TMIC and bending rods

[Rooballer]

When I did the QLD dyno day the other week, the big thing I noticed was that the ETS TMIC had over stock TMIC was consistency between runs, all the cars with the stock TMIC had a lower kw on their second run, where with the ETS the numbers were identical over the two runs.

[bd581]

I highly doubt insurance cost is even a factor to manufacturers. Otherwise they'd remove all the expensive parts from the car to make it even cheaper

I'm actually considering a FMIC depending on the price these days. I would definately paint mine black to continue my sleeper look.

It does in a way, they look at cost of repair.
Manufactures look at different ways to make repairs cheaper, if a car is expensive to repair, soon as people find that out they tend to look at other options
Its all about marketing.

Other thing is that in the majority of markets where the bulk of the cars would be sold they wouldn't experience the 40degree temps we do, so a TMIC may not be as big of a problem

[Nuliaj]

True, but when you're talking about a car that originally sold for ~$50k the repair costs is not as big an issue on for the target market. Hyundai Excel on the other hand...

[mpsgarage]

Back to the thread No good designed cooler will bend a rod.
There are only two causes
1; over pressure in the bore (which in number four is common)
2; poor tuning

Mazda have always made a weak rod MX-6, Familia's & even turbo charge BJ 323's
Once as you push for that bit extra BANG you would bend a rod.
All engines have a weak spot, hell look at the holden gen 3 the whole thing was a mistake.

[rd415]

All engines have a weak spot, hell look at the holden gen 3 the whole thing was a mistake.

That's a BIG STATEMENT to make - not sure where or how you engage an opinion so far from reality. The truth of the Gen 3 motor is that for the Australian motor the gudgeon pins had a different offset to the US motors to reduce the the oil burning. This resulted in piston slap and which resulted also with with oil burning. The Teflon coating of the original GMH pistons did not work in some cases and the engines required new pistons, mostly under warranty. A GMH mistake not a Gen 3 fault

The local race boat engine builder was curious to find out why at 17,000 kilometres in my case, the Gen 3 needed new pistons. He did extensive enquires to his suppliers of US based performance parts to find out about the piston offset. Apparently the Yanks don't care too much about oil usage and noisy motors.

When I see a four cyl turbo motor pulling skiers at well over 100 mph I'll start knocking V8's especially the well respected Gen 3 and it's subsequent development

[lazydog]

The last holden i saw was in my review mirror sitting at the lights next to a MPS 3

[rd415]

The last holden i saw was in my review mirror sitting at the lights next to a MPS 3

Must have been a VIVA

[kovmps6]

That's a BIG STATEMENT to make - not sure where or how you engage an opinion so far from reality. The truth of the Gen 3 motor is that for the Australian motor the gudgeon pins had a different offset to the US motors to reduce the the oil burning. This resulted in piston slap and which resulted also with with oil burning. The Teflon coating of the original GMH pistons did not work in some cases and the engines required new pistons, mostly under warranty. A GMH mistake not a Gen 3 fault

The local race boat engine builder was curious to find out why at 17,000 kilometres in my case, the Gen 3 needed new pistons. He did extensive enquires to his suppliers of US based performance parts to find out about the piston offset. Apparently the Yanks don't care too much about oil usage and noisy motors.

When I see a four cyl turbo motor pulling skiers at well over 100 mph I'll start knocking V8's especially the well respected Gen 3 and it's subsequent development

i had a VT11 clubsport and had the piston slap..

when my mechanic pulled the engine out he noticed the oil pump piston had seized from excess metal shavings

i guess the VT being the first gen 3 and the guinea pig it took changes like the pistons you mentioned to get them right..

what sort of gen 3 did you have?

[Jmac]

That's a BIG STATEMENT to make - not sure where or how you engage an opinion so far from reality. The truth of the Gen 3 motor is that for the Australian motor the gudgeon pins had a different offset to the US motors to reduce the the oil burning. This resulted in piston slap and which resulted also with with oil burning. The Teflon coating of the original GMH pistons did not work in some cases and the engines required new pistons, mostly under warranty. A GMH mistake not a Gen 3 fault

The local race boat engine builder was curious to find out why at 17,000 kilometres in my case, the Gen 3 needed new pistons. He did extensive enquires to his suppliers of US based performance parts to find out about the piston offset. Apparently the Yanks don't care too much about oil usage and noisy motors.

When I see a four cyl turbo motor pulling skiers at well over 100 mph I'll start knocking V8's especially the well respected Gen 3 and it's subsequent development

I believe he had one, and had a bad experience

[rd415]

i had a VT11 clubsport and had the piston slap..

when my mechanic pulled the engine out he noticed the oil pump piston had seized from excess metal shavings

i guess the VT being the first gen 3 and the guinea pig it took changes like the pistons you mentioned to get them right..

what sort of gen 3 did you have?

Series 2 VX SS with CAI, Exhaust and other small engine mods. Went well after new pistons, but needed big revs all the time. Initial acceleration no better than a stock V6 but when up in revs all hell broke loose.

[nissanman]

Series 2 VX SS with CAI, Exhaust and other small engine mods. Went well after new pistons, but needed big revs all the time. Initial acceleration no better than a stock V6 but when up in revs all hell broke loose.

I noticed the same with my mates gen3 ss. Wanted revs. Has a dual exhaust, headers, throttle body, cai and interceptor.

Actaully wasn't that quick. My s14 would pass it basically any kind race we did. Nice sound mind you and went well for a bigger car and compared to the ford equivelant lol

[Jmac]

I noticed the same with my mates gen3 ss. Wanted revs. Has a dual exhaust, headers, throttle body, cai and interceptor.

Actaully wasn't that quick. My s14 would pass it basically any kind race we did. Nice sound mind you and went well for a bigger car and compared to the ford equivelant lol

Cam and head work is where the power is!!

[Doug_MPS6]

Basic GM engines are good solid designs. The 5.7 litre Chev motor is one of the greats in terms of being bullet-proof.

Trouble is with 98% of Yank stuff, there is bugger all attention to quality, so you can get a good or a bad one. I've had both. And their one problem is it's a big lump of metal that would do for a boat mooring and about as inefficient as it is possible to make. The Yanks were never driven to fuel efficient design.

American iron used to account for around 60% of the US market. Now its more like 20%. It's almost like the complacent auto companies and the United Auto Workers and their feather-bedded outlandish expectations in a diminishing market offered a road-map to the foreign manufacturers, and it's no wonder Toyota, Honda, Nissan and Mazda all walked in to the US. There used to be around 700,000 auto workers on US cars. Now there are around 73,000.

While US cars have improved somewhat in quality more recently, they are still big crap clunky ugly barges when viewed next to even the worst of the Asian cars. Body fitment is shoddy with no standard panel gaps, plastic looks like horrible plastic, nothing is neatly clipped up, fastenings are all odd sizes and nuts and bolt heads are shit metal that rounds off in a strong breeze, instrumentation is abysmal and awful looking and offers lots of glare, and they are more concerned with cup-holders than real function, seating is horrible and offers little or no support, they are about as slippery as a brick and they neither handle nor corner well or safely.

[rd415]

Actaully wasn't that quick. My s14 would pass it basically any kind race we did. Nice sound mind you and went well for a bigger car and compared to the ford equivelant lol

Funny that !!! I traded my Nissan S14 which I purchased new; for the VX SS. The only reason for trading was the lack of doors on the S14 and at the time I needed a tow vehicle. Overall though the performance was similar - by that I mean that the S14 had the acceleration over the VX anyday but the big 5.7 litre hauled arse at illegal speeds. Under the right conditions the V8 had it all over the S14

[mpsgarage]

How far off topic are we now.
It easy Yes rods bent, Yes gen 3's are so so & Yes a 2 litre is just as good as a poor 5.7 litre

[rd415]

My curiosity on this topic has the better of me - how many MPS engines have been seen with a bonafide bent rod - not just hearsay.

I had a cupboard full of bent rods at work for student demo's and all but two were done from over revving - the other two were from Hydraulic lock.

After 45 years of playing cars, I can clearly say that I have never seen an engine modification that caused a bent rod. It usually is the right foot.

Most cases a bent rod is caused by a dropped valve. There is a really good video about the Williams Racing team called "Gentleman Lift Your Skirts" It has some terrific footage on broken valve springs/valve bounce and engines exploding all with the technical explanation.

[mpsgarage]

we have just started our sixth engine with a bend rod (#4 rod) as normal.
Plus we have supplied other ten rebuild kits off the top of my head.
So I would say its common.

[bd581]

So you have had 1 bad experience with a GEN 3 and 16 with the MPS motor and you call the GEN 3 a mistake?
Hmmmm........

Considering the amount of gen3's made, I'd hardly consider it a failure

So what is the actual cause of the mps rods?
My guess would be miss treatment
not that anyone would own up to that

[mpsgarage]

since the GEN 3 has been in Aust I have done myself about leat30+ rebuilds that I can think of from the top of my head & I couldn't know how many parts I have supplied.

You must remember that the MZR is cut edge of a petrol motor. Where the GEN 3 was just a re-release from an old block.

[bd581]

And what was the ACTUAL CAUSE of the gen3's failures?
If the mzr is do cutting edge, why the problems?

When you consider how many problems gen3 engines have had to how many have been built you can't really state it's a bad motor

the modifications made by gmh to the motors to please the Australians quality demands actually made the motor slightly less reliable (in high hp and high rpm situations)