i have to do it 3 or 4 times to get it to work. where before it always worked first time.. or it could be that my clutch is going bad but it literally happened as soon as i put in the new firmware .

 

[HondaTech]

i want to buy all the stuff for the pv3 but i dont know how to do that stuff and starting from scratch with out having the jackson tune unlocked would be very difficult for me. i cant wait till some one has tunes for me to get. im sure i would figure it out with my knowledge but i dont have the time right now. im sure it would take me days to get a stock tune all upgraded and right to operate the stock turbo.

the pistons definitely need to be changed. even just to get the lower compression ratio.

the exhaust is bs. im running evo with no problems. yes i had to add a pinch of fuel for it but it was very little. i dont plan on going any higher with what i have. but i am getting good af ratio at 14 lbs of boost. as a matter of fact the last jackson firmware update made my rig run very rich so i had to take out some fuel. it bottomed out the gage at 10 at full boost.

i would like to do a injector swap but until i have a fully unlocked tune that just wont work for me.

as for the clutch. yea i think ill be changing mine at some point in 2021. i can tell im beating it up. and the last update from jackson has some issues relearning. i have to do it 3 or 4 times to get it to work. where before it always worked first time.. or it could be that my clutch is going bad but it literally happened as soon as i put in the new firmware .

Even with a burnt clutch the relearn will take as long as the pressure is being applied correctly. I've relearned a few Pioneer clutches that wouldn't move unless you rev'd it to the moon.

There is supposedly a modified valve body being made for better clutch control and to prolong the life. As well as a custom basket to eliminate the outer plate and stack another fiber.

The tune we're running is pre written but will be adjusted for the car on the dyno. You have to re flash the ecm to stock and start with the tune we've been provided. I dont believe the PV3 will even recognize the ecm with the jackson tune in it, I know our factory Diagnostic box won't even see it anymore.

 

[MDFMac]

yea the pre written tune is what i need to get my hands on. then id spend the $ on the pv3. but until i have one of those available im not even going to try.

very curious to see what the jackson race kit is going to involve.... im sure they are not going to send pistons with it so i bet it will be at best 12 to 14 lbs of boost and that is prob high

 

[HondaTech]

yea the pre written tune is what i need to get my hands on. then id spend the $ on the pv3. but until i have one of those available im not even going to try.

very curious to see what the jackson race kit is going to involve.... im sure they are not going to send pistons with it so i bet it wont be at best 12 to 14 lbs of boost and that is prob high

Like they've said it needs to be as "bolt on" as possible. I dont see how they can do anything crazy without internal mods.

Ii cant wait to see what this thing is like with the stuff we're throwing at it.

Supposedly even a X3 is going to have a hard time hanging with it.

 

[SLOWPOKE693]

Can the pistons be swapped out without disassembling the entire engine, ie; Are the rods 2 piece on the big end like a car engine or are they one piece and and the crank pressed together like a motorcycle.

@MDFMac, I was on the T1 Racing Development site last night looking at their fuel rails and injectors and noticed the address. They are located in Royse City, Texas and only 35min from my house! I'm going to stop by their shop when I get a chance and chat with them about the Talon products they offer. Im intrested in the returnless fuel rail and the injectors they sell for N/A engines. Im gathering parts for my N/A race engine build and think their stuff will compliment it well.

 

[PaulF]

Can the pistons be swapped out without disassembling the entire engine, ie; Are the rods 2 piece on the big end like a car engine or are they one piece and and the crank pressed together like a motorcycle.

Connecting rods and mains are split with split bearings like a car...

 

[MDFMac]

unfortunately no you have to pull motor and split it to change out the pistons. id already have my new pistons in if i could have...

 

[SLOWPOKE693]

unfortunately no you have to pull motor and split it to change out the pistons. id already have my new pistons in if i could have...

Not what I was hoping to hear but thanks for the response. I guess new high compression pistons will have to wait until the off season. My car has been in pieces since I bought it back in March and its finally whole again. Racing starts in mid February and ill be damned if im pulling the motor out now to get that done. I think a ported head, bigger valves and a cam swap will work for now.

When you get ready to pull the engine and swap pistons it would be great if you did a write up on it here. I can't be the only one besides you and a few others that builds and works on our own stuff, and could benefit from a good thread on engine mods.

 

[HondaTech]

Not what I was hoping to hear but thanks for the response. I guess new high compression pistons will have to wait until the off season. My car has been in pieces since I bought it back in March and its finally whole again. Racing starts in mid February and ill be damned if im pulling the motor out now to get that done. I think a ported head, bigger valves and a cam swap will work for now.

When you get ready to pull the engine and swap pistons it would be great if you did a write up on it here. I can't be the only one besides you that builds and works on my own stuff, and could benefit from a good thread on engine mods.

Pistons can be done in the car. Pull the head and they'll slide right up and out.

 

[SLOWPOKE693]

Pistons can be done in the car. Pull the head and they'll slide right up and out.

So..... Pull head, pull pan, remove rod bolts and push pistons/rods out the top of the cylinders like a car engine? That would be MUCH better than pulling the entire engine, and something i could definitely accomplish in a weekend.

 

[HondaTech]

So..... Pull head, pull pan, remove rod bolts and push pistons/rods out the top of the cylinders like a car engine? That would be MUCH better than pulling the entire engine, and something i could definitely accomplish in a weekend.

Yep I've done a Pioneer and a Talon this way. The Hess upgrade we did was done that way as well.

You'll need to rotate the engine some to get to all 4 rod bolts.