Thread: Why we had so many issues with our 'used' sr20 engine

sounds like it should have been put in a derby afterwards!

We considered it. My buddy entered his into a car show all wrecked.

That sucks, i bought the motor in my car off a kid who literally just had it rebuilt, 0 miles with receipt and motor still wrapped up, install it and seeped coolant from the head gasket up front and leaked oil like a pig, after 1000 miles i figured it out, idiots at the machine shop caught the hg with the front cover during assy. Needless to say had to redo the hg with only 1000 miles on it lol

Stupid headache

youch That is the worst (brand new engine build with an issue like that!) ..we had a ring break on a fresh built miata engine (had to take it apart to replace the broken ring in that case as well)... total PITA.. I guess it's just human error in engine rebuilds

Welcome to hot rodding lol

Well folks, I'm happy to report everything is sorted out now and finally the car is completely reliable and properly put together! It was a long effort but its finally well sorted and all the right bolts and welds, etc. are in place now

What a hassle.

Yes it was! We thought we were buying a 'ready to race' car and ended up having to go through almost everything before getting to this point. The list is extensive including the following biggies:

- gravel (aka kitty litter from a bad off) everywhere and issues such as gravel stuck in belts (actually imbedded into belts) along with bent water pump pulley (not even kidding)
- 2x4 for a seat back brace on smelly stinky nasty old seat (replaced with Cobra containment EVO seat and new Schroth belts instead of latch n link that was in it at time of purchase)
- unable to go below half a tank without fuel cutout in turns (ended up being the sock wasn't on the fuel pump and clearly was never installed properly)
- unable to pass NASA 'spot check' tech inspection until most of the cage welds were addressed (about 12 spots that were not proper 360 welds essentially)
- new battery to replace undersized mediocre one that said (economy battery) on it
- SFI padding missing or rock hard from age (useless) and had to be replaced
- fire extinguisher that was empty due to slow leak (lot of good that does if there would have been a fire)
- Starter wiring a nasty mess so the car wouldn't even start properly
- emergency cutoff wired incorrectly causing a dangerous back feed when used until corrected (all good now of course)
- had to put car on frame machine to straighten the front from previous damage (which only got worse with our own crashes last october I must admit)

...and the grand-daddy of all is what started this whole thread how we never got good oil pressure from day 1 of ownership of this car (turned out to ultimately be a sealing problem with how the previous owner replaced the oil pump/front cover)

...and lots of other little things here and there (such as horrible front tire wear due to no front sway bar so we found, purchased and installed a front bar again)


But anyway.. its all good now.. Literally took a year to sort it all out! (I guess you get what you pay for in this case.. lol)