Moving towards my mapping session, i've finally got round to adjusting the idle to just shy of 1000rpm. However the car has been throwing a lot of burnt oil out the exhaust and it has had me concerned. I did the next obvious thing and checked the bores with a boroscope to see whats going on inside.
I found splashes of oil on all the piston crowns. As an NB - i now know this is normal on a newly build engine before the rings bed themselves in and with the amount i've started it. However, at the time, i had no idea, so whipped the head off to do some investigating.
Head off and this is what I found.
Oil in every bore. The coolant is from when i lifted the head. The patch on the far left is due to the head being drilled for 11 studs and me only using 9. I've got some 12mm core plugs now to keep the water out.
Gave the block and pistons a quick wipe. The studs and old gasket were removed after.
Exhaust valve covered in oil (no surprised) and evidence the car was over fuelling.
Whilst the cylinder head was off, and coolant drained, I got round to doing some small jobs I'd wanted to do but never had the chance after the rebuild - Wiring re-routed to a less stressful route, heat proof sleeves over anything near the exhaust/turbo and re-adjusted the inlet piping.
So, what does this all mean? Well the engine hasn't been run in (as you'll know), the map on the ecu is terrible (as SC keep fobbing me off or ignoring emails) and ive had to start the car a few times to sort out the idle as well as try and get her off the trailer and source a fuel leak around the rear of the car. I did panic about all this but thankfully Turbo Phil has put my mind at rest about it all. As the engine is practically new inside, tolerances are tight and the rings are not bedded in. Because of this there is blow by and the oil will settle on the piston dishes. A lot of small runs or starts will exacerbate this, hense the large amount and the fuelling for the car is totally off. The honing marks are all fine and there is no glazing of the bores. So whats the plan? - Put it back together and leave it the hell alone until my mapping session on the 21st!
Also got my bargain of the week, 4 spotlight covers for £62!