Thread: N1 with seized engine...which way to go next, any thoughts?

was on a night out with mates, going through London, trying to get some tunnel runs and test out my buddy's new Go Pro..

started off well, but ended badly

after one of the tunnels we came out with the car sounding very rough...stopped it at the nearest safe place to stop

as the car had stopped itself, didn't even risk restarting it..

thought would do some checks before attempting a restart..

everything seemed fine in the engine bay, no leaks, or signs of anything broken..

checked oil level, and zip...there was nothing registering on the dipstick...Ouch

cutting a long story short, after waiting for around 5hrs for recovery to turn up got the car home.

checked oil again and it was confirmed it was again nothing showing on the dipstick...

I put in 3ltrs if I was going to do some tests before possibly restarting it..

checked, for leaks under the car, none found...removed and checked plugs all good, water level good, and no signs of oil in it..

so where did the oil go, was only topped up before the Ace meet, and had done less then 100 miles from then to this fateful night.

removed valve cover, everything looked spot on there..so all good..next attempted to manually turn the engine, and that didn't go well at all..wouldn't budge.

next point of call, remove oil to see if that shows up anything, and that wasn't bad, apart from it being dirty no bits came out..the joy was short lived as when I removed the sump next, following was found..

interesting thing was, although dipstick showed empty, when I topped up 3 ltrs, over 5ltrs came out, so there was still just over 2 ltrs in there which is interesting.


on its last run...




valve cover off ..















not so good with oil pan removed









as the bottom end would need a rebuild anyway, any thoughts on which way to go, keep it 16ve go 20ve or even 22ve?

don't use the car for any track mainly just street use

What fuels can you get locally? 2L with the N1 pistons would a good build, you compression will be quite high because of the shaved head.

Would be a waste of time/money rebuilding back to 1.6L

We have fuel rated to 99ron

I would think about doing the high compression 2l conversion route, as long as you can get a decent tuner and fuel.

Hmm interesting. .got decent tuners...git good fuel...but getting one who can map the N1 ecu even with Powerland ecu is the biggie

There are daugherboards for the n1, or convert to 4 injectors and use a normal tunable ECU, OR put the money towards a decent standalone ecu and keep the 4 injectors

He has a daughterboard ECU already a 'powerland' from the guy in Greece.

Best bet is just get a 2 litre crank and rods, use your n1 pistons with new rings.
Get a new oil pump, check the cams under the caps to make sure they aren't damaged at all, I'd look at getting a new block as well to be honest.

Get your head stripped and cleaned thoroughly, you don't want any traces of anything ruining the next build.

Ah my bad, you can get japaneese boards for the n1, they are quite good apparently.

Don't forget to notch the pistons, the extra stroke means the pistons will contact the oil squirters.

+1 on new oil pump,

agreed would prefer to get a new block, though finding a block alone ain't gonna be the easiest thing...

to be honest, using a DE block and just running an external oil feed isnt the worst thing in the world.