Motor Problem..please help diagnose

[crowinghen]

I don't have anything to say except these kinds of posts make me think I will NEVER give Gowesty any of my money or business... I can't believe they have such little concern about the reputation of their business.


back to your regularly scheduled programming.

susie
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1984 Westfalia a work in progress " Butters"

[shorepig]

My 2.3 gowesty motor in my automatic westy is still giving me problems with pinging/ detonation. I've had countless mechanics check it over, reset the timing, drive it, listen for the detonation, adjust the timing, etc, etc. I've had my plugs checked, compression checked, and fuel pressure checked, cooling system checked. All is ok. This issue is driving me insane, and I can't enjoy my van anymore, as it is constantly on my mind

I can adjust (retard) the timing so the detonation goes away, but then I have a total loss of power, so much so that when accelerating from a stop, it is very sluggish (hesitates). Once up into the higher rpms, 2000 and up the van is nice and does well at hwy speeds.

If I adjust (advance) the timing and re-adjust the idle, the van is perky off the line, but then gets sluggish around 3000 rpms. It almost feels like there is a flat spot or hesitation right around the 3000 rpm mark. Around 3800 to 4000 rpms, the van detonates, especially when climbing even the slightest grade.

If I am stuck in traffic, and the van is running hot (needle located just above the bulb) but no red light on or cooling fan, and I accelerate, the van detonates again. It seems to detonate when it is hot no matter where the timing is set.

So I'm not sure what to do next, as no mechanics can figure this out for me. I'm trying to figure it out on my own. Any insight would be appreciated.
Anyone wanna trade a 2.3 for a 2.5 Subaru?
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85 Westy
92 Mitsubishi Mighty Max 4x4 V6
74 Honda CB500T cafe racer
2013 ktm 690r
Sector nine pintail

[hdenter]

Why not install a wide band O2 sensor and gauge. You will then have an accurate measurement of the Air/fuel at all times. From there you can find out if you have an injection/ecu issue etc. Maybe GW missed something when setting the deck highth and you have too high of a CR. It would be interestining to ask the mechanic who did the "flush job" if he ran the engine again before doing the compression test or if he did it right after with dry pistons/cylinders. Maybe your compression is higher than you think.

Hans
_________________
'79 triple white convertible bug
'84 sunroof vanagon
'85 weekender

[shorepig]

Hans,

I will do another compression check, and hopefully I will get higher compression results. After the purge the results were 110 115 110 115. I don;t know whether the mechanic ran the engine or not before testing the compression.

[hdenter]

our vans have an oxygen sensor that "sniffs" the exhaust gas and tells the ECU if the mixture is rich, lean or just right. Ours are older "narow band" sensors. They are fine for our injection systems. Newer "wide band" O2 sensor are more accurate and provide more info. Installed with a dedicated gauge, you can see for yourself how your engine is burning fuel at all times. You will be able to see if you start to go lean when you aproach the situations that lead to pinging if your injection system is faultering.

Have you tried borrowing a different distributor to rule out a malfunction in yours?

Here's a left field idea...What if the problem is that your are too rich. This could mean excess carbon in the cylnders. Combine that with a cooling system that does not function well (clogged radiator, bad water pump) and a temp gauge that reads too cool. If the engine is hot enough and under load, the carbon could start to hold a glow and spark off the air/fuel too early (detonate) even though the temp gauge does not reflect an unusually high temp. It's a thought...I'm no expert on tuning issues with fuel injection. But, a wide band would at least reviel any issues with the injection system.

Hans
_________________
'79 triple white convertible bug
'84 sunroof vanagon
'85 weekender

[AtlasShrugged]

I have been following this thread and regret all the issues. 10c has built many very good engines and his observations about the ceramic coated pistons could be spot on. Heat concentrated on the top is not a good thing.

In my old racing experience, whenever you started increasing the C/R, ignition timing for total advance and how the advance curve works had to be changed. Sometimes a lot.

Mixture (going rich) could help. The problem is if the engine is in detonation, nothing but a wildly too rich mixture will cure it, costing you power and economy. Detonation will kill the engine (pistons) in short order as it won't take long for the pistons to get hot enough to cause pre-ignition, and you break. Ceramic coated pistons tops would be very sensitive to this problem, as all the heat will stay there. Probably why Gowestey is using Porsche style squirters to cool the underside of the pistons.

I don't know what the C/R is on the new Gowestey pistons would be and when the engine develops carbon deposits, it will higher still.

As a rule of thumb, the higher the compression ratio, the "flatter" the advance curve. Example: stock initial timing 6* atdc and total advance 38* btdc at 3000 rpm.

If the engine is pinging and running "hot" you may need initial timing at 6* atdc and total advance at 30* with 3500 rpm. (or something like that)

Just swinging the distributor around to retard the timing will just waste power because, if you model the example above, with the stock distributor backed up for 30* at 3500 rpm, your base timing would be starting at 14* atdc and the engine will be a dog more most of the power range.

I don't have a 1.9 engine. I understand the timing is set by the distributor rather than being "mapped" by the ECU, like the 2.1

Reshaping the advance curve is old hot rodder stuff and was done all the time. If you can find someone with an old Sun distributor machine, you can change the advance curve on the bench and test the results.

Odd are your old distributor is worn too, making the curve too advanced and the curve too steep..

Gowestey should have some suggestions as to the advance curve needed for their pistons w/ engines. I would think it would be to their advantage to share it.

In the meantime, find someone who has been in competition with VW's, racing them and see if they can help you.

You need a "flatter and narrower advance curve" with a higher compression engine.

[shorepig]

Thanks Hans,

So your saying I should try a new complete distributor? Not just the cap, correct? Either case, I will definitely try that out and report back.

I like the broad band 02 sensor idea with a gauge. That would truly tell me what's up with the injection. So what type of a reading would a gauge like this give? Would it measure in ppm's? Where would i find such a gauge?
_________________
85 Westy
92 Mitsubishi Mighty Max 4x4 V6
74 Honda CB500T cafe racer
2013 ktm 690r
Sector nine pintail

[tencentlife]

If you want to monitor or log mixture with a wideband O2 just temporarily you can rent an LM1 from www.aircooled.net , $75 for 21 days portal-to-portal, $500 core deposit:

http://www.aircooled.net/new-bin/viewproductdetail.php?keyword2=LGU0016&cartid=

To get your own an LM2 costs $350, but you would need to also buy the 18' accessory cable to use it while driving a Vanagon:
http://www.innovatemotorsports.com/products/lm1.php

The LM's are great shop tuning aids. If you wanted a hardwired gauge instead the LC1/gauge package is the way to go.

Innovate isn't the only wideband maker, there are several others and everyone will argue that the one they favor is the best or the cheapest or whatever. I have scads of Innovate stuff and since it's all I've used it's all I can recommend. I do like it. There are objective reasons, also, that their system is the most accurate, which engineers and other wankers will be arguing for decades to come. Any of the units can be cantankerous if you are someone who can't follow directions, but if the cautions about wiring up and especially grounding the systems are respected they will work just as advertised. Lots of fun once you get into it, a wideband monitor is a window into engine operation that wasn't even imaginable to tuners 25 years ago. But if you aren't thoroughly familar with how an engine operates and combustion works, you may find pretty quickly that you're working above your pay grade. But it could show up existing errors or non-optimal operation of the engine systems as you have them.

These display mixture as a ratio of air:fuel by mass, and also as a lambda number. Air:fuel is easy for anyone to understand, pretty self explanatory.

The lambda number is just another version of the same info, it's telling the percentage of air as a portion of a stoichiometric mixture (14.7:1 for gasoline). So lambda 1.0 is the same as 14.7:1, lambda above 1 is leaner (more air), less than 1 is richer.

Stoichiometry (called stoich for short) is the proportion of air and fuel where theoretically all the fuel and all the oxygen that entered the cylinder were used up in combustion. There will be less than 1% of the O2 left in the exhaust, and it is this remainder that any O2 sensor, wideband or narrowband, reacts to as a proxy for the mixture that was in the cylinder and how it burned.

Your narrowband sensor and lambda feedback in the stock ECU will try to keep mixture at 14.7:1, for instance, while for a good enrichment mixture the air component would go down into the mid-12's, like 12.6:1 (divide 12.6 by 14.7 and you get lambda 0.86; get it?). The Digifant and Digijet systems are supposed to go open-loop at wide throttle openings when the TB switch closes there, where the AFM load signal would make the ECU enrich mixture, but in my testing I've seen that that open-loop response is heavily delayed, by about 30 seconds, so for that initial period of high-load there is no enrichment. It's possible that is where your detonation problem is arising. Monitoring with a wideband may show this up.

As Atlas said, your 1.9 diz is mechanically tunable, it's a trial and error process and not for the faint of heart, but you can contract or expand the advancement curve and change the limits of it since it's just a mechanical device. This isn't possible with Digifant because the advancement curves are fixed in digital datamaps, all you can do with that system is advance or retard the entire map by altering the diz position.
_________________
Shop for unique Vanagon accessories at the Vanistan shop:
https://intrepidoverland.com/vanistan/

Please don't PM here, I will not reply.

Experience is kryptonite to doctrine.

[dkveuro]

How's this engine going Shorepig ? I do feel bad for you.

I have read all your posts. I feel there are things needing addressed.
I would like to offer some figures of temp's and conditions I have recorded and monitored over the last 30 years dealing with Vanagons.

Tencent is right on his advice as usual and I don't want to throw a wrench in here but this is my take on this detonation.

If you can hear detonation in a Vanagon Westy, you have missed most of the noise it was making prior to you hearing it detonate. You where hearing only the loudest noise, by which time the damage is done...period .

Detonation is caused by things glowing in the combustion chamber and this can be made to happen earlier if oil is creeping into the chamber. It is also a result of spark plug heat range being too hot, ignition timing too fast and not just coolant getting too warm...

Detonation breaks rings and piston skirts and hammers rod and main bearings causing even more oil to be slung off the crank journals and load the piston rings.

Detonation is like hitting the crown of the piston with a 15 lb sledge hammer....many many times in a few seconds.

When your mech' told you the results of the leak down test, that said it right there...bad motor. Compression pressures don't tell you diddly.

Here's the leak down numbers I go by:

0% to 5% = Good. Newly built motor or just broken in motor.

5% to 12% = Average. Motor with 50k to 80k on it.

12% to 20% = Worn. Motor using some oil ? Prone to detonation .

20% to 28% = Nearly Junk. Drivable but motor worn out.

28%to 100% = Junk. Tear down time or replacement needed.

Your numbers indicated a bad motor. At that point I would have rebuilt it or replaced it. My rebuilt engines don't get past me until I get them to 0% with a max or 2%. If they don't drop to 2% I remove the head to find out why.

Usually it is a little lint or something in the piston ring land and if they still read over 2% I find another piston set or check the cylinder head sealing carefully....ditto valve seats.

I believe the pistons you have are sub standard..they need measuring for fit and clearance in the cylinders and for the ring fit in the land grooves. I would hazard a guess your'll find excessive clearances....especially when at working temperature..

Piston Squirters : These are machined into the block, pointing to the piston under crown and are open at over 25psi oil pressure.

On boxer motors you machine a slot in the rod side faces about 1/32nd deep and wide. This allows oil to escape the crank cheek to splash the more oil at the piston.

I do not do this on stock motors. This applies to VW flat/boxer motors. ( Yeah, I know about Porsche... but they have dry sumps.) It lowers available oil film thickness at the crank journals.

It over loads a low revving motors piston rings and causes excess oil mist in the crank case that can foam up and exit via the breather tube as well as causing drag..

Temperature: Does not matter what size an engine is, it still only needs the same hp at the same speed and will generate the same amount of heat at that loading. I have built 2100cc bug motors with all the cooling tin and thermostat flaps as per factory and still not had them overheat.

Why ?...Compression ratio.

Compression builds heat ...period. Higher compression, the more heat you will generate. My air cooled motors run 6.75 to 1 or a 1835 will run 7.1 to 1. If your G/W motor has 9 to 1 compression...and yes, I have read what Lucas says about that....your motor will need to dump more heat if you run faster/harder than a stock motor will push you, and that is hard not to do with more power.

Volkswagen had reasons for keeping the compression ratio where it was.
Admittedly they where cautious about available fuel quality, but also these had to run the warranty period, which seems yours don't.

I have monitored stock 1.9 and 2.1 motors at the cylinder head next to the spark plug boss at 225+ degrees F when pulling a grade in 4th gear even without the light blinking or the needle showing it's getting hot.

At theses temperatures, the engine is close to overheat and so detonation is closing in, especially if the piston sealing/quality is marginal or loose....so running a higher c/r is adding heat.

I like to run a 180F 'stat in the stock boxer motors and even then I would run 170F in the summer. The 2.1 stock has ECU controlled timing and I have watched these put in 52 degrees btdc at highway speeds .(4000rpm.)

The earlier 1.9 ignition system can be tailored to any curve but should be set to a max of 36degress btdc without the vac' hooked up. ( Stock C/R.)

I have found if you disconnect to O2 signal wire, the mixture fattens up to a steady 0.875vdc and a little more power can be felt. This applies to the 2.1 system to. A built in default to rich. Cools the engine a little too.

$12,000.00 ??? Wow, you could have had a SVX 230 HP motor and a permanent silly grin on your face for that.

So...whats the story so far?
_________________
dk

[morymob]

With comp readings that low can't see a 'hi' comp problem. I would switch the dizzy as that seems to be common part all along, maybe worn and really advanced timing when at low vac.

[shorepig]

It's funny that this thread has been revisited, because I just discovered what appears to be a major problem with my 2.3 gowesty motor. My mechanic was doing a cOmpressioncheck on my van and noticed that the engine was turning over very slowly on start up. He thought maybe the battery was low on cranking power. Battery and starter checked out ok so then he removed the plugs and the engine still barely turned over. At this point with plugs out, and therefore no compression, the engine should rotate easily. He put a rachet on the crankshaft and could not rotate the engine by hand until he put a two foot bar onto the rachet for leverage! He said the crankshaft is binding and there is likely a bad bearing. He said the engine is pretty much toast and total engine failure will occur soon. Thanks again gowesty.

I'm now wondering if all these previous piston failures were caused by this crankshaft issue...perhaps the pistons were running hot (detonation) because the motor was constantly having to work extra hard to compensate for the binding crankshaft???
_________________
85 Westy
92 Mitsubishi Mighty Max 4x4 V6
74 Honda CB500T cafe racer
2013 ktm 690r
Sector nine pintail

[morymob]

TOAST?? Just how does your mec arrive at that? Thinks i not use this 'mec' again. Sounds like no end clearance when cold and tightens up when hot,not necessarily a bad bearing yet. Did u actually try to turn engine at the time the breaker bar was used because i could fake it with a 10ft one. Check end clearance, also how the engine turns when cold, if turns normal, back to above.

[Howesight]

Hey Shorepig:

I am chiming in very sheepishly here because I offered a long time ago to give you my 230,000 MILE 1986 2.1 syncro westy engine when I install my SVX.

Well . . . I have been very dilatory in getting that SVX engine installed and I am still running the stock 2.1WBX and it's not yet available. My apologies.

But, I have a few observations. First, the most recent problems (bearings, it seems) with your GoWeakly engine are likely caused by all the detonation this engine suffered. If you try 94 octane (still available at Chevron) and cannot get rid of the knock, then your ignition timing may be too agressive, but other sources of knock may also be at play.

I read your comments about the break-in of the GoWeakly version 003. New rings don't seat well unless the engine is put under significant load early in the break-in. Also, if you used synthetic oil in the break-in, the rings won't seat properly, period. The ring seating is only relevant, for my discussion, however, because there is a small chance that poor oil control contributed to the engine's tendency to knock. Oil in the combustion chamber can increase the tendency to knock. High octane fuel can combat this. So an engine that ordinarily might run on 87 octane might start to knock if a serious oil control issue arose.

However, your engine has been very prone to knock even at what your mechanic thought was reduced ignition advance. This leads me to strongly suspect that the deck height was not properly set when your GoWeakly version 003 engine was assembled.

Tight deck height is absolutely critical to controlling knock in the "Heron" combustion chamber design on the WBX. It doesn't help, of course, that GoWesty's pistons use the ceramic coating which reduces the quench effect that tight deck heights are intended to give. Tight deck height forces the "end gases" (the ones that cause knock) to be cooled by proximity to the cylinder head and piston which are comparatively cool. Also, the "squeezing" effect forces the gases to move at high velocity to the more open areas in the head and piston bowl, thus speeding the normal flame front. That's right - - speeding. Why the need for speed? Because knock requires heat, pressure and time to occur. The end gases (yet unburnt mixture) need high heat, high pressure and time (like cooking a potentially explosive stew) for knock to occur. The mixture is supposed to burn, not explode. If the end gases burn in the normal fashion before deflagration (explosion) can occur, knock is avoided.

A quick comment about pre-ignition. Knock and pre-ignition are different but often related phenomena. Knock (AKA detonation, "pinging", "pinking") is uncontrolled and sudden explosion of unburnt fuel/air mixture. Pre-ignition occurs when a spot in the combustion chamber or on the piston or on the spark plug becomes so hot it glows and causes the mixture to ignite before spark occurs. Knock increases heat in the engine and can lead to pre-ignition. Knock causes shock waves and in-cylinder pressures the engine (esp bearings and ring lands) was not designed for. Pre-ignition causes sudden heat rise that melts piston or parts of pistons. Pre-ignition rarely occurs in naturally-aspirated engines unless there had first been knock contributing to the rise in heat causing the "glow plug" effect.

I did a post you could call "knock 101" a while ago which explains all this at greater length ( for the more nerdy among us). It's clear you now need a rebuild. No WBX under any circumstances should give the resistance to turning the crank which your mechanic describes with the plugs removed. I disagree with the other poster who suggested that bearing clearance at fully-warmed up temps would increase to acceptable.

But I digress. The point of my post is that you need, on your rebuild, to ensure the following:

1. Ensure that deck height is properly set. (Were your heads and piston dishes cc checked? Your CR may be higher than GoWesty's design intended.)

2. I strongly suggest you simply convert to Digifant and especially the Digifant distributor (there are a number of other peripherals also, obviously)

3. Install a separate air-to-ATF trans cooler;

4. Ensure that the air intake is getting cool air. (Are you using one of those aftermarket "cone" filters such as K&N? If so, chuck it.)
_________________
'86 Syncro Westy SVX

[JunkYarDog]

[tencentlife]

[shorepig]

I haven't been on the Samba in a long time, but thought I'd give an update on m P.O.S. GoWesty motor, and have another rant . I've pretty much decided that I can't stand this motor, and I am anxious for it to die. The amount of stress it causes me driving this van around is enormous, and that can't be healthy.

The only fuel I can drive on to avoid the detination is 94 octane...and that's with my timing retarded, therefore killing most of my power and making the van a real dog. So, not only have I spent loads on a junk powerplant, now I am spending loads on expensive fuel too . On top of that, my mileage seem to be getting real bad....about 12 mpg, and my oil consumption has gone way up.

The end is eminent, and the end is near.
_________________
85 Westy
92 Mitsubishi Mighty Max 4x4 V6
74 Honda CB500T cafe racer
2013 ktm 690r
Sector nine pintail

[advantex]

Hello

I've just read this whole thread and was wondering what you ended up doing?

[Viva.Sabata]

Greetings shorepig,

Can you share with us your final prognosis of your engine noises? Inquiring minds want to know.
_________________
Sabata
1987 Westy Full Camper, Peloquin 5-Speed 2wd

[jocoman]

I read the whole thread today as well and would really like to know the ending

[Ahwahnee]

This recent post mentions he now has 100,000 km on the GW 2.3 -- so yeah, an update would be interesting.

https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?p=8371732&highlight=#8371732