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Engine Removal

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Ntf3000
(@ntf3000)
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Joined: 4 years ago
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I am getting ready to remove the engine from my 2017 SR3 1340 and wasn’t able to find any articles on here detailing the process. Is there anything on here or am I missing it?  Thanks in advance for any help. 


   
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Josh Smith
(@smiffy931)
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Engine can come up or go down dependent upon what you use to remove it.

Strip all the cable ties off, water and oil dumped. Three oil lines underneath (scavenge, feed and pressure sensor) and the crank breather on top. Two fuel lines from the rail. Water hoses. Wiring harness disconnected such as injectors, water temp, starter, cam, crank sensor, tps etc. 

Throttle bodies hooked off and out of the way, exhaust system and the diagonal brace off.

Top engine mounts off, reverse cable free of engine cradle and then support engine, remove the two rear pins that hold engine cradle to the chassis....wiggle to the side and away from GDU.....it should then be out

 

cheers, Josh 


   
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Ntf3000
(@ntf3000)
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Update:

I removed the engine this weekend and found the instructions in the Mechanics Manual to be quite complete.  Below are my only additional suggestions: 

1. Use a slide hammer to remove the engine mounting pins.  I made up a little adapter for my slide hammer to go to a 6mm bolt.  Picture below.

image

2.  Make a few notes on zip tie placement and safety wire.  The attaching springs on the exhaust had safety wire which is not mentioned in the instructions but I think is a good idea.  

3. I used an engine load leveler which was handy attaching to the top two bolts on the cylinder head.  Was very easy to keep level with no additional straps towards the back of the engine. Picture below.

image

4. I didn't remove the throttle bodies or ignition coil bracket.

5. I will try loosening up the GDU next time I remove and during installation of the engine.  Would probably be worth the extra few minutes.    

6. The process took approximately 4.5 hours.  Can probably do it in three hours the next time.  I suspect the installation will take about 6 hours if you are fussy about zip ties, etc.

 

Thanks for the great website Charley.  Hope these notes help the next guy.


   
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CharleyH
(@charleyhradicalsportscarregistry-com)
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@ntf3000, Great write up!  

Charley


   
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Rod Bender
(@rjbender)
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@charleyhradicalsportscarregistry-com - G'day Charley,

... sorry to say I'll probably be needing this 'how to' in the next few weeks.... there's a lot of glittery stuff in my oil filter that I just cut open. 

... quick question/suggestion.  Could this thread be duplicated into the DIY/How To section of the Forum?  It took me some time searching and then scrolling through to find...... 


   
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CharleyH
(@charleyhradicalsportscarregistry-com)
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@rjbender, sorry to hear that you need to take the engine out.  How many hours do you have on it?

Great idea about the thread location… I moved it to the “How to / DYI section. 🙂


   
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Rod Bender
(@rjbender)
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@charleyhradicalsportscarregistry-com - G'day Charley

Engine has just clocked up 34 hours... so probably not much to gain by taking a risk and running it too much longer. 

I read another thread here about 4 weeks ago where someone had cut open their oil filter and found some glittery material.  I had done an oil change on my car at around the same time, so kept my filter so that I could also have a look.  I then purchased the same 'filter cutter' that you had recommended.

I finally cut it open last week and found lots of 'glittery' bronze coloured debris.  Mostly extremely small particles, but there were some that sunk in the oil fairly quickly too.  There was almost nothing collected on a strong magnet (a very small amount of 'paste' on the end of the magnet, but this wouldn't concern me too much), so we are dealing with non-ferrous material from somewhere....

The attached video probably makes it look worse than what it does with the naked eye (had the light on the phone on to help illuminate the shiny bits)... but its' not pretty.

The only question I still have is an important one, and the same one the other post on this Forum raised... could this be clutch related?

I've only done 7 hours total on this engine since I purchased the car (about 4.5 hours 'on load')

This question seems an important one as my car has only done two 'circuit' events, pus the last event I competed in which was the Tasmanian Hillclimb Championship (which I was lucky enough to win!)

... so the engine/drivetrain was basically doing a hard standing start (but with as much mechanical sympathy as I could afford) followed by 50 seconds 'flat out'.  I only did 2 practice runs and 3 runs during the actual event... so the engine probably spent 1 hour total warming up, etc and about 5 minutes under load.  The clutch on the other hand got a fair workout in a relatively short period.

Water and Oil temps ere always in the correct range before heading to the start line... and the car ran really well for the runs I did - no obvious issues...

When I do the engine change I'll be fitting a Rekluse/Spin Safe clutch to see of that get's me more consistent starts for these types of events (maybe won't be as quick in terms of ultimate acceleration, but should be more consistent and hopefully not too slow?)

...Not sure whether to feel grateful for the Forum for the insight to cut the filter open and have a look (first filter I have ever cut open)... but I sure as hell would regret it if I hadn't done that, and the engine had a bigger problem during the next event!

 


   
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CharleyH
(@charleyhradicalsportscarregistry-com)
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@rjbender, I would defer this question to @RLM-Dan.  He is a Radical engine expert and can better tell you how much sparkle is acceptable.  All I can tell you for sure, is my hasn't had that much in it.

Charley


   
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Trevor Poquette
(@tmpoquette)
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All the engines I have ever owned with an oil change like that were a result of the bearings going.  What is the hot oil pressure at 4000 rpm?  Is it still 90psi? 

I did 4 oil changes in my radical and haven't seen anything in the oil.  My engine has at least 35 hrs on it.


   
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Rod Bender
(@rjbender)
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@tmpoquette - Thanks Trevor,

Just to be clear... this was the oil that was in the 'inlet side' of the oil filter.  The oil that came out of the dry sump, etc looked really good.  To get this sample I had to cut open the oil filter.  The important point being that this isn't what you would see unless you cut the filter open. (... something I will do from now on to develop a better baseline of what could be expected as 'normal')

My oil pressure definitely isn't 90psi above 4,000rpm(unless the oil is cold, ....like 50 degrees C)

Here is an X-Y Plot of Oil Temperature vs Oil Pressure (left hand side) and RPM vs Oil Pressure (right hand side)

image

You can see that once the oil is 'hot' (above 85 degrees C) I get more like 28psi at 4,000rpm, rising to 80-90 psi approaching 10,000rpm.  I was of the understanding from talking to other owners that this is fairly normal....  

I doubt yours will be at 90psi above 4,000 rpm as well (maybe you could put your data into the same format and share it?)

 


   
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Trevor Poquette
(@tmpoquette)
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I remembered incorrectly, you are right, 90+psi @ 4000rpm when the oil is at cold or 50C.  I changed my oil yesterday.  I ran the engine to 4000 psi and it was 99-100psi @ 51C.  The manual says the pressure should be 60 psi at hot operating oil temp.  Below 50psi do not run the engine.  How do you get that oil pressure plot?


   
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Rod Bender
(@rjbender)
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@tmpoquette - G'day Again Trevor.  Thanks for the feedback.

I don't think it's right that the oil pressure will not be below 50 psi or "don't run the engine".  I suspect even in a brand new engine oil pressure will likely be below 50psi at almost any point below 5,500rpm when the oil is warm/hot (>70 deg C)... I guess I'll know in a few weeks, as I've just purchased a new motor.... 

I wonder if the "don't run the engine below 50" rule you are referring to is related to oil temperature, rather than pressure?  There are plenty of places where that's written, and also plenty of people have also told me that.

The plots can be made in RaceStudio Software that you look at the AiM data in.  I'm using RS3 beta software right now, but it also was a function available in previous version of the Race Studio software. (I have to say that it seems much easier in the newer software)

It's an "X-Y Plot" (sometimes known as a scatter plot) function that allows you to look at any two measured variables (rpm, temperature's, pressure's, throttle position, brake pressure, g-forces, etc) against each other.

To get the plots I included in the previous post I looked at 'engine oil temperature versus oil pressure' (left hand chart) and 'engine rpm versus oil pressure' (right hand chart).  I then used another inbuilt function that allowed me to colour the data according to 'lap number' - this really helped with this analysis as it lets you see what's happening as the oil temperature rises throughout the run on track.

Here's the chart again to save you looking what I'm referring to above.

image

If it helps, here's some video links to some tutorials on the X-Y/Scatter plots

The first one is in the older software.... worth watching right through, but really useful from 47:40 in.

.. and a shorter video of the same thing in the newer RS3 beta software

 


   
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