Well long story short, Was having some fun on the beach yesterday on a very hot 40+deg day, ripping of the other buggy guys because they kept having to stop to cool down, and that my watercooled temp was ok.
Found a little spot and did some doughies (with a few revs). Not long after that i could feel that the engine wasnt quite right, it misfired a few times and there was a knocking noise every now and then. I decided to pull over and found my coolant was boiling and spewing coolant out the overflow. The next hour or so was spent topping the water up, limping back and letting it cool down. If I went over 20km/h it would boil over, yet i did 15km at 40km/h on the way down and no probs.

The knock was still there today and happens between 2000-3000rm when you ease off the throttle (gear changes, slowing down in gear etc), took each plug lead off, and sure enough it dissapeared when i took off the lead to cylinder1. Diagnosis a dud rod bearing.

Took the sump off and found this on the bottom.

Oops

mmmmm I wonder if the sump design had anything to do with oil starvation at 3000rpm doing doughies? Could one of the 'wings' on the sump be holding lots of oil due to the centrifugal forces but have left the pickup starved?

Whatever the cause, the result sux. Bugger.

I dunno, theres a lot of speculation on what might have caused it. It was a little down on oil, but i pulled a bit over 3L out of the sump. I never saw the engine light coming on, although thats not to say it didn't. Also I was revving it over 3000rpm .
I also filled up at a non premium bowser so just had standard unleaded in it. It was pinging a bit under load at low revs, maybe this did something? Cause it to overheat?

I'm going to start stripping the engine today, see if it is repairable, or might be easier to just put a new short block in if I can find one (its an import quad cam 2L). But If i put a new engine in, do I need to get a new engineers certificate as the engine number will be wrong?

you silly
We got josh 1/2 cut wrx turbo for $1395 so you should be able to get a motor cheap with 3 months warranty,stuff fixing the old one.
Then you bring car to me and i do a adjustment of records for the new engine number $23.20

Hi Ttreibler.

I actually ordered a new 2nd hand motor today, should arrive tomorrow. Its not a Quad cam like my old one, but DOHC. A little less power, but on the plus its 15kg lighter. Nobody seems to have the quad cam 2ltr N/A motors anymore as there is no market for them (they were never in an australian model car so are all imports). Half the places i run don't even sell the n/a ones.

I actually have the libterty turbo motor in my new limo buggy that I hope to have on the road next week. So I may still be intersted as a spare point of view so I dont have this happen again. Its been the worst timing as the car is currently for sale.

Jak, not sure what oil I had in it, either XLD premium or Shell semi synthetic, its not turbo so i don't have the real good stuff in there.

Nasty stuff

you will find the Ej20 N/ A quad cam motor will have the oil sprays just like the turbo brother .

I am with Jack on this one

PS : I have all the n/a Ej20 motors in my shed


seagull

Yeah, I wouldn't use XLD or anything crap in a modern jap motor.

When I put my V6 in I looked up the manual and it had a standard SAE oil chart which said 20W50 in summer. But when I put it in the hydraulic lifters were noisy. Then all the Mazda guys said I should be running 5w30 synthetic. I put that in, let it idle for 10 mins and the lifter noise went away. Mazda even released a service note saying to regularly change the oil with synthetic if there is a problem with lifter noise.

It doesn't matter that it isn't turbo. It has a lot finer oil galleries than the old crap motors that used 20W50.

nup.

In what context was that "nup" Mick?

LOL...NUP to the XLD... You are too quick for me....

I don't see what the negativity is with the XLD. True, there's a lot better stuff you could put in it, but going off my particular engine, it says to use 15W40 or 20W50 (XLD). Interestingly the turbo motor recommends 10W30.
Going off the XLD writeup, it is recommended for post 1990 modern engines.