Thread: Got Rod Knock at the convention? Post it here...

What are you people doing? I keep hearing about this rod knock issue with sr20 motor but never had an issue. Are you Missing shifts? Turboed?

We put over 4k track miles alone on our already 110k mile engine in our p10 last year and all is fine...



BTW: We use only 5w30 synthetic

How many of you actually have oil pressure and oil temp gauges anyway?


We just never have an issue.


I can show you the G forces on our G20 from traqmate if you like but we've been to MidOhio, Grattan, Blackhawk, Autobahn, Gingerman, and Road America without any issues!!! We change oil before every track event, monitor our gauges, check oil level between runs, etc.

Now we have 116k miles on this engine and will easily put another 4k track miles on the car this season.

I didn't get rod knock, but my alt died on I-95. Individual electronics started to turn off. Radio, speedometer, lighter plug, etc... until the car just lost power and shut off.

Made a 7 hour trip 16 hours. I still made it to work on time despite I-95 giving trouble.

Thank you!

My pressure gauge never droped below the norm. 15w40 syn oil. Once it stops raining I will get up under her to actully see what happened.

I'm sure if I built an N/A car, or something with a lot less turbo, I'd be okay as well. The car was also driven over 800 miles to GA from CT, and then back to NJ, at highway speeds of 80mph. When you're driving over 4 hours in a row at highway speeds, with the motor sitting at a constant 4krpm, you're bound to eventually break something with lightweight oil.

Yeah, I'm an idiot. It's okay though, now I have an excuse to rebuild it!

Somebody was saying (maybe chriscar?) that VDO uses the same sender for oil and water temp gauges (assuming they use the same sweep) and they had the single gauge for water, but a toggle switch on the input and a sender for both water and oil. Then you can switch back and forth from the driver seat. I'm going to look into that for my setup.

Other gauge makers probably do the same thing.

I'm actually considering going with a multi-gauge, as soon as Calum says whether they're worth it or not

PLX Devices:

With something like the multigauge, I wouldn't need the gauge pod, or anything else. Just on gauge that I can pipe all sensors into.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TP0Dn9EUjTc&feature=player_embedded

Our car is indeed N/A. It is a stock motor purchased from a 1999 Infiniti g20 being parted out and had 110k miles at the time. We have done nothing to the motor from stock form other than swap the intake from our low compression 195k mile 95 motor to this 99 motor.

We have driven in 90+ hot humid days as well.

One thing I will make note of is that we tried 10w40 and noticed the oil getting too hot in one run and immediately went back to 5w30 AT THE TRACK to avoid risking any damage. (monitoring oil temp told us the 10w40 was just too thick and running hotter) 5w30 and it all went back to normal.

So to make it perfectly clear, we did NOT 'upgrade' to a different oil pump or oil pan or anything else of that nature. The only 'cooling' measures we have taken are to completely remove the A/C, install a brand new aftermarket replacement radiator (not even OEM) AND we did install an additional cooler for the power steering because we did experience overheating of power steering without the additional cooler. We run synthetic royal purple now in the power steering. Oh yeah, we run pure distilled water with water wetter in summer months as well (winter we go back to 50/50 mix for obvious reasons).

I'm wondering if you turbo folks just don't have it tuned properly and are simply running too much HP and too lean as we know someone who has put over 100k miles on his turboed (moderate turbo at 255hp) without issue and the only reason for not running now is because the b13 rusted away to an unsafe level. He will be turboing his p11 now though which will also be his daily driver

I can't speak for anyone else, but I honestly can say I trust the tune. The tuner did a phenomenal job! Everything about how the motor runs is so damn smooth, it's not even funny.

I'm almost 100% sure the demise of my motor was from running it at 4krpm to 4500rpm for extended periods of time, breaking down the oil so much that it could evaporate. Those periods of time exceeded 2 to 3 hours straight, as I was trying to make it home at a decent time. Hindsight, run thicker oil if I'm taking a road trip like that, or just drive much slower

When I pulled the oil filler cap to add oil after hearing the tick at the toll booth, smoke came billowing out. Smelled exactly like burning oil would.

Wow, I've never had that experience, but FWIW, I drove 16 hours total in 4th gear at approx 70-80mph.