Roman

I didnt realize that was an option! Keen as

I found the cause of the debris field. Two rods on the "bent valves" side of the engine, had essentially vaporized their big end bearings. So this motor is definitely off to spare parts heaven. Haha. Some interesting evidence is showing in the bores on that half of the engine. Of the forces put on the pistons to bend the valves. The piston coating has all been scraped off on the exhaust side only. Which I guess makes sense given that only one side of the piston (the other side) was conked really hard by the valves, pushing that side into the bore. Ahh well, feels good to know for sure what happened now. I am looking forward to getting the new motor and making a start on it!

I got the head back off tonight. The combustion chamber etc, all looked perfectly fine. I tried hammering the valve out, and it just snapped at the bend - so the rest slid out the bottom. Easier than expected! However the valve guide was already broken off at the top, and cracked further down. So it would need repairs to keep using this head. Taking the rest of the sump off, and there's definitely a whole bunch of shit in there. I am still not sure where it's come from yet, as there's no damage to the rocker/cam/anything up top that can explain the volume of material that is present. The worst damage that I've found apart from the valve/guide, was actually on the next cylinder over. From a previous incident. Where some crap had fallen in, however that happened. There were a few dents and a few pieces still lodged in. The piston looked mostly okay. I thought I'd dodged a bullet on that one, but it probably would have caught up with me. It would likely be a lot more prone to knock on that cyl. As some of the embedded bits might act as hot spots. Which isnt a great thing given the high compression ratio already. It's borderline tempting to just try clean this all up, replace a valve guide and reuse the head. But this poor thing has taken enough of a hammering. Lots of accumulative damage by now. Even if the big end bearings arent already toasted, they've probably had a hard time from when the valves all bent. So this can go on the engine stand as an R&D/spares motor. I had a look at all of the other rockers, to see if there were any other signs of the stakes failing. There was 1 more which looked like it had had the pin had started shifting across. But not quite enough to dislodge yet. Swapping in a new motor needs a fair bit of prep work. Things that need doing: -Plug up direct injection holes. (I might get them welded up this time) -clean all of the carbon shit off all of the intake valves. -install kelford valve springs and retainers. -Tig all of the rockers. -Fit high tensile bolts and loctite to the intake and exhaust VVT pulleys. -Fit cover plates to hold in the guts of the exhaust VVT pulleys. -Port the heads, at least to blend in the grotty intake bits. Stretch goals: -Maybe actually drive it this time -Get it all reliable enough that I can fit the big kelford cams. Thats when the party really starts. Hopefully.

Exactly. Phase 1 of R&D is complete! what did we learn: Problem: Exhaust VVT pulleys have a middle part that will wriggle out. Fix: Make the cover plate to hold its guts in. Problem: Intake VVT pulleys will rattle their bolts out and then bend all the valves if it comes loose. Fix: fit high tensile bolts, and loctite the shit out of it. Problem: Rockers have a weakness in the staking. Fix: Secure with tig. Then I also had a piece of debris jam a valve seat, mostly because I only had a gravel driveway to work on. Which I was lucky to get away with. I mean, it would be nice if this garbage can engine was designed better so most of the stuff above didnt happen. But not every engine is as perfect as a 1NZ I guess.

Some surprises in the sump! Many, many surprises haha. This oil filter deserves a payrise, as everything post filter looks great. Will be interesting to see how much shit is jammed in there. I'm not even sure where this is all from yet. Simply remnants of the last few times this engine has shit itself? Relates to the rocker collapse? Run a bearing? Just left overs flushed through, from failed VVT pulley(s) ? Not sure yet. I wouldnt be surprised if a big end bearing (or all of them) got a real hammering when it bent all of the intake valves that other time. But if this particular engine's swan song was to let me know that the rockers can blow to bits, and how to fix. Then I salute it for giving one more snippet or R&D before it shat the bed. Will yank the motor back out and then get a better idea soonish.

Any time man.

Far out, that didnt take long! Be interesting to see the difference

Weld that tach to the 10k rpm mark! haha

I posted up the failure on a 2GR group on Facebook, and someone had this to say: So hopefully that's the end of that issue at least.

Yeah looks like a little tig blob and will be fine. Time consuming, but cheap and easy fix for everything that has happened. I will see if I can get a head off while the engine stays in the car. I might look at modding the front cover so I can remove it without taking the sump off, as its a major pain. Especially since I'm probably going to need to do it 10x more

Yeah, they are cheap and common at the moment, and still reasonably low km. So its definitely the intention to buy and wrap up a few whole motors while they're still nicely priced. However they are made right up to 2019 so I'm not anticipating any shortages too soon. Shrike - Those two guys above havent actually done it yet. Frankenstein motorworks will get here. Other guy, I wouldnt bet on it. I cleaned up the busted rocker and had a test to see if it will tig okay. Looks like it will be sweet as they are same material. So one side the pin was high, the other sunken in, and they both tigged up fine. Will just make sure everything is super clean, tungsten is super sharp, and will test on my busted one before piping anything down on a part I'm going to reuse. So all that I have to now, is take the sump off, so I can get the front timing cover off, so I can get the cams out

I broke it again.... I was giving it some revs again and running through the gears. Got up to around 8600rpm. Loud ticking noise getting louder, pulled covers off to investigate. Found that one of the rockers had dislodged, but, not really dislodged. The bearing has come out of the center. then after that the rocker likely flew off, and then a valve got bent in the process somehow. So, not hugely bad in terms of engine damage... The biggest expense is time spent replacing the valve. I think the motor I pulled apart from last time at pickapart to get the intake valves out of. Is still there waiting for me to go grab some exhaust valves haha. Although it'll be tricky to get this bent valve out, as it's bent from the top. Might need to cut it off somehow. With regards to a long term fix. Seems there are two possibilities and I'm not sure which yet. Either the pin vibrated itself into the 5th dimension, and just pushed itself all of the way through the rocker one side to the other. Or, the rocker flexed enough that the pin and bearing could come out the top. So will investigate some options to beef them up, but might be time for a CNC project for some beefier rockers. Someone mentioned to me that Papidakis racing was running a 9000rpm 2AR engine, and they have the exact same rocker setup in the head. I watched a teardown video, and turns out they ended up making some beefed up rockers to alleviate a few issues. So that might be best way to go. Also, although it's annoying to have another breakage, reminder to myself that this is what I signed up for. There are plenty of well trodden paths to go down, this is how it goes when there arent 5000 other people who've done the same yet. Engine knowledge is written in blood! Will be interesting to see if there are any signs of deformation on any of the other rockers, they all looked alright by eyeball so far. EDIT: Okay I know a bit better what happened now. So the pins arent even press fit, they are just staked in place. So I can actually slide the pin all of the way back in, very easily if you get it right way around. there is juts a C shaped stake on each side, holding it in. So on this rocker the staking lifted, then the pin could easily slide out. So the pin definitely came all of the way out one side, not flexing the rocker and out the top. So a tiny tig blob on each end might solve it, if I can weld accurately enough. haha EDIT 2: I asked around on a Facebook group for 2GRs, if anyone had had similar issues. Someone mentioned that this is a common problem with the Boxer motors in the GT86, and so the they tig weld the ends, then it's never a problem again. So will proceed as planned!

That looks incredible! Love it!

Hey, My understanding is the 4GR, 3GR, and 2GR are all physically the same size. Just shorter stroke and so on internally. So, at last check there are at least 1x 4GR powered car at each pickapart location in Auckland. and a few 3GR. (3 litre version) So you should be able to go eyeball something and measure it. Look on the pickapart website for Toyota Mark X GRX120 (or similar) The rear sump setup is a nightmare though, as is overall height with the standard sump if you dont want to chop the bonnet.

Possibly incredibly hypocritical of me to say this. But just stick to the main plan to get the motor running first. Projects like this are good for a spare motor on the side, then swap the whole thing in. But need to treat it as disposable as it's risky. If you've not even driven it yet, you might be surprised that the powerband is how you'd expect it to be if it had VVT anyway. Since its a V6 in a fairly light car. Surely there are big cams or regrinds available for these? Standard cams (and then possibly valve springs) are likely going to be the bottleneck that will make or break the car making power. VVT or otherwise. It will be heaps of fun dialling in the fixed timing engine and getting it running.