wow! That is quite a spec list there.

Do you have a build thread?

 

That would seem to be an aweful lot of rev's you're using.
Nice to see such a comprehensive listing on parts, etc, but Iwas a bit surprised with the alloy flywheel as there's some question of it's reliability - but if it works for you?
As it's LHD, are you going to go to a full TB setup, or stick to what you've got?
Oh, how much taller is the engine? It's still a good fit under the bonnet?

I see you're still using the AFM, have you considered using a Pot' on the throttle body and going fully mapped? May improve the airflow a little?

 

The rev limiter will be in the future up to 8520rpm. It's 26,86 metres per second more tha 25metres per second that is usually the limit. But I have good parts and lighter than standard, and lot of my friends revving honda motors up to 28metres per second without a problem in reality. the fidanza flywheel have a steel plate that the disks working so no durability problems. It is one of the best parts I fiited into my car and I also had on my old detup the same flywheel but with 8bolts. Of course I balaced the flywheel with my crankshaft and the crank pulley. It revs a lot better especially in first and second gearm the engine responce is fantastic. The engine is 0,9cm taller than c20xe block but no problems with the bonnet.
I will bot go to throttle bodies, I tested my intake on air flow bench and increasing the flow of the head, so is enough good and also intakes with plenum give stronger resonance.
I will stick in air flow for the moment as I had a larger diameter and iit is ok. In the feature if I have a problem I will go to dta with tps and map sensor main map.
What is Pot?

 

No I unhapilly not, I discovered the built threads later. I will try to upload some photos though

 

Sorry "pot", or TPS, is a potentiometer (device for measuring relative resistances) used to give the throttle position - it's used with engine management systems that don't use air flow measurement.
However, if your setup works well, and you're happy the AFM, etc, isn't restrictive, just keep what you've got.

A mate, Chad, has a similar induction setup to yours on his Vectra's C20XE and it seems to work well - with mild cams it has a VERY flat torque curve from 3k to 7k5!

 

Sounds interesting
That does sound a bit..... high on the rpm side compared to other 88/94 builds. Didnt think they liked to go up that high or should i say there wasn't much point as the power had been and gone type of thing? Would be interesting to see some dyno readouts:nod:
A set of ITB's along with the cams you have planned would go down a treat

 

In tuesday my engine was broken from CON ROD Failure at first cylinder. The con rods was steel 148mm with arp 2000 rod bolts. I did some testings in air / fuel mixture and the afr was in reality lean in some rpms but in the range that the rod is broken was 13,2:1.
The engine block was cracked (it made a big hole in the front in the crankshaft sensor). The piston is in good condition as and the cylinder walls. The piston colour good. The exhaust valve a little white in colour from lean mixture, but the failed is not from lean mixture... The cylinder head has 2 bent exhaust valves and maybe the same in the inlet, I don't know yet. The head hapilly is in good condition. The crankshaft seems that the bearing is black in colour. I don't have any other info. I will upload the last video, and some pictures....


Engine specs as I told is full spec but with standard c20xe camshafts.
The video...

Accelarate in 3rd, and then in 4rth there the engine fails. 80-110km/h in third was in 2,7sec...
YouTube - Vectra A c23xe engine failure!


Pictures

 

Shame it spun a bearing. Good engine build though. Going to rebuild again?

 

First of all I want to find what was the reason that failed in first cylinder.

The first cylinder has the most oil pressure, so propably thats not an oil failure.
In reallity my engine I think didn't have so much oil pressure.
Do anyone had some stats of oil pressure?
My engine had 4,3-4,5 bar when it was cold.
When the oil was more than 85c the oil pressure was 1,45 - 1,8 bar in idle.
over 2200rpm was about 3bar plus
at 2900rpm was 4,3bar and then from 3100rpm up to the rev limiter the oil release valve was open and the oil pressure was 3,7 - 3,95 bar.

I had hydraulic followers, and the only modification I did was a extra spacer to the spring of oil release valve (for more pressure) and I made a 2,8mm hole oil restrictor in the engine block. (ecotecs blocks dont have restrictor in block, maybe they have in head I don't know). The standard c20xe oil restrictor is 3,8mm. So I prefer to reduced that at 2,8mm to have more oil pressure in the cranckshaft.

I am suspecting also a oil pump ring damage (I have sbd steel inner but the outside is standard). But again in this case more changes to fail is one othe the other cylinders and not the first one.

So what may be the reason for this failure?
Not good quality con rod?
Wrong measured in con rod bearings?
i don't know yet.

An other useful info when the engine fails had 704 C temperature on exhaust gasses, that is not so hot

As for the question if I will rebuild again the engine, yes but I don't know what spec I will use.
It's difficult to find a 2200 engine block again and a crankshaft, and in reality I am afraid to build on like this again. Because I need at least 8500rpm revving for the power I want and for use in track day.

So my options are:
a) 2.3 again, if I find engine block & crankshaft (and also if I find the reason of the engine failure)
b) 2.1 or 2067cc with 86mm crankshaft but with 148mm con rods and slipper pistons.

Only this two seems interesting for me know.
And I will install my dta s60 for more easy and friendly tuning.

 

When a rod is discoloured like that it's due to one thing - heat! Normally a result of a bearing severely overheating due to lubrication failure - what arte the other bearing like, any sign of contact?
What was the oil pressure, and how was it measured?
I don't recall seeing a rod failure in that area, ever - assuming the oil pressure was good, I suspect the rod big end was deformed from the high rpm, compromising the oil film and leading to the failure - the overheating, in turn, having weakened the rod material.
What brand were the connecting rods?
Another factor may be that you were using 'standard' full skirt pistons, which are considerably heavier than the slipper piston usually used for such high rpm - remember, the loading is proportional to the stroke, mass of the parts and the square of the rpm!

So, possible rod quality, heavy piston and possibly excess rpm - especially if the tacho' is out!

I's say the 2.3 again, but with slipper pistons and premium (if they weren't) conrods - and less rpm?

 

Gordon no one build a c23xe / c22let-c23let with slipper pistons. This need a custom con rod with 153mm con rod length. The most people use 148mm con rods or e very short con rod on the c20xe engine block that gives a very ugly rod stroke ratio. Even the insaneswede in his c20let rev the turbo 600hp plus engine up to 8000rpm with propably heavier turbo pistons without problems.
My engine with standard camshafts was about 220-230hp not more, and at 8000rpm have 25,22m/sec. The piston ok there are heavier than slipper but it is lighter than standards 86mm. Also the steel con rods are a lot lighter than standards c20xe. Arp2000 a lot stronger than std rod bolts.

I wrote my oil pressure stats in my previous post. I measured this with a dual gauge oil pressure fro SPA design system. I didn't see the pressure in the moment my engine broked because I has my mind into the road but in other conditions the oil pressure was as I told.
The oil temperature was about 80c.

I bought the conrods from autosprint.co.uk and I don't know what made are they.
As for the rev counter the 8160real rpm is about 8300 in the rev counter.

I have friends with honda k24 engine builds that revving up to 8600rpm with same size pistons and with 99mm stroke! No problem there..

I must open and the other cylinders to see the condition of the con rods there.

 

In my experience these failures occur because most people don't get enough preload in the bolts or the cap is too thin and goes oval. The beam size looks adequate so I suspect the inital problem is in the big end area.
Considering the piston speed on your engine I would of used a better bolt than the ARP2000 to start with and tightened the bolts using a micrometer with pointed anvils to properly measure the stretch. This would of made sure there would not be a bolt stretching that caused the cap to move enough so the bearing spun. Other than that you need to make sure your next rods have a decent cap thickness.
Once the bearing spins and seizes on the crank pin the forces are enough to destroy even the best rods.

 

Stefan. I had a problem with this. We reduced a little the thickness of the cap because the y22xe crankshaft have thicker counterweights and thinner big end bearings, so the conrods didn't fit as standard. I am suspecting also that my bearings was to tight with the counterweights because the the thickness of the bearing was about the same with the crankshaft bearing and I don't know if that makes a problem with the oil escape.

 

Depends on the journal design on the crank - there's a radius where the journal meets the counterweigh/arm cheeks, some engines this is a rolled undercut, on others it's part of the journal - if the latter, the shell could have ridden up on the radius, causing the failure.

Some info here Installing A Crank and here How to Pick a Crankshaft - Car Craft

Not a lot of links - or poor search terms.
You can buy narrow shells, or you can make up a fixture and lightly chamfer the shells in a lathe.
Shame about the failure, if I were financial agin, I'd like to build up a mild version for the road car.

 

Alex good to hear its gonna be back soon!! wait to see good numbers

 

Ouch that didnt end well then:doh:

Didn't seem to want to rev very well either

 

The most propability for the engine failure is a broken outer oil gear (because the inner was steel). The broken gear must be from the aluminum crank polly V pulley that not give antivabriation characteristics on a such long stroke crankshaft on high rpms. For some reason the con rod didn't have oil that the reason that have this blue colour for excess heat. In saturday I will find the truth when I have the other parts in my hands.

Rs1 don't worry. Next time the engine will run on it would be with dta managment and with the camshafts included on the current specs, as 2.3 as it was or as 2.1 with long con rods and slipper pistons...

 

Hi Alex, now that you mention it iirc steveboyslim found issues with harmonics with the front pulley arragememt when he done a bit R&D into increased capacity xe/let's.

For future referance the zlet oil pump setup is a fair bit stronger than xe/let...... even with sgb inner gear.

Good luck with the rebuild.

 

Hello,
We made the engine whole in pieces. the other 3 pistons-rods are ok
the oil pump is ok not broken ring. So all the problem was in first cylinder...

Excesive temperature that made the con rod blue (so when it was running before it broken was red from temperature), two broken Arp 2000, and a broken steel con rod H that broken the engine block.
Why?
No oil pressure? (Why so no problems in other cylinders)?
Not correct bearing measurement clearence?
Oval caps from high rpms and not so good quality con rods?
Arp 2000 problem?

What do you thinking?

Thanks

 

Possibly a bit of swarf that effected oil feed to that cylinder?

Was it not knocking its tits off making a right racket before it failed?

 

the video shows the entire failure sequence, engine sounded fine then clatter bang!

 

chip the only strange it was hearing in the engine sound is the last two seconds because it fails. Listen the sound in the video before it brokes. The oil capacity was good, the oil temperature never exceed the 90c and the oil pressure was 3,7 - 3,95 bar at those rpms usually. The truth is I didn't saw the oil pressure in the last moments because I had my mind in the road because was night with wet road, but in the start of video all it seems ok.

Now I saw again the video, from 6500rpm is a little different the sound than normal and at 7200rpm it changes a lot until it fails at 7500rpm....

As for swarf when I did 1000km from engin rebuild I changed the oil and the oil filter.
The engine failed after 1100km. I had 2100km only...

 

Wow, im amazed it didnt make a noise until so late on, would have expected a failure that bad to have taken ages to occur.

Doesnt sound like assembly swarf issue either if it did that many miles first.

Sounds like you were REALLY unlucky there, I suspect you'll never find the reason it happened now

Proper wounder!

 

When you look at the other shells, was thare a very thin, shiny section at the edge - if there was a problem witht he crank journal radius, it may show there.
What I ound puzzling was the broken ear on the rod - it's why I think that's what failed, not the rod bolts. If a bolt had broken, I would expect the rod and cap to be 'square' in that area but it's actually spread the rod and cap - suggesting the rod is what broke.
Why it got hot is, IMO, the issue - have the other, intact rods checked for any deformation in the big end housing and do they have any areas that are a bit shinier that others? If so, that would suggest deformation of the shell.

 

The engine broken photos

Pictures Update:

Bearing trimetalic Pieces in the sump

Sump Cracked propably from the broken Arp bolts

Engine Block Hole. You can see the crankshaft sensor hole also there, with the missong part.

Crankshaft on con rod bearing on first cylinder, completely destroyed. All others are in good condition.

The scenario is this of the broken moment. We don't know the reason for the excesive temperature on the first Con rod yet.

 

I wanted to make a post with a more happy subject to see if it is worthing someone to make a 2300 engine and so that I made some comparisons.

The c23xe made this time on the last video:YouTube - Vectra A c23xe engine failure

60-160km/h accelarating only in 3rd 11sec
80-110km/h on 3rd 2,8sec
100-160km/h on 3rd 7,5 sec
All the measurements are with two persons in the car.
Definately If I had the chance to measured times on full accelaration from 1st gear the same times will been a lot faster..


A peugeot 306 gti 6speed 167ps (a lighter car than caqvalier mk3) make these times for comparison:

YouTube - PEUGEOT 306 GTI 0-230 Km/h

60-160km/h on full accelaration (1st-2nd-3rd-4rth gear used) 14,7sec
80-110km/h (2nd-3rd) 3,5sec
100-160 (2nd-3rd-4rth gear) 10,5sec

You can see in the next video my engine in the previous spec. It sounds faster and more impressive in high rpm's but in reality the difference is very little and the camshafts was aggressive (283degrees - 11,5mm max lift) comparised to the c23xe thar runned on standard's c20xe camshafts and wrong air fuel ratio. And definetaly in race accelaration from 3rd gears at 60-160km/h the 2067cc engine was slower but from 0-160km/h I believe that would be about the same.

Video 35-200km/h (At 140km/ I left for a moment the gas pedal)
YouTube - vectra gsi C20XE

I think that the c23xe engine with aggressive camshafts will be in other class of power, if not fails again in high rpms offcource lol

Can someone post his times on about same comparison tests?

Thanks

 

Ive never put an accurate gauge on a standard XE, but the sort of figures you were seeing, of over 3 bar, should have been fine, I really dont see that its low pressure which has caused that failure given how quickly it happened, the fact its on the one nearest the pump and the fact that the others are fine.
If it was low pressure in general then I wouldnt expect it to only effect one cylinder.

 

You are right. If it was an oil pressure problem then I will had problem in all journals.

A question:
The crankshaft I had was the late type with balancing shaft gear (that I removed and balancing). This crankshaft had a more narrow con rod journal so I modified my 148 c20xe kit car spec con rods to fit.
Does anyone know if the first type crankshaft x22xe that don't have balancing gear if has the same dimennsion journal as big as ther c20xe?

 

Looking bakh through your posts, and this may be clutching at straws a little, I noticed you hade clearances of 0.04mm - this may be a little tight* if there's any big end distortion but, perhaps more importantly, the clearance is also needed for oil flow which also cools the bearings.
The bearing may have started to pick up on one of the previous runs, getting hot, before finally melting down and weakening the rod enough to fail at the high rpm.

At the extreme, the old Pinto engines used for drag racing in the states used to run up to 10 thou' (0.25mm) on the rods to avoid bearing problems.

 

Gordo even with this logic the problem have less chances to be in first cylinder that the oil pump in near. The other journals are excelent. except if the first journal have more flexing vibrations because is more near to aluminium pulley.

 

Hello Alex.
Got your Email.

this is really a coincidance(spelling)
I have spun a bearing in my engine too, and sits down in my basement crying for repair.
Got all the parts needed to rebuild it,, but i´m in full speed on building a garage.

And i think we have the same problem, overheated bearings.
This is due to too small axial clearance between crank and rod.
I set it up to 0.1mm this is to tight i learned the hard way.
We need atleast 0.2mm 0.25mm is the upperlimit.
this means oil that pump delivers to the bearing will almost never be evacuated from the bearing(more correct:restricted), this equals overheated bearings.
And more heat is building up and gets the big end on the rod a bit oval, and voila´ big end bearing spins.

But i had much less damage. just crank and one rod went bad, nothing ever got cracked, just weared out the bigend.
I have a crankshaft in spare and got 4 new rods for free, mine are 158mm by the way
And i had good oilpressure when it happened, about 4.5bar on idle.(so i recon it wasnt the pressure in your engine that failed)
But!!! oiltemp wen´t up the sky,, about 120 celsius...
This add more fuel to my speculations.

the new rods will get 0.25mm clearance and ACL racebearings with 0.06mm radial clearance(had the same radialclearance before)

 

And i think we have the same problem, overheated bearings.
This is due to too small axial clearance between crank and rod.
I set it up to 0.1mm this is to tight i learned the hard way.
We need atleast 0.2mm 0.25mm is the upperlimit.
this means oil that pump delivers to the bearing will almost never be evacuated from the bearing(more correct:restricted), this equals overheated bearings.
And more heat is building up and gets the big end on the rod a bit oval, and voila´ big end bearing spins.

The new rods will get 0.25mm clearance and ACL racebearings with 0.06mm radial clearance(had the same radialclearance before)

I had suggested that, perhaps he'll consider it now.
0.25mm is what was used on some Pintos, as I mentioned, but it's also 0.010" which is rather high* - you may find oil pressure at lower RPM is a problem with a stock pump as there's a lot more 'leakage' past the bearings - you may even need to consider a 60 weight oil.
BTW, your oil temp was 120C - where was it measured as that is a bit more than the 100-105C I would consider a good level to be at?

* the shell and journal don't match very well - witht he small block Chev' engine, you used to be able to buy racing bearing shells in + or - 1 or 2 thou steps, in order to get the oil flow and bearing conformability - tighter in the rod for support and looser in the cap to aid the oil flow.

 

and a tip..
If rebuilding it,, do NOT rev it above 7500rpm, it´s an magical limit for the XE engines on std oilpumps.

 

Hello, thanks for your reply and for your usefull tips. But what do you mean for 7500rpm limit on standard oil pump?
Do you mean on std 86mm also crankshaft or specially for the stroked 94,6mm 2.2 engine?
Because on my previous setup I run my 2.067cc engine every day with a rev limiter of 8300rpm (and sometimes up to 8800rpm) for 45.000km without any problem, ofcource with sbd steel gear ring.
Also the piston speed at 8000rpm is ok even at 94,6mm setup (25,22m/sec).
I am thinking to use a z20let oil pump in my next setup, maybe give some more pressure.