Thread: G Spec VVL Crank Pully + High HP + High Revs = Fail...

It was an instantaneous thing I made a third gear pass to 9,000 like i used to and all of the sudden I heard a weird noise and I put the car into neutral and the engine stall... shut off by itself.... When i tried to start the engine again the damage was done... it started slowly and with zero oil pressure...

This combination was recently discovered to be problematic with the G-Spec spacer. You say you had an OEM spacer? I didn't know there was such a thing... If it looks like the G-Spec spacer, then it will have the same problems.

astonsser went through the same problem and documented it here: http://www.sr20-forum.com/227931-post53.html

I was lucky enough to read about his problem before doing any real damage to my oil pump and caught the problem early enough so that I was able to fix it. I too will be documenting the problem and the fix (with many pictures).
This all happened about a month ago. Apparently a couple of people knew it would be possible to do a DE crank -> DE oil pump drive -> VE oil pump -> VE crank pulley spacer -> VE crank pulley setup in theory, but once ashtonsser tried to do it the problem surfaced. Greg's VE crank pulley spacer (that worked just fine for countless DE engines with DE oil pumps) was not designed properly for a VE (or GTi-R) oil pump. These oil pumps have deeper drive collars, causing interference with the old spacer. If you torque down the crank bolt you can crack the oil pump drive case. If that doesn't happen right away, the oil pump gear will grind away at the case until it does fail.
Greg has since stopped selling the old spacers and modified all of them to make sure they will work in this new configuration.

damn payu sorry about what happend its messed up but yo **** happens. Even b4 i started my build my mechanic told me to stay away from aftermarket crank pullies and that not only goes for us it goes for the honda crowd. Dont know why but i listened. Anyway man im just curious how did it feel at 9000 rpm with 400+whp must've been nice.

I used the OEM VE oil pump drive not the DE one the VE one its longer so the Pulley doesnt sit on the oil pump drive I have been using VE oil pumps on DE cranks for a long time I was the first person that made a DE/VE hybrid in the world with a VE head that Miko sold me back in the days when the VE's were a rare item jejeje so Ive been playing with this pumps for years even with modified UR crank pulleys with the VE oil pump but all this was on ALL MOTOR setups and they never fail...

^When was the cut off date of the old to new spacer? This is interestings as I had a VE oil pump on my parts list.

^Sorry Payu

In my case I didnt use the spacer that Greg sell to use the VE oil pump with the DE oil pump drive I used the VE OEM oil pump drive...

xx2

^Hmmmmm. I wonder how much of a difference they have side by side. So let me great this straight. GregV designed a spacer for the DE when using a VE oil pump on a DE and the spacer that he designed is different than the OEM VE spacer?

I guess I can see that in your pictures. The oil pump drive did look long enough to clear the oil pump. I see you weren't having the problem I described.

When you say you were using an OEM spacer, are you referring to the VE oil pump drive sleeve, or did you have a spacer in addition to that? Edit: I see you already answered this question in post # 26.

From the sounds of it, you did everything right, and your oil pump still failed. I wonder why that happened. I'm not sure I'd blame it on the lack of harmonic balancer.

I'm sorry to hear about your problem Payu. I hope we can learn something from it.

It was about a month ago. If for some reason you end up with an "old" one, you can modify it yourself very easily to correct it. You'll see once I post pics in my build thread.