Engine done

[Captain KRM P5]

well from your standpoint and having been in and out of these motors quite a few times....what would be an amount of miles of lets say semi harsh driving to start looking out for in such a situation? i know its a general question but would a high MS3 motor be considered 60-70-100 thousand miles? and if you say the damage is done and the vehicle cant just lower its boost or return to stock and poof....damage is gone....how should we be monitoring these types of things? obvioulsy gauges and scan tools but i mean...could this have been avoided like going to get a check up for clogged arteries b 4 the heart attack? or is it quite impossible to really make a judgement unless them otor is torn down? thanks.

rule of thumb is real simple. the only warranty safe mod is not to mod. the less you mod, the safer you are. its really not rocket science beyond that. engineers with much bigger paychecks, much higher education, much more experience put these cars together after years of R&D. even then when the cars hit the roads there are recalls and TSBs and bulletins. if you think any company or individual is going to out-engineer that level of expertise on a part to part basis and expect the same longevity, you're wrong. i don't care if you're Dominic Turetto or CPe, its not going to happen.

its like when they tell you in high school "abstinence is the only 100% effective method". like it or not, its true. and like it or not, we're all still going to play with fire

the trick is knowing your limits. the problem is we tend to get the bug and need more and more speed. which is fine, for the most part, if you know what you're doing or paying someone who does. but you gotta pay to play, which means accepting the possibility that something can and will go wrong and being ready to accept that.

i think the time has passed too where the die hard fan boys who believe the stock engines are superforgedwunderkinds has passed, thankfully. i'm not saying they are junk, but they're not built to the same level as other cars. GM and Mopar have factory power adding parts through the dealership for the Cobalts and Calibers. Mazda is skittish on releasing a cold air intake. it speaks alot about confidence in the platform and alot about purpose driven engineering when you look at how manufacturers approach the aftermarket like that.

I'm the world's biggest Mazda fan, but I've seen enough to know with a healthy dose of skepticism and reality what their cars will handle before going over the brink.

 

[speedi3]

No warning signs. and like we have all said you have to pay to play. my problem is that the pockets are as deep as when i first bought so any cost is too much.

Again I believe my problem came from lowering the boost. If you don't do that, fight through or solve cold weather cut.... these car are really nice. I'd be interested to hear from any one that has a built motor or turbo upgrade and what they are experiencing.

 

[Captain KRM P5]

Again I believe my problem came from lowering the boost..

how do you figure? honestly that makes no sense, sorry.

 

[GhostMercury]

I'm guessing it was lowering the boost and not adjusting the AFR, unless you tuned for that and even still, as far as I know there is no tried and true tunning solution for this car as of yet, or ever to be. Also the factory wastegate is as low as the car will really want to go. But you can make it do anything, and this is what will happen when you force things upon a pretty well maxed out engine. This isn't an SRT-4

 

[turbo23]

Ill be tracking my car this year part time doing HPDEs. My car only has a intake and some motor mounts. If I add anything else engine performance wise, it will only be a catback. I want to keep the motor as stock as possible, only major upgrades will be in the suspension department.

 

[Abilor]

Ken has spoken. Long live Ken!!!

Should I worry about detonation with motor mounts, SRI, and a turbosmart? Aside from TMIC upgrade, that's all I plan on doing engine wise, probably for at least five years...

 

[speedi3]

how do you figure? honestly that makes no sense, sorry.

That was the only change that I made to the car prior to Kboom. I understood that if the boost is below the wastegate that was the cause? I had just set the boost at 12 the day of.

Educate me. You think it was just bolt ons over time?

 

[Captain KRM P5]

lowering the boost will not blow an engine. you will not even run "too rich" for such a condition that would blow an engine. worst you could is 'wash' the piston rings and for that to happen, you would need to run so rich the car would not even idle right. the computer is programmed to add or subtract X fuel and Y timing based upon factors such as boost, load, RPM, pressure, etc. it gets AFR information from a five volt wideband sensor which tends be one of the more accurate methods of tuning. the computer is smart enough to get all this figured out. lowering the boost puts less load on every aspect of the vehicle. its not going to cause the car to untune itself or run lean.

its really simple. direct injection or not, this engine is still an engine subject to the laws of mechanics. if you put more strain on a moving machined part over a period of time, lowering the boost is not going to take away what you have already done. metal fatigues from a variety of things, its not always a complex reason for something going wrong. sometimes you can blow an engine stock and right away or modded and years down the road. imperfect humans design imperfect machines with a variety of imperfections. thats really about the best way i can explain it. the engines could have been engineered stronger, they weren't. thats why we build them the way that we do.

 

[dealler_81686]

when you guys say "heavily modded". What mods are you saying are done? I have a sri, forged bpv, and a cat back. I intend to get a new dp too in the future? Would you consider that "heavily modded"?

 

[chippy]

I thought our cars came with 5 years 60K powertrain warranty?

 

[Aricjm15]

The standback may have been pulling fuel in a spot where it should have had a 0 value in the map. I have always found that the right foot is always better for controlling cold weather boost cut related issues.

I would say heavily modded is when you are making 50-60 horsepower over stock.

 

[kingpin748]

when you guys say "heavily modded". What mods are you saying are done? I have a sri, forged bpv, and a cat back. I intend to get a new dp too in the future? Would you consider that "heavily modded"?

No. I would call that medium-rare.

The standback may have been pulling fuel in a spot where it should have had a 0 value in the map. I have always found that the right foot is always better for controlling cold weather boost cut related issues.

I would say heavily modded is when you are making 50-60 horsepower over stock.

That's a really good way of looking at it. Might be better than just counting mods.

 

[speedi3]

UPDATE. Well $6300.00 later she's back together again. Found a Long block with only 1k miles on it with the turbo. Very limited mods on now. Cannot do this engine thing again! That said I need help. Should I part out or scrap the engine parts?

I pick up my car tomorrow and they have completely taken everything apart for me. Which is great but I don't want to haul/keep these parts for ever.

 

[GoFast]

if you can part some of that stuff out do it. re-coup as much as possible unless you don't care about the money. just make sure you post proper pics and signage lol

 

[Lee456]

Congartulations on getting your car back and thanks for letting us know. Hopefully you'll have a lot better luck with the new engine.