Thread: Nice ride, no juice

I have a 94 sentra that is very nicely tricked out. I went through a puddle/lake and my car is pinging. I have been told that it is either a bearing in the cyclinder, or a bent rod. It's still running and it has been about 2 weeks. I am not sure what to do with it. The mods I have are:

front brakes: AD22vf calipers and rotors from a NX2000 (stock for nx2000) w/ metal master pads
rear brakes: stock SE rear drums
front sway bar: stock SE-R
rear sway bar: Suspension Techniques
coilovers: d2 coilovers (bought on a group buy on SR20Forums.com)
header: hot shot Gen2 ( i am pretty sure thats the right generation)
Cold Air Intake: hot shot
engine: sr20de highport (1992)
battery: optima red top
tranny: stock sr20 tranny with vlsd
clutch: exedy
cage: auto power 6 point bolt in
seat: sparco sprint JR
Lights: Tsuru headlight and grill.

It costs about 1650 to get an SR-20DET (94-00) with the wiring harness and everything not including installation. I don't have that much money. Does anyone know where I could get a cheaper motor? Or should I part this out or just sell it as it is? I put a lot of money and time on it, and i was not looking to sell it, but I can't afford the engine. Any ideas?

picture doenst work

If you went through a lake like I did you've hydro-locked the engine and have bent valves and likely bent rods. Once the rods bend the piston skirts contact the crank weights. Does it run like complete crap?

Your solution is to find a cheap used engine somewhere close to you and put that in.
Use this site or buy from a member on this forum.

why not start by inspecting the crank and the bearing of the bad rod? If you catch it early enough it's fixable, but since you kept driving on it, the damage might be too severe. Again, there's only one way to find out.

BenFenner is also on to something. If it's as he describes, then yes, new engine time.

By the way, it's "knocking", not "pinging". Pinging occurs with premature detonation of fuel in the cylinder, most commonly on high-compression engines.

Part of the problem was that the engine took a gulp of water and messed up the firing for a few days. It runs strong now, but still pings. To look at either the rod or the bearing would require extensive work that I don't think i could do. I could take it apart but I know I wouldn't be able to put it back together. Someone told me if it is pinging it is too late to save the cylinder. Does that sound accurate?

It sounds like you took on enough water to do some damage but not enough to completely ruin things. The water got into the oil and now you have a chocolate milkshake in your crank case. That then caused one or more rod bearings to fail and now you have the knocking sound.
You might get lucky and be able to change the oil and do a ghetto rod bearing replacement.
Or, you might be in for a new motor.

First thing to do is drain that oil and see if I'm right about the water in it. Or maybe you can tell from the dip stick.

Oh yeah, and by the way, pinging is definitely what it is doing. It doesn't sound terrible, it just pings consistently.

What exactly does this pinging sound like? Can we get a video? No engine I've ever heard has actually made a real pinging sound. That's nuts.

Like I said before, pinging is premature detonation of fuel, causing 2 explosion wavefronts to collide on detonation resulting in a "ping"

Your car, from what you've told us, is "knocking". The words are not related directly to the sounds they make, but what the sound is a result of. Knocking is an issue with the drivetrain, specifically attached to the rod assemblies. Pinging is due to fuel detonation collision, fixable through tuning.

Ok That makes sense. I am going to go take a look at the oil.

Hey Benfenner you've got a super sick ride, wanna trade? I'll even through in a coupon for pizza (buy 10 get one slightly discounted) and a get out of jail free card.