New Cylinder Head Pinging

HELP!

My new cylinder head started pinging badly after driving at 75 mph. The first 200 miles with the new head was on surface streets and at lower speeds, with not pinging. It ran great. It pings loud now at any engine rpm. I'm not driving it until I fix the problem.

Would appreciate ideas on the cause and how to fix it. HELP!

Background: it's a '95 3-cylinder 5-speed. I had replaced the original engine about 1 1/2 years ago with a JDM. About 6 months ago I started using oil, about 1 quart per 3000 miles. No oil leaks anywhere, so I decided to do what Doctor Bill had done and described so well (and with the help of others) - rebuild the cylinder head and put in new piston rings. (I bought a remanufactured head from NAPA.) I also put in new connecting rod bearings, even though the plastiguage showed the originals were still within limits.

Two things I can think of are suspect.

First, I have not retourqued the head. (Just discovered in the Haynes manual they tell you to do this after first engine warm up.

Second, and more importantly, I damaged one of the two head-to-block alignment pipe/dowel thingies when attempting to remove it from the old head. (Used pliers - but in future will be using a transfer punch.) It was too badly deformed so I machined a new one out of a 5/8" bolt from Home Depot. The outer diameter ended up being about 0.2 mm too small. It fit a little easier into the block than the other, good, original one. On placing the head onto the block, I could rotate one side of the head back and forth about 5 mm. I guessed the middle and inserted the head bolts and torqued them down.

I'm wondering if the oil channel was partially ocluded due to possible misalignment of the head? Should I remove the head, and install it all over again? Make another more perfect alignment pipe this time? Is the head damaged? Should I take it to a rebuild shop and have them take it apart?

Here's a photo of the top of the cylinder head with the cover removed, showing the camshaft, and oil in the galleries. 200 miles on the head and the oil. It's Quaker State 10W-30. The oil is pretty dirty already.

http://img407.imageshack.us/img407/3806/img0613vn5.jpg

recheck timing

Is it really ping or more of a tapping? Ping will usually not be the same at different rpms and throttle openings, it varies wildly. I don't think your oil should look like that after 200 miles, but maybe it's break in crud. I'd change it just to get that dirt out of there and also get the 10W-30 out. 5W-30 is recommended, especially in winter, I use 0W-30 this time of year.

I agree with the others, Recheck your timing, but first check to make sure your timing marks on the cam and crank line up as they should, then recheck your timing. Is it buring oil? I had a metro that pinged alot and used alot of oil. I went thru the FSM under pinging, and tried everything. It ended up being the last think on the flow sheet "to much oil in the combustion chamber" that was my cause. It could be that your block and rings have not yet brokin in. I know that this may take awhile before the oil consumption goes down.

Does the car run and idle properly other than the pinging?

Crvett69, I will carefully check both kinds of timing on reassembly.

Woodie83, it's more of a tapping, then, per your descriptions. After driving about 30 miles at 75 mph, I pulled off the interstate and was going about 20 - 30 mph in 2nd gear. I noticed the tapping only when the engine wasn't loaded. If I gave it gas, tapping went away. If I totally let off the gas the tapping went away. It behaved this way for a while, but then the tapping was happening with any engine loading. Louder and higher frequency with higher engine rpms.

RossT - when I started the engine for the first time after putting the new head on, a lot of smoke came out the tail pipe for about 15 minutes, and I lost about 1/2 qt. I changed the oil after this run, subsequnetly lost a little more with driving, but after that have not been losing noticable amounts. (Keep in mind I've only got 200 miles with this head.) And for your question as to running properly, it did run great until the tapping. I had gone out on the highway to see if I could drive it back home. It was loosing power. Could only get up to 65 mph full throttle on flat highway, where just before I could easily reach 75mph. I pulled off at an exit, had a friend pick me up and I towed the car back to my garage. RossT - did you end up trying to clean any carbon from the piston crowns or inside of the head from "excessive oil in cylinders"?

http://img257.imageshack.us/img257/2301/img0618ft0.jpg
This is the bolt and washer holding the camshaft pulley to the camshaft. Note the galling in both. Don't know how this happened. I'm pretty sure I torqued down this bolt properly. Wonder if I should replace these two items. I'll change to 5W-30 oil.

http://img378.imageshack.us/img378/5643/img0620zv3.jpg
Here's the camshaft pulley. Note a little bit of wear. Note the slot for the camshaft alighment pin is OK. No elongation. With pulley on the shaft, there is no room for the pulley to rotate at all with respect to the shaft.

Yes I cleaned the piston tops by doing what is called a "piston soak". You put a cleaner ( i used regain but techron would work too ) into each cylinder and let it soak overnight. Turn the crank 180 and put more cleaner into each cylinder. Start and run the car. This cleaned about 75% of the tops of my pistons. I wanted them totally cleaned, so I tried a water injection, where I hooked up a small hose to the TB. The other end of the hose I routed into the drivers side of the car, over the hood and thu the window. I drove the down the highway and stuck the open end into a gallon of distilled water. When the engine stumbled I took the hose out of the water. Did this a few times and my piston tops were almost spottless. You can read about doing this over on bobistheoilguy.com.

Here is a picture of my cleaning fluid before and after the piston soak. I sucked out the cleaning fluid with mytivac pump after it soaked overnight in each piston. You can see the color change, so I new it was cleaning.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v489/RossT/Image002-1.jpg


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v489/RossT/Image003.jpg

My pistons tops were clean but the pinging was still there, so mine was from worn engine with to much oil in the combustion chamber and not carbon build up.

Also note that pinging occurs under load, I am not sure what you are detailing is actually pinging and not something else.

Giving you all an update ... I haven't run the engine since earlier posts. I decided to remove the cylinder head and inspect the oil passage from the block up to the head. The oil check valve was in place and up flush with the top of he block. Placed a small screwdriver blade in check valve slot and gently rotated it. It moved down into the passage a bit.

Question: should you be able to see oil coming up out of the check valve if you rotate the crankshaft by hand (with cylinder head off)? I rotated it with a socket wrench for a while and no oil ever came up. (I didn't drain the oil from the oil pan.) I'm worried.

Also, if I remove the camshaft from the head, and lift out the hydraulic valve lash adjusters, can I easily tell if there is damage to them? Are there other items in the head I can easily inspect for damage?

Update 3/1/2009 - I removed the camshaft timing pulley. The camshaft alignment pin on this new cylinder head was too long for my old pulley. With a dial caliper the pine protrudes out 2.7 mm from the face of the camshaft. The thickness of the pulley is 2.4 mm. The pin was preventing the washer and bolt from coming flush against the pulley face. The pulley may have started to come loose, and this would explains the gouging/galling shown on the washer and bolt, and the slight elongation of the alignment hole.

I ground down the pin to 2.0 mm. Found a pulley off a '92 3-cylinder from Pull-n-sav, mounted it and put everything back together. Double checked my belt timing.

Started up the engine, let it warm up, set the timing, let it run for 15 minutes, and .... the same bad pinging sound from the head or block is there. I took if for a short drive around the block, and its a bad, pronounced pinging. Happens when the engine is under load of any kind. The only time it stops is when I totally let off the gas and the engine is negatively loaded.

Any thoughts on the cause? (I double checked my ignition timing - 5 degrees with MAP sensor disconnected and engine warm.)

Just a few questions. When buying a rebuilt engine, crank and cylinders are usually machined and oversized bearings and rings are installed.
1. Did you replace bearings and rings with the right sizes? It is usually stamped on crank and noted on new pistons.
2. Did you reinstall pistons in the right direction? The valve relief on the pistons should be on the same side as the valves. There should be an arrow on top of the piston that points to the pulley side of crank. The valves contacting the piston is a possibility
3. Does the tap or ping sound like its coming from the top end or the bottom end? If its coming from bottom you may have spun a bearing.
4. Ignoring the ping, how does it run?
5. Was there any evidence of anything contacting the top of the piston when you removed the head? (plugs)

brivers,
1. I did not check for markings on the pistons and crank. I used original size bearings and rings. This could have been a big mistake on my part.
2. I'm sure I installed the pistons to their original cylinder and with correct orientation.
3. It's not coming from the top of the cylinder head ... maybe lower part of head or from block somewhere. A spun bearing is not a pleasant thought.
4. It runs a little rough.
5. There was no evidence of any contact to the top of the pistons by anything. I had removed the spark plugs from the head as well, and no damage to them.

Photos with the head removed after the start of loud pinging. I include these to show I think they look normal. No apparent damage to piston tops or chamber crowns in bottom of head.

http://img135.imageshack.us/img135/8274/img0650.jpg

http://img87.imageshack.us/img87/5769/img0645s.jpg

Before pulling engine apart I would pull the cam and check the installed valve height. There may have been a mistake made during head rebuild by machine shop as in valve grinding. If so, lifters may not have the tolerance to adjust to a too short valve height. See if the lifters are fitting sloppy. Check with engine rebuilder if they bored out cylinders and turned crank. But my guess is you spun a bearing since you said the ping is quieter when negative power is induced.

brivers,
Thanks for your quick reply. The rebuilders have not touched anything but the cylinder head. The engine in the car is a JDM I bought and installed myself about 1 1/2 years ago. However, it could have been rebuilt years ago. I did measure the cylinder diameters with a telescoping gauge and micrometer. They seemed to be within spec for original size tolerance.

I only replaced the connecting rod bearings and not the main bearings. I've been reading in my manual that there are only two sizes for these bearings - standard size and .25mm undersize. The bearings I replaced I threw away. I should have checked to see if there was a stamp mark on them, which I read indicates they would have been the undersize.

When you say "spun bearing", what is this going to look like? Will the connecting rod journals be ruined? Would it be more cost effective to start over with another JDM if this is the case?

Are you referring to checking for sloppiness in the hydraulic valve lash adjusters? I assume I would try to move each one around when it's corresponding lobe is pointing away from it? Or check for sloppiness with the camshaft removed? The HVL adjusters will easily come out in that case.

Looks like your getting a lot of oil in the cylinders especially #3. I'm wondering how good of a job you got from the head rebuilder. It looks like they may have not installed the valve seals. Before tearing the rest of the motor down I would investigate that headwork a little more.