Knock knock. Who's there?

[waxonwaxoff]

So my car decided to play jokes with me during my drive yesterday and I guess it really wanted the last laugh.

Will have to remove the valve cover first and pray for the best. Hoping it will not require a total rebuild.

No CEL and no DTC's and also going by the sound it is probably something mechanical.

Below is a video of the hideous sound from the engine bay.

If anyone has any diagnostic suggestions that would be greatly appreciated.

 

[hobby-man]

Bent rod, that's bashing the piston into the cylinder wall. Sounds a lot like what happened to mine.

 

[hobby-man]

Get a cheap borescope camera and pull the plugs and look into each cylinder. Look for wall damage.

 

[waxonwaxoff]

Get a cheap borescope camera and pull the plugs and look into each cylinder. Look for wall damage.

Thanks hobby-man, just ordered one now and as soon as it arrives I'll take a look.

You think I could have bent a rod just using a Hondata +9 base map? Literally everything else stock apart from a RMM.

 

[gtman]

Thanks hobby-man, just ordered one now and as soon as it arrives I'll take a look.

You think I could have bent a rod just using a Hondata +9 base map? Literally everything else stock apart from a RMM.

Oh man.

Straight up, what's your driving style? In my tuning thread you said "fast and furious".

+9 psi over stock is considered a fairly high powered base tune. What were you seeing? About 23 psi peak?

And here we go again with that unfortunate pattern of hatchbacks having the bulk of non-si engine issues.

Definitely in for updates.

 

[Doc_Mello]

OMGosh, that sound! ?

 

[hobby-man]

Thanks hobby-man, just ordered one now and as soon as it arrives I'll take a look.

You think I could have bent a rod just using a Hondata +9 base map? Literally everything else stock apart from a RMM.

Unfortunately yes. I had a number of bolt ons but I lost my engine (or rather the process began) on TSP Stage 1. The hatchback rods really are just shit.

 

[waxonwaxoff]

Thanks for the reply gtman

Straight up, what's your driving style? In my tuning thread you said "fast and furious".

+9 psi over stock is considered a fairly high powered base tune. What were you seeing? About 23 psi peak?

Honestly... I push it hard every day. Pretty spirited during the day to begin with and WOT as often as I can as soon as it's all warmed up and the roads are a bit safer/clearer later in the day. No stranger to the redline but not necessarily hanging around up there. And a lot of engine breaking as where I live is quite hilly and also lot of stop and go.

From my datalogs I've seen boost as high as 24.8 psi.

Unfortunately yes. I had a number of bolt ons but I lost my engine (or rather the process began) on TSP Stage 1. The hatchback rods really are just shit.

Well that makes sense then. I thought with a lot of people pushing much higher power I was in a relatively safe place, but I guess I have been proven wrong.

 

[ivanCivix]

I'm not very informed about hondata, how hard is this 9 psi?

 

[hobby-man]

I'm not very informed about hondata, how hard is this 9 psi?

It's about 23 PSI so around TSP1 / Phearable 1.5 levels of boost.

 

[Lifesabeach]

Any updates OP?

 

[waxonwaxoff]

Sorry for the delay in posting, been a long week without my daily driver.

Had to get the car recovered from where it was to a friend's house who has a driveway as working on it where it sat would have been impractical.

Unfortunately didnt get to use my borescope camera yet as I haven't been with the car since I parked it away from home and now it's been recovered further from me. My mechanic friend diagnosed it and told me it's likely to be a bent rod or a spun bearing. But based off what I've heard on the forums I told him I think it's the rod. Any way to absolutely confirm it's the rod without tearing the whole thing apart, is the camera my best bet?

In my circumstances the cost to repair outweighs the cost of replacing the engine. Currently have a fairly new L15B7 with 4k miles from a 2018 sport hatch on the way and I'm just going to swap it in.

Once the engine is out I will find out exactly what went wrong and hopefully get some pictures of the failure point.

Still weighing up keeping the new engine stock or loading up a less aggressive tune ?

Thanks for everyone's input so far.

 

[hobby-man]

Sorry for the delay in posting, been a long week without my daily driver.

Had to get the car recovered from where it was to a friend's house who has a driveway as working on it where it sat would have been impractical.

Unfortunately didnt get to use my borescope camera yet as I haven't been with the car since I parked it away from home and now it's been recovered further from me. My mechanic friend diagnosed it and told me it's likely to be a bent rod or a spun bearing. But based off what I've heard on the forums I told him I think it's the rod. Any way to absolutely confirm it's the rod without tearing the whole thing apart, is the camera my best bet?

In my circumstances the cost to repair outweighs the cost of replacing the engine. Currently have a fairly new L15B7 with 4k miles from a 2018 sport hatch on the way and I'm just going to swap it in.

Once the engine is out I will find out exactly what went wrong and hopefully get some pictures of the failure point.

Still weighing up keeping the new engine stock or loading up a less aggressive tune ?

Thanks for everyone's input so far.

Just FYI it's an L15BA (weaker rods) in the hatchbacks, B7s are the coupe/sedan/Si motors (Si also has some other differences) and have stronger rods.

Seeing as you like to drive your car hard and run an aggressive tune, what I would maybe do if it's in your budget is to swap this new motor in, and send yours for machining. Overbore the cylinders by 0.5mm to correct the wall damage, throw in rods and pistons. Put that motor back in and flip the new motor to offset the cost.

Just an idea.

 

[olesaintnik]

And here we go again with that unfortunate pattern of hatchbacks having the bulk of non-si engine issues.

Just FYI it's an L15BA (weaker rods) in the hatchbacks, B7s are the coupe/sedan/Si motors (Si also has some other differences) and have stronger rods.

OP, sorry to hear about your engine.
gtman/hobby-man, I always thought that all the 1.5T non-Si’s used the L15BA and only the Si used the L15B7. Is this not the case?

 

[gtman]

OP, sorry to hear about your engine.
gtman/hobby-man, I always thought that all the 1.5T non-Si’s used the L15BA and only the Si used the L15B7. Is this not the case?

We all did until Eman said that only the hatches use the weaker rods. I asked JR and he said he trusts Eman's findings.

Now, us seeing so many rod failures on the non-Si hatches makes sense. If I recall we have 6 non-Si's with bent rods in the tuning survey thread. 5 are hatches. That's pretty telling.

Sponsored