Just picked this engine up tonight.
This is a Legacy GTB Twin Turbo 280hp EJ208 engine.
Died through lack of compression on cyl 4.
Other 3 cyl's compression was good.
The other head is still attached.

Piston top looks fine, (on the left) no bits missing, not checked the bore yet though.



Exhaust valve appears to have bits missing:



Also, is this a semi-closed deck block?

 

Its ran lean and melted.

 

wrong/poor fuel used it in? poor map?

 

Fuel? Map? All unknown!
I just bought the car today, and this was in the boot.
I can ask the guy some questions tomorrow.
Would the valves burn, but not melt the pistons?
Could a bad injector do this, if only one cylinder is damaged?

 

Ref pistons

http://www.ms-motor-service.com/xima...973-02_web.pdf

 

Plug disintegrated and mashed the valve?

 

Combustion chamber looks V. Oily. Burning oil can cause carbon spots on the valve seats which glow & cause det eventually burning out the valve.

 

I believe that is a closed deck block mate but I could be wrong

 

It's an open deck block, and I'd say you need to completely strip that engine and carefully clean all the parts before you decide about any of it.

 

No it's ODB but the gasket is still on it

 

Valve does look to have been burnt. Could be from oiling, or from a lean mixture burning too hot.

 

Very usefull, thanks.

Plugs are fine

Would the valve seat survive?


I just did a search, and it look like a straightforward open deck.

Without a doubt. I found bills for 2 rebuilds on this engine, totaling almost £4k !

No gasket, just the imprint where it's been, but pics aren't very good. Yes, it is open deck.

I very much doubt it's ever been remapped, but the car does have a 3" Decat exhaust (the primary turbo cat is still there, Twin turbo's have 2 cat's).
I'd also take a guess it's been run on 95ron, not 99 as it needs, and the Flamer kit suggest to me that it hasn't been sympathetically treated!

 

Could be something simple as a tight valve clearance causing the valve face to burn out.
Would be worth checking the clearances on the other side before you strip it down to give you an idea.

Mick

 

It's No. 2 thats had the problem, left piston as you look at it but right head view, if you look at the bottom of the pistons and the top and bottom of the combustion chamber they are cleaner than the other cylinder could be injector spray pattern?

 

Both good points, many thanks.
I've just seen this engine briefly, the pics were sent to me.
Not had a chance to examine it properly yet.

is this correct:

 

Send it to Alan at engine tuner hes fab at putting these things together..

 

can I send you the bill?

 

Your diagram is correct, the cylinder numbers are also marked on top of the crankcases.
Cylinder No.3 marked in the pic below:






Mick

 

Lol i just spent over 6k recently with ET so counting the pennies at the moment on the road to recovery.. lmao..

 

I would go along with this. Check the oil control rings on that cylinder . All valves I've seen like this has been because of oil ingestion under cylinder vacuum.

 

This would explain the smokey exhaust the guy told me about, the oil had to come from somewhere.
So this could be (in theory), looking at the evidence presented before us, M'Lud:
A dodgy injector, washing the cylinder wall, causing the rings to fail, causing oil burn which destroyed the valves?

How long does it take to burn valves like that, minutes, or months?