Hey Greg! Great stuff. Can you do an updated video on pilot industry advice similar to your ACMI video? A lot has occurred in the last couple of years and I'm interested in your opinion. Your video has been one I've shared with others, a newer one would help some of those coming up now I think.
Made the mistake of not getting the timing right when replacing the head gasket on my Porsche 944s engine and was extremely lucky to only bend one valve and not do much damage to the piston. Hope your new engine holds up better than the last
@nickyevdokymov5526 it's not my daily driver but I have one I've been working on. Some of the stuff is a pain to work on but that's how it is with any German thing
@ConeOfArc If you had enough of that car i'd gladly take it off your hands. I can give you a 1980 Lada 2101 in return. Small project needs 4 new side panels, no barkes, needs new paint, carburetor cleaning, engine so worn out basically only the block, oil pan, empty cylinder head and screws are remaining, needs new wiring and has 2 flat tires. Don't lowball me I know what I got. Jokes aside good luck with your car, love your videos! Greetings from Hungary!
@@RandomInternetDog nearly bought a 928 a few years ago for very cheap but someone bought it before I could go look at it. Definitely prefer the look of the 944 but the V8 would certainly be nice to have
I’ve watched lots of your plane videos and this is the first car one I’ve encountered. You’re having fun with your toys!! A few years back I almost purchased a Focus RS with a 2.3 L EcoBoost, but after many hours of forum reading, I became aware of Fords head gasket debacle. These forums were Very Good.
If you were a professional mechanic running a shop I have no doubt you'd have a engine autopsy feature on your youtube channel. You illustrate everything in an easy to understand way you're really good at explaining the reasons things happen and why they sometimes are upgraded or altered in other versions of machinery.
Very cool, the pictures of your block are hectic, amazed how the shock through the big end smashed the balancer off the case! Also cool is that the tune you were running was only just enough to make the rods fail, literally sneaking up on the weakest link in the chain.
Oh you bad boy.. Bent rods are from too many tons on top of the piston.. The 5.2 Voodoo supercharged engines use special Manley "H" beams rods. The engine is making a lot of power already. Love your hot rod spirit.. Henry Ford is proud of you Greg
@@OneMoreDesu You can build a pretty darn potent engine with OEM (junkyard) parts when you pick the best from the 2.0 and 2.3 motors. The one notable exception is rods. You're going to want aftermarket rods above 400whp.
Joe, make us proud with your new shiny thing from Greg's shop, cause you are getting my vote too. You weren't specific enough, but entirely correct nonetheless!
This is exactly why I asked you how much HP the engine was putting out. It has been well established that connecting rods are the first thing to go when it comes to the stock internals as you start really upping the power.
@@rockets4kids I thought I was clear I was using stock internals. It seemed like almost everyone guessed it was a piston failure. It's really too bad nobody said rods due to excess power, we could have had a clear winner. Oh well, the poll I put up will sort out the winner.
@@GregsAirplanesandAutomobiles Again, that is exactly the reason why I asked how much power were putting out and what mods you had done to the engine. Of course, had you actually done that, it would have been immediately obvious to anyone who knows this engine why it failed with little need for guessing.
@@rockets4kids Youre asking for the power number and i was asking for the boost he was running but with both of us he's not answering and evading the question for some reason?!
I knew my guess was stupid, but the moment you mentioned head issues, it reminded me that the most likely damage from my dumb suggestion was head damage, which wouldn't necessitate a full replacement.
This is another typically well-done and well-thought-out video by Greg. I am not a huge Ford performance fan, although I still appreciate the engineering from the Model T through the Ford GAA tank engine to the Boss 302, 427 side oiler, and Boss 429, which eventually led to the current EcoBoost and other performance engines. By the way, my next-door neighbor has a 2019, 2020, or 2021 (I can't remember which 🙄 ) version of your car, but with a..... manual transmission and a less intrusive ECU/ electronics system. By the way, David V. is a brilliant engine guy. 👍
Oh my god, thinking about damaging an engine from overreving on a downshift... I do CDL truck driver training and I'm driving with a guy right now who just cannot shift gears to save his soul and the small driving school my dad and I run doesn't own a truck with an automatic transmission, so I'm just doing a ton of driving with this guy to practice shifting. We were on the interstate today and we had moved into the decel lane and started to slow down, and he had the truck down to 50mph, which is where you need to shift down from 10th to 9th and the guy managed to get the thing into 7th. Usually, I see the student's hands move the gear lever into the wrong position, and when something like that happens, I can just grab the gear lever and either pull it out of gear before they're off the clutch, or I hold it in neutral while they try to stick it in the wrong gear. This time though it didn't really look like he'd moved the gear lever sideways at all, so I was pretty certain it was the correct gear he went into. Then his foot came off the clutch and I saw the tach go to 2,600 RPM. Yeah that truck... unless you're in 9th or 10th gear and you're running right at the top of those two gears, it really shouldn't exceed like 1,300 but if you go to like 1,500 it's not awful, but HELL NO should that thing be up in the 1,700 or 1,800 range and I don't even know why the tach goes to 3,000. He pulled from 10th and went directly to 7th at 50mph. 7th gear in that truck comfortably only gets you from 20mph up to 25mph, and if you over rev it an acceptable amount, you can get to like 30mph, but you really shouldn't even do that. Bro had it in 7th at 50. I was very surprised we didn't get any alarms and I don't think it did any damage. If it had blown up that motor, we'd have been so screwed. Like, we might have gone out of business. Probably not, but it would have been like an $80,000 fuck up cause it would have bricked a truck we spent almost $40,000 on and we'd need a replacement for it. Yeah we pulled over and had a nice chat about how he needs to control that gear lever and use more gentle hands and finesse rather than slamming it into gear. The notion that you can move the gear lever quickly, but not violently is a foreign concept to drivers of all age.
@GregsAirplanesandAutomobiles This guy is not young. At least around where I am, most people doing CDL training want to do it in a manual truck because of you use an auto on your road test you get a license that is restricted and you can only drive automatic trucks. Maine has a lot of heavy duty and vocational trucking. If it's a newer Class B truck, even in things like dump trucks, it probably will be an auto, but if you're driving Class A and it isn't for one of the huge national mega-corps, it's a very good chance you're truck will be a manual. We actually really probably should try to buy an automatic tractor as our next truck. The dude who stuck it in seventh earlier today is never going to be a great truck driver, but he could be an adequate one. If we had an automatic transmission truck, he would be much better served learning in that. For the people who struggle a lot with learning to shift; if you can teach them how to drive in an automatic then they go out and work driving an automatic for 6 months they'll learn to shift way faster. They aren't trying to learn shifting while they also learn everything else about driving an 18 wheeler.
I heard a theory that bent rods of this sort is from applying too much load at low rpm. From a turbo ls youtuber. As in below peak torque output. Different application, different engine. First video of yours I watched so I have no clue about your car's specifics.
Used to work at an Independent QC test lab in metro Detroit. More than one connector manufacturer had poor QC, particularly in USCAR-2 environmental testing.
FWIW, this engine family has a long lineage, dating back to the Duratec Fords and the MZR in the NC Miata from 2006+. The port injection versions (namely the 2.5) have a surprisingly good cylinder head, and they are ridiculously inexpensive as they were used in tons of mazda and ford minivans, compacts and midsized sedans. We take them directly out of junkyard cars, run them for 40+ hours of time endurance racing, and then go get another one for $400. With Ford's focus on boosted small displacement engines, I really think these ecoboost engines will be the next junkyard special for the next 10 years as their commuter car, built to a price point, shipping containers fail around them.
All true but keep in mind, durable when NA is not the same as durable and reliable when boosting to the moon. Boost can kill anything. A typical mass produced engine is plenty strong enough for NA or even mild boost but things like the LS, Coyotes, many Hondas, the good old 2JZ and a few others are strong enough to take a LOT of boost. I'm no ecoboost expert but it sounds like it is not built for that. Which is a shame, it means the typical turbo loving drag racer is still stuck with LS's and Japanese 4 bangers for cheap fun at the drag strip. Considering how ubiquitous the ecoboost has become, it would have been really nice if they had the strength to be pushed like that since junkyards are going to be full of them.
Unfortunately, when Ford and Mazda parted ways Ford did basically a clean-sheet redesign on the block casting and screwed up a bunch of things. The people who want to put out serious power from this engine go with the block from a first-gen 2.0 along with the crank and top end from the 2.3 That setup is good for at least 700hp.
I think kenm's answer is the best b/c "twisted rod failure" IMO implies plastic deformation of the rod under compression, which is basically your diagnosis as well. It's more precise than the others without guessing wrong details (unless you take points away for putting 2 guesses in 1 answer, but 1 of them was right on the money & the other was a plausible guess too)
Usually bent rods are the result of exceeding their torque limits (overboost, knock, liquids). So... bigger rods should do the trick,but sometimes at the expense of max RPM.
@@GregsAirplanesandAutomobiles so did you upgrade the conrods this time? Or are you keeping the same build and upgrading the intercooler but not changing rods?
My cardiologist is a rev head and she races her cars at Willowbank Qld She has a Mercedes Sports? two Aston DB9 and she recently bought a Lotus . She had the honour a couple of years ago of starting the Bathurst 1000
Greg, The open deck block is a function of the block casting process. The 2.3L is a High Pressure Die Casting (HPDC). The water jacket is formed by a piece of tooling that is part of the die and slides out of the casting after the aluminum solidifies, as the die is opened after the casting is shot... closed deck aluminum block is impossible with HPDC. The crank case is formed in the same way... HPDC is a very economical way to mass produce cylinder blocks. The tooling is very expensive and sophisticated, but the resulting piece price is lower... Most aluminum cylinder blocks are made this way. The get a closed deck block a sand core is needed to form the water jacket below the head deck. Sand cores are impossible in a HPDC casting. the 2.0/2.3/2.5L engine family previously had low pressure precision sand cast blocks. The 2.0 and 2.3 transitioned over to HPDC 10 ish years ago. Rod buckling in stock rods is certainly possible due added boost... but as you know takes a lot to get there (congratulations). Ford just isn't going to spend the money to upgrade the rods when there isnt really any chance the rod will buckle at stock performance levels.
Thanks for sharing this information! Manufacturing has always been a fascinating subject!! PS: Ford did release 2nd generation connecting rods in 2020, and it is my understanding, that all 2021 to 2023 engines are equipped with the new rods.
So does the intercooler duct make closer to mustang or fw-190, or possibly an P-47. The failure explained why WWII aircraft engines ran what we consider low compression. The Duramax suffered same problem with evolving turbo development in early life.
This is way above my pay grade. Interesting guesses from the participants. I really don't understand the failure to include the proper wiring harness with the new engine. It is, after all, a $5K engine, which qualifies as "expensive" at my house. Given the cost, including the proper wiring doesn't seem like too much to ask.
More about boost and it's margin of importance. In the 1st video of this series, Greg stated the location of the OEM boost (TIP) sensor (at the exit of the intercooler and before the throttle body). The ECU controls the throttle plate, not the right foot of the driver. This makes the boost reading on the dash, in part, nothing more than a measurement of restriction.
Rods don't bend from compressive forces but normally from the pin end tightening up which then puts a bending force on the rod and in a few cycles will snap it. The other way they fail in highly boosted motors seems to be from the piston cocking sideways in the bore which puts a side bending force on the rod. Modern low drag slipper pistons don't have good lateral support like a full skirted barrel type piston does so that's something to think about when making a motor. If you can fit full skirts without hitting the crank...you're better off. If only slipper pistons will fit...then a rod with much greater resistance to side bending would be a good move.
A pin problem would have bent it in the other direction. I'm not sure I understand what you mean by "rods don't bend from compressive forces". They certainly do, it happens all the time from hydrolock. I do like the rest of your post though.
@@GregsAirplanesandAutomobiles Thanks for the reply Greg! Perhaps I should have prefaced my original statement with 'In a normal running engine'...and also let's distinguish a bent rod vs a buckled/collapsed one. Hydrolocking a motor for absolute certain will buckle rods if you hit them hard enough, but the normal 'bent' rods seem to be mostly from big or little ends tightening up or the piston rocking sideways....at least that's what we've seen and believe. The 'open deck' blocks will allow the cylinders to move around if pushed too hard and this movement obviously causes misalignment of piston to crank enough to stress the rod through the pin. Pushing the 2.3L Ford any harder than stock would make me want to sleeve it with the deck locked together as their racing block was made. Would be good insurance.
Yeah. They are using plastic these days where they ought not. That's the fault of the consumer. People change autos like pants despite the cost. If people demanded durable vehicles that lasted 30+ years; they'd be built accordingly.
This is a 2.3L 4 cylinder that makes 310+ hp from the factory, and does that quite reliably. Even a 20 years ago a "good" turbo 4 would probably make only 200hp from the factory, and if you were into modifying it, by the time you got it to close to 400 bhp (which is where the 2.3L EBs start to break), you'd ALSO have needed to upgrade parts and the whole package would be MUCH less reliable than the stock EB. Cars today are also on the road, lasting longer, than any prior era of vehicles. Not sure what you really want, to be honest.
For starters I want an accessible dipstick for the transmission. Then I would like electrical connectors that don't crack and break when I remove them. You are right about everything else. The car does make a lot of power and it's at a very reasonable price off the showroom floor.
@@GregsAirplanesandAutomobiles Yup. Us mechanics would appreciate it coming back too! Make sure you never let them remove the engine oil dipstick like the Germans did. I'd go even further, I won't buy any car with an electric parking brake, exterior door operated primarily by a solenoid rather than a cable (Tesla does a lot of this, but GM did it first with the C6 Corvette and its push button doors), or even a keyless ignition. Like I said, I'm way pickier than most car buyers (since I fix them myself I have every reason to be), but that's how you have to think if you don't want these companies to overcomplicate things where it need not be done. My 2015 Honda Fit has direct fuel injection which I'm not the biggest fan of, but the injectors are at least easy to reach and can be changed out in less than 90 minutes if you know what you're doing (took me less than an hour when I did mine a month or so ago) and they made it really easy to walnut blast the intake valves, which DI cars need periodically. Plus it's as basic as a modern car can get. Manual transmission, keyed ignition, mechanical parking brake and exterior doors, and no integrated infotainment. And now that the Nissan Versa and Mitsubishi Mirage are both on the chopping block, I don't see myself being interested in anything new.
Had a customer who had a Benz , 126, and an m103 . She lost coolant and filled it up with a garden hose…. In the valve cover. Slap full. Cranked it and it bent the 4. It also twisted the crank.
Sorry to read this, ive broke a 2.0l turbo before but it was my fault haha (using ignition cut flat foot shifting and broke a valve shim which fell into cylinder). You made alot of power to bend rod, now everyone knows the limit.. or maybe rpm, still watching🎉
I don't have a Mustang, but I do have a 2.0 Ecoboost Focus. And while not the same, they are somewhat related. With the 2.0 engines stroking up to a 2.3 is always the last stage of upgrade because that extra 0.3 liters adds just enough extra stress on the conrods to limit their lifespan. It still baffles me that open deck, relatively low revving engine can make so much horsepower. It's no K-series, but for $350 at a pick-n-pull (Duratec) it's surprisingly good.
With regards to the balancing shafts, it is my thought (and i'm not an engineer) that they're there not for smoothness in terms of comfort, but for the prevention of fasteners getting undone from vibration. Because the volvo redblock engine has a 16v variant which uses them, and the 8v don't, and people decomission the balancing assembly, because it's a notorious failure point with these engines for a number of reasons, the key of which is the belts for that shit being under the timing belt, and if that goes, the timing belt follows. AFAIK, not all balancing belts' quality was up to par. The 8v redblocks are non-interference, and the 16vs aren't. So i had mine's removed, and i didn't notice any sort of difference. The engine, in the end, died by other means and is being replaced by a vq30det.
Eh, the closed decks had an issue, too (supposedly fixed in 2018, but not sure if that's true). My Focus ST failed at about 180k from a defect that causes the coolant to enter cylinders 2 &/or 3. Thought it was a turbo coolant line as there was no sign of a HG failure. Turns out, there's a TSB about it where Ford states the remedy as "engine replacement". I'm not exactly sure if the failure is block or head related, but it has something to do with the coolant passage between them and between cylinders 2 & 3. Too bad, as that car was absolutely bulletproof up to then. There are a few CA suits going on regarding it.
The 2.0 ST block is my favorite! My understanding is that Ford added steam slits to the 2017 block, while upgrading the turbocharger to a twin scroll. I've been told that Ford has corrected the issue, but when and how, I don't know.
@@coyote_chaser I heard the same thing and I hope it's true. I bought it partly for the closed deck-"no HG problem with this!". The universe, of course, laughed. Minus that issue, it's a robust engine with great power and mileage (I averaged around 30 mpg in mixed driving around Boston) and was Corolla reliable until the day I started the car and couldn't see out my back window. Even then, it had an almost reasonable 180k miles and otherwise looked and drove like it had 1/4 of that. A Camry I had with only a little more miles felt like it had double the miles it had.
I wonder if you can match the engine alloy with billet aluminum and just CNC out the insert. It doesn't look too complicated (from here, famous last words)
Greg... I just read where you were running a ported turbocharger!?? Can you tell me what type of wastegate actuator and bov, you were using, as well as any exhaust modifications?
Thanks, So, his ported turbo with factory stock bypass/bov, wastegate and stock catted exhaust? I'm considering, doing some detuning on my car to move from the 1/4 mile to 1 mile track and have lost my notebook, from when I ran a stage 2 tune with stage 2 mods. Your information is very helpful!! Thanks again!
my d16y7 failed in a rather non-honda way. at least from what intel i've gathered from other nearby owners of such engines. rod bearing 4 completely ate away due to lack of oil, 1-3 were in damn near perfect condition. this is because this particular engine oils 1-3 directly and 4 from oil down off the head. my engine particularly had experienced prolonged oil changes that have me guessing the small outlets in the head got plugged up.
Sounds like the Ecoboost is a lot flimsier than a K20. Honda made some really good 4 cyl motors, too bad they're downsizing to 1.5L on all the common models.
I agree when things go bad in a turbo engine it happens fadt and hard...read expensive. Had my share of issues with a 2.0 Subaru. And it ate stock piston ring lands and rod berings.
Balance shafts are such a waste. I expect a bit of vibration from bigger 4 cylinders. Companies want to worry about every 0.0001% of fuel economy, so they go to stupid wet belts running timing gear and oil pumps, instead of just getting rid of the stupid balance shafts, which do not actually FIX the problem, just hides the problem with extra power robbing mass. I know a few people running large displacement 4 cylinders ranging from the GM Iron Duke 2.5 liter all the way up to lightly and heavily modded Honda H-series engines that have removed their balance shafts with no ill effects from doing so. Balance shafts are the lazy band-aid fix, they have always bothered me, does not matter if it is a 4 cylinder or a 90 degree V6, balance shafts are dumb.
Oh and your first contestant is the winner,, his statement about the broken rod was straight forward and to the point! Thanks for your excellent channel!!❤
Sounds like the 10 speed with that wonderful new fluid spec, Mercon ULV. GM and Ford co-designed the 10L80, this time it was a Ford fluid spec compared to the 6T70 using a GM fluid spec
My guess would be that there was too much boost, especially at low rpm where turbos tend to generate maximum torque. Was the electronically-controlled wastegate functioning properly? I'm not a fan of forced induction for street engines, racing engines fine. I like the high compression large displacement of my 370Z with its flat torque curve.
Interesting question about the wastegate! The 2018 Eco Stang uses a pneumatic wastegate, but the new 2024, uses an electrical wastegate. Both are controlled electronically.
Since reading about Ford's new Ecoboost Motor, I've been searching for information about the changes made (including the wastegate) and the advantages.
Just a bit of my first answer in the other video. I have seen head lifting in 2.3 with a lot of cylinder pressure. The twisted/bent rod more specific because I have a broken rod souvenir from a friends F150 2.7 that was near or over 600 HP, he had drag raced this street truck with very low 12 second to high 11 second 1/4 mile ET's. His failure was during street cruising for errands. My own ride is a 2.7 F150 tuned to just over 400 HP. I will ad he was not running over 24 PSI but was using E50 and fueling upgrades to support, tuned and adjusted for the mods.
Hi Ken, you are one of very few people who even suggested a rod issue, and I think you were the very first. It's ironic as now that the cat is fully out of the bag we have a lot of people here saying they knew it was due to weak rods all along. However very few people mentioned rods. Good job!
While the lowest possible price was $2,340usd back in the day, inflation adjustment brings that to $20-25k not millions. Options also used to be MUCH more of a cars total price, with many Mustangs sold over $4k and the average over $3k and featuring the same basic running gear, while few people would consider +50% in options sensible now, with the few cars above double like hellcats sharing less with the base spec than between entire brands of common ownership in 1960's and 1970's, let alone a given model. Likewise current prices for those vintage mustangs vary WILDLY, but the highest recorded sale was $87k (still not millions), average was $17k (so adjusting for inflation, slightly down from what owners bought them new, despite status as collectable), and plenty that where sold below $4k (likely because of poor condition, but interesting to note you could pay the same number of dollars both new and today).
@@SheepInACart - It's a joke. "2 mil" is a joke. My mom traded her 1958 2-tone Corvette for the Mustang. I rode a bicycle for transportation 1958 - 2018. I'm a bicycle guy making a car joke. The Corvette and I share the same birth year.
Just out of curiosity, why didn't you take take this engine out situation as an opportunity to put some upgraded rods in the new lump? I don't know much about the ecoboost but a quick google search came up with many options. Yeah a good set is like 1k but sounds like it would be worth it.
I wish i saw the other video. You make too much torque too low in the rpm band. (My guess) Stock turbos come on early. Bent factory rods usually come from small turbos. Your spreading the power production between less cycles at lower rpm. More power per boom to make 100 hp at 2500 or 3000 vs say, 4500 or 5000. Old Bnw's bend rods when you make the power (450+ ft pounds) below 3500/4000. On a long stroke engine the rod usually bends, then its shorter. Piston hits the counter weight then the rod breaks and exits the block
My first car at 16 was a ‘77 VW Rabbit, used it to get to work to buy my second car, a ‘70 Boss 302 (that needed a lot of work). Let’s see if I can get all of what my non-Ford friends said for “Ford”. Found on road dead Fix or repair daily Fast only running downhill Frustrated owner really disappointed F*cked over rebuilt Dodge How many I don’t even remember… God I loved that car.
G'day Greg, Ah, oopsie ! My daughter explored the underwater performance of her Rav-4 about 3 years ago, turned her Engine into a Fluid-Compressor for long enough to break and bend Rods. Back in the 1970s one of the Workshop Proverbs was, "Aftermarket Turbochargers Mean Aftermarket Troubles...!" Pumping in more Boost than the Connecting Rods and Piston Crowns were ever designed for. Twisting up the Boost on a Factory-fitted unit basically amounts to making the same mistake. Segue Warning... I collected a useful datapoint. My motorbike has a 3 Kw software limited Motor Output, and I paid Ozzie-$10,049 for 880 Watts of Solar Panels, 10 Kw/Hr of Gel-Cells, 1,500 Watt Charge Controller, and a 1,600 Inverter..., Installed, including 10% Goods & Services Tax. So, for every Killowatt worth of Electric Motor in the Vehicle it'll cost $3,330 in Oz Currency to recharge the Battery to feed that 1 Kw of Rated Motor Output. So, if a Tesla has a 50 Kw Motor (?), that'll be $165,000 Australian for the Stand-Alone Photovoltaic setup to recharge it at night, after coming home from work...(!). Which makes the $92,000 for the Car kinda silly to think about. What do you know about the "Accelerationist Movement"...? About 10 days ago I posted a Rideabout-Talkabout video, with a Chest-Camera, titled, "Electric Motorcycling, Into The Trumpocalypse...; Accelerationism Now In Control...?" Ockham's Razor suggests that such appears to be the case...; what do you reckon ? Such is life, Live a good one..... Stay safe. ;-p Ciao !
Ultimately with turbocharged engines you are going to have failures due to over pressure. Eco boost engines are prone to failure and yet ford keeps making the engines smaller with more turbocharging in order to comply with the CAFE limits. So let’s get into what the exact problem is. You have a mass, you want to accelerate a mass. To accelerate need a force, the force is applied over a distance, thus you need energy, and the energy per unit time (power) determines how fast you can accelerate. OK, this is just basic stuff. An ICE can gain about 20% to 30% efficiency. And let’s say you need 500 HP that means there is 1500 to 2000 equivilrnts of waste heat, but since not all the fuel is burnt. So let’s knock it down to 1000 HP eq. So if you have say a 12 cylinder engine that heat is spread over 12 cylinders and the water jacket, it also means the manifold temperature and pressure is lower. So now let’s put 500 HP in a 6 cylinder engine with a turbocharger, we can do that by doubling the pressure an using an intercooler, the problem though at TDC on firing the cylinder pressure is double the peak of the twelve cylinder engine. The exhaust valve temperature is hotter, the turbocharger also creates more back pressure, and some of these small engines have cylinder spacing as small as you can get, so that a cylinder head being pushed away from the block has a head gasket that is also being pushed against. The turbocharger itself is being pushed into a zone of thermal operation which is degrading the oil. And so this is an ominous nexus. The all you need is a small defect in any part in the cylinder or the turbo blades. If you drive these cars at modest accelerations and only use the turbo charger for occasional acceleration, they will behave just fine. But if you like blowing the doors of other traffic, or speeding down the freeway at 2AM going 120 MPH, you have no tolerance in the lubrication or cooling system for failure. There’s a fellow on Robot Cantina that turbocharged a diesel Kubota for a stripped down Saturn and he got 80 MPH with a 720 cc engine. These 3 cylinder ford engines are about 1000 cc, and they have a turbocharger on them, but they are not sports cars. That turbo is there for 15-20 seconds of continuous operation per interval . It’s stupid to make car engines that small and compensate with turbochargers. A 1250 cc engine with a pressure limiter on the turbo output is a much better configuration and it makes the engine trivially larger and more massive. Better yet, get rid of the Turbo and use the hybrid battery for peak output.
Turbocharging works fine long term if the engine is built right. This has been proven in long haul trucking in which those trucks are on boost for millions of miles.
@ The key word is built, if you build to pressure. Second thing is diesel engines don’t peak output at 6000 RPM. A diesel truck is a relatively small engine connected to a large mass, thus its mandate is not weight saving on size or mass, but maximizing power output at a steady-state RPM. That’s not the way Eco-boost engines are designed. Ford has a repeated problem of failure at the intercylinder head gasket due to under engineering the engine, it’s comparable to the North Star problem.
I wasn't defending Ford, I was defending turbocharging in general. There are lot of Toyotas and other engines that hold up very well long term with turbocharger. I have a Fiat with 150k miles on it and it's engine is just fine, and it's tuned to have quite a bit more power than stock.
Right?! He's was repeating how crazy high boost he was running but never actually said what it was, also repeated himself multiple times that it wasnt the engine failure, seems somewhat fishy keeping in mind the ecoboost motors are know for being pretty shitty.
6:30 we have to respect manufacturers for being the greedy SOBs they are. They wouldn't put in balance shafts if they didn't make a real difference in smoothness. It's not a tick-box on most car buyers' lists, where you'd get manufacturers throwing in a feature just to get sales even if it made no contribution. Even as a tech-head I'd never think to look at balance shaft existence when deciding which car to buy. I've had mostly straight-6 and crosscrank V-8 and don't know if my R35 or F430 even have balance shafts. Of course I trust your opinion too, and am not saying you're wrong per se. But it might be that you're simply less sensitive to the vibrations they kill than most people are. Or, it helps in some applications but not so much THIS chassis with THIS tuning, or some such. I'm not sure (haven't finished watching) if your statement is from literally the same engine in the same care with and without, but if not, it may be just a question of apples and oranges? Finally, it's possible that they designed the engine for a wide variety of applications and the balance shaft simply achieves nothing in this particular chassis but due to the economies of standardization makes sense to included in all models: cheaper to have an unneeded balance shaft in one car, perhaps, than to make a special version just for that car?
I may be insensitive to vibration, but I don't think it's just me. Looking around on forums I don't see people with engines without balance shafts complaining.
eh, gonna have to disagree with the 2.3's holding up. not nearly 1.5 or 2.0 levels, but seen plenty of them come through the shop. almost all of them have been due to excessive blowby.
Interesting. What would the solution(s) be here? I'm assuming reduced power is never an option. My assumption is aftermarket con rods though I don't know the drawbacks there. It sounds like they might be required for any EcoBoost with enough BMEP in fact? I can't think of any other solutions (not really an engine person) but I'd be interested if there's another way around the problem.
I gess the bent connecting rod was cause by the loss of counter balancing when number 2 connecting rod broke and the subsequent damage to the counter balancing shaft
My 2007 Shelby GT500 doesn’t have forged rods from the factory. That’s one of the first mods that must be done to raise the HP above approximately 650 HP.
I take it that these massive HP engines are in track cars We were more into road racing back in the 60/70s and the smaller cars were better for that type.
@ Agreed… Also, the modern HP cars are so refined, they take the fun out of driving on the street. There is no way that those cars (including mine) could be offered up to the general public without all the driver aids that make the horsepower numbers irrelevant. Pure “bragging rights”….
I bought a 2011 Ford Escape Limited , a V6 . Its around 110,000 miles with no major failures . 5000 mile Oil changes. Seems when Ford was good. All Ecoboosts , younger, seem to have issues? Toyota ?
@@GregsAirplanesandAutomobiles Search valvoline oil test ecoboost. Road condition chassis dyno two ecoboost cars 500K miles then dissect. For fun watch Kristensen 1959 thunderbird goodwood. Shorter track view vid and longer in car vid. I got in a lot of trouble in a J model in early 70s. I've built HP, now only build best torque curve cruisers.
They also hand built only 26,600 cars in 2023, ford sells twice that number of Mustangs alone, used the ecoboost engine in multiple cars, and combined it was still far from their most successful engine by sales. Yet despite this they DO fail at higher rates, both by year, and by distance. The choice for an open block also makes sense when you consider they are owned by the same group (and share a lot of engineering with) FIAT, and before that Citroën, both of whom use turbo charged open block v6 designs frequently. Its normally more economical to make a familiar design strong enough than radically change engineering principles to get a more "ideal" solution.
@@SheepInACart Surely trying to use a small 4 cylinder engine and boosting them is not as good as getting the V8 in the first place . I mean getting a Mustang and putting in a piddling engine is defeating the purpose of buying a Mustang in the first place
@@jacktattis as a muscle car guy and V8 lover myself, I definitely understand this position. However think about this: previous to the Coyote, the Mustang GT 4.6 V8 made 315 hp. The 2.3 Ecoboost makes 310 hp from the factory floor, and allows for significantly improved handling and cornering due to being quite a bit lighter in the front. So while the big power V8s still might rule for street drags and straight line racing, the Ecoboost makes a lot of sense for someone that wants to track their Mustang.
My question after the fact is how big of a fuel injection shot were you giving this engine before failure? It might be possible for too big of a fuel shot to bend the connecting rods. Top fuel dragsters will knock out rods if they are over fueling.
No, we were not hydro locking from excess fuel. While it's possible to do that it's not going to happen on a street engine. Even if an injector was stuck fully open as long as the engine was running it wouldn't hydro-lock it in this application. Now if you shut the car off and the injector stay on then it can happen, but it will happen when you start the engine.
The 2.3 is an excellent little 4 banger, I agree Sir,, as a matter of fact, back in the day there was an Organization specifically dedicated to these 4 cylinder motors called Racer Walsh ! They had some of the Most powerful engines, all sorts of parts and even offered technical assistance and support to the consumer! Thanks for your video!! Beautiful car by the way, Cheers 🥂
@@GregsAirplanesandAutomobiles Why are you evading all the questions about boost numbers and power dude? I always thought youre an honest and upfront person but you getting this defensive is super weird!
Ben, if I wanted to evade I just wouldn't answer at all. The issue is that I want to give a complete answer which is more than I can do in the comments. It's not about boost and it's not even about peak power, it's about cylinder pressure and that's a complex subject. If I said that engine made XX boost and XXX peak power that would be taken as some sort of limitation unless accompanied by a full explanation of how this related to cylinder pressures. That's another video entirely.
Joe has won the contest with a massive 44 percent of the total vote. Joe, contact me and I'll send you the prize.
@@GregsAirplanesandAutomobiles sweet, thanks Greg and everyone who voted.
Hey Greg! Great stuff. Can you do an updated video on pilot industry advice similar to your ACMI video? A lot has occurred in the last couple of years and I'm interested in your opinion. Your video has been one I've shared with others, a newer one would help some of those coming up now I think.
Made the mistake of not getting the timing right when replacing the head gasket on my Porsche 944s engine and was extremely lucky to only bend one valve and not do much damage to the piston. Hope your new engine holds up better than the last
Oh, dude, you drive 944?! What a dream car-shaped pile of scrap it is!
@nickyevdokymov5526 it's not my daily driver but I have one I've been working on. Some of the stuff is a pain to work on but that's how it is with any German thing
Should graduate to the bigboy headache and get a 928.
You get two heads and a 6' timing belt.
(I've done two timing belt replacements)
@ConeOfArc If you had enough of that car i'd gladly take it off your hands. I can give you a 1980 Lada 2101 in return. Small project needs 4 new side panels, no barkes, needs new paint, carburetor cleaning, engine so worn out basically only the block, oil pan, empty cylinder head and screws are remaining, needs new wiring and has 2 flat tires. Don't lowball me I know what I got.
Jokes aside good luck with your car, love your videos!
Greetings from Hungary!
@@RandomInternetDog nearly bought a 928 a few years ago for very cheap but someone bought it before I could go look at it. Definitely prefer the look of the 944 but the V8 would certainly be nice to have
User installed inspection port. Classic
I’ve watched lots of your plane videos and this is the first car one I’ve encountered. You’re having fun with your toys!!
A few years back I almost purchased a Focus RS with a 2.3 L EcoBoost, but after many hours of forum reading, I became aware of Fords head gasket debacle. These forums were Very Good.
Thanks for sharing your experience and am looking forward to more videos!!
Thanks, I think the next video in this series will be very interesting.
If you were a professional mechanic running a shop I have no doubt you'd have a engine autopsy feature on your youtube channel. You illustrate everything in an easy to understand way you're really good at explaining the reasons things happen and why they sometimes are upgraded or altered in other versions of machinery.
Very cool, the pictures of your block are hectic, amazed how the shock through the big end smashed the balancer off the case! Also cool is that the tune you were running was only just enough to make the rods fail, literally sneaking up on the weakest link in the chain.
I enjoyed my ecoboost Focus ST. Ultimately I lots mine to a distracted driver before I could do anything serious to it.
Another good video, Greg.
Oh you bad boy.. Bent rods are from too many tons on top of the piston.. The 5.2 Voodoo supercharged engines use special Manley "H" beams rods. The engine is making a lot of power already. Love your hot rod spirit.. Henry Ford is proud of you Greg
If you want to build your own EcoBeast, you do that by taking a first-gen 2.0 block (closed deck) and build it out with internals from a 2.3
I think buying parts from SBD or Dalarra or something would be better.
@@OneMoreDesu You can build a pretty darn potent engine with OEM (junkyard) parts when you pick the best from the 2.0 and 2.3 motors. The one notable exception is rods. You're going to want aftermarket rods above 400whp.
@@rockets4kidsYou may want to consider the "second generation" connecting rods found in the 2021 to 2023 motors.
@@coyote_chaser I'm not too familiar with those, but if you luck across a recent junker that could be an option.
Ecoboost.....Ecobust........tomato......tomaaaahto..turbos eventually ALL fail at some point ..nature of the beast.... .imho
I should have been more specific. Turbos eat rods regularly. Great in depth explanation Greg. I learn something in every video you give us. Thanks
Hi Joe. Thanks for your kind words. At the moment it appears that you are winning in the poll.
Joe is getting my vote
Joe, make us proud with your new shiny thing from Greg's shop, cause you are getting my vote too. You weren't specific enough, but entirely correct nonetheless!
Thanks everyone, means a lot.
Would having old petrol in my Car contribute to it putting a hole through the side of the block ?
This is exactly why I asked you how much HP the engine was putting out. It has been well established that connecting rods are the first thing to go when it comes to the stock internals as you start really upping the power.
Great, you should have said exactly that and you would have won.
@@GregsAirplanesandAutomobiles Honestly, I figured you would have known better and replaced the rods if you were getting anywhere close to that point.
@@rockets4kids I thought I was clear I was using stock internals. It seemed like almost everyone guessed it was a piston failure. It's really too bad nobody said rods due to excess power, we could have had a clear winner. Oh well, the poll I put up will sort out the winner.
@@GregsAirplanesandAutomobiles Again, that is exactly the reason why I asked how much power were putting out and what mods you had done to the engine. Of course, had you actually done that, it would have been immediately obvious to anyone who knows this engine why it failed with little need for guessing.
@@rockets4kids Youre asking for the power number and i was asking for the boost he was running but with both of us he's not answering and evading the question for some reason?!
I knew my guess was stupid, but the moment you mentioned head issues, it reminded me that the most likely damage from my dumb suggestion was head damage, which wouldn't necessitate a full replacement.
Really enjoying this series!
Honestly, this is better than any airplane.
This is another typically well-done and well-thought-out video by Greg. I am not a huge Ford performance fan, although I still appreciate the engineering from the Model T through the Ford GAA tank engine to the Boss 302, 427 side oiler, and Boss 429, which eventually led to the current EcoBoost and other performance engines. By the way, my next-door neighbor has a 2019, 2020, or 2021 (I can't remember which 🙄 ) version of your car, but with a..... manual transmission and a less intrusive ECU/ electronics system. By the way, David V. is a brilliant engine guy. 👍
Oh my god, thinking about damaging an engine from overreving on a downshift... I do CDL truck driver training and I'm driving with a guy right now who just cannot shift gears to save his soul and the small driving school my dad and I run doesn't own a truck with an automatic transmission, so I'm just doing a ton of driving with this guy to practice shifting. We were on the interstate today and we had moved into the decel lane and started to slow down, and he had the truck down to 50mph, which is where you need to shift down from 10th to 9th and the guy managed to get the thing into 7th. Usually, I see the student's hands move the gear lever into the wrong position, and when something like that happens, I can just grab the gear lever and either pull it out of gear before they're off the clutch, or I hold it in neutral while they try to stick it in the wrong gear. This time though it didn't really look like he'd moved the gear lever sideways at all, so I was pretty certain it was the correct gear he went into.
Then his foot came off the clutch and I saw the tach go to 2,600 RPM. Yeah that truck... unless you're in 9th or 10th gear and you're running right at the top of those two gears, it really shouldn't exceed like 1,300 but if you go to like 1,500 it's not awful, but HELL NO should that thing be up in the 1,700 or 1,800 range and I don't even know why the tach goes to 3,000. He pulled from 10th and went directly to 7th at 50mph. 7th gear in that truck comfortably only gets you from 20mph up to 25mph, and if you over rev it an acceptable amount, you can get to like 30mph, but you really shouldn't even do that. Bro had it in 7th at 50. I was very surprised we didn't get any alarms and I don't think it did any damage. If it had blown up that motor, we'd have been so screwed. Like, we might have gone out of business. Probably not, but it would have been like an $80,000 fuck up cause it would have bricked a truck we spent almost $40,000 on and we'd need a replacement for it.
Yeah we pulled over and had a nice chat about how he needs to control that gear lever and use more gentle hands and finesse rather than slamming it into gear. The notion that you can move the gear lever quickly, but not violently is a foreign concept to drivers of all age.
That's what you call a money shift.
Thanks for this great post. Many of Today's young people don't even want to steer, they certainly don't want to shift.
@GregsAirplanesandAutomobiles This guy is not young. At least around where I am, most people doing CDL training want to do it in a manual truck because of you use an auto on your road test you get a license that is restricted and you can only drive automatic trucks. Maine has a lot of heavy duty and vocational trucking. If it's a newer Class B truck, even in things like dump trucks, it probably will be an auto, but if you're driving Class A and it isn't for one of the huge national mega-corps, it's a very good chance you're truck will be a manual.
We actually really probably should try to buy an automatic tractor as our next truck. The dude who stuck it in seventh earlier today is never going to be a great truck driver, but he could be an adequate one. If we had an automatic transmission truck, he would be much better served learning in that. For the people who struggle a lot with learning to shift; if you can teach them how to drive in an automatic then they go out and work driving an automatic for 6 months they'll learn to shift way faster. They aren't trying to learn shifting while they also learn everything else about driving an 18 wheeler.
@bedlamite42 Haha yo, that's awesome.
@@GregsAirplanesandAutomobiles Everything I own has a manual transmission. It is a notably reliable theft/carjacking deterrent within today's society.
Yep, I would not have guessed a compressive failure of the rod due to cylinder compression. That's a really unusual failure.
I heard a theory that bent rods of this sort is from applying too much load at low rpm. From a turbo ls youtuber. As in below peak torque output. Different application, different engine. First video of yours I watched so I have no clue about your car's specifics.
Used to work at an Independent QC test lab in metro Detroit. More than one connector manufacturer had poor QC, particularly in USCAR-2 environmental testing.
FWIW, this engine family has a long lineage, dating back to the Duratec Fords and the MZR in the NC Miata from 2006+. The port injection versions (namely the 2.5) have a surprisingly good cylinder head, and they are ridiculously inexpensive as they were used in tons of mazda and ford minivans, compacts and midsized sedans. We take them directly out of junkyard cars, run them for 40+ hours of time endurance racing, and then go get another one for $400. With Ford's focus on boosted small displacement engines, I really think these ecoboost engines will be the next junkyard special for the next 10 years as their commuter car, built to a price point, shipping containers fail around them.
My frustration is that the 2.3 EcoBoost is almost a world beating engine. In terms of parts needed it was so close.
All true but keep in mind, durable when NA is not the same as durable and reliable when boosting to the moon. Boost can kill anything. A typical mass produced engine is plenty strong enough for NA or even mild boost but things like the LS, Coyotes, many Hondas, the good old 2JZ and a few others are strong enough to take a LOT of boost. I'm no ecoboost expert but it sounds like it is not built for that. Which is a shame, it means the typical turbo loving drag racer is still stuck with LS's and Japanese 4 bangers for cheap fun at the drag strip. Considering how ubiquitous the ecoboost has become, it would have been really nice if they had the strength to be pushed like that since junkyards are going to be full of them.
I've not researched it enough yet but Ive heard word of mouth that aftermarket rods originally meant for the MZR will work in the Ecoboost.
Unfortunately, when Ford and Mazda parted ways Ford did basically a clean-sheet redesign on the block casting and screwed up a bunch of things.
The people who want to put out serious power from this engine go with the block from a first-gen 2.0 along with the crank and top end from the 2.3 That setup is good for at least 700hp.
“Well boys, we sent it a little too hard there!” 😂😂
I think kenm's answer is the best b/c "twisted rod failure" IMO implies plastic deformation of the rod under compression, which is basically your diagnosis as well. It's more precise than the others without guessing wrong details (unless you take points away for putting 2 guesses in 1 answer, but 1 of them was right on the money & the other was a plausible guess too)
Usually bent rods are the result of exceeding their torque limits (overboost, knock, liquids). So... bigger rods should do the trick,but sometimes at the expense of max RPM.
That's exactly right, it's really a torque issue more than horsepower. I didn't want to bog down the video getting into why that is.
@@GregsAirplanesandAutomobiles so did you upgrade the conrods this time? Or are you keeping the same build and upgrading the intercooler but not changing rods?
My cardiologist is a rev head and she races her cars at Willowbank Qld She has a Mercedes Sports? two Aston DB9 and she recently bought a Lotus . She had the honour a couple of years ago of starting the Bathurst 1000
Greg, The open deck block is a function of the block casting process. The 2.3L is a High Pressure Die Casting (HPDC). The water jacket is formed by a piece of tooling that is part of the die and slides out of the casting after the aluminum solidifies, as the die is opened after the casting is shot... closed deck aluminum block is impossible with HPDC. The crank case is formed in the same way... HPDC is a very economical way to mass produce cylinder blocks. The tooling is very expensive and sophisticated, but the resulting piece price is lower... Most aluminum cylinder blocks are made this way. The get a closed deck block a sand core is needed to form the water jacket below the head deck. Sand cores are impossible in a HPDC casting. the 2.0/2.3/2.5L engine family previously had low pressure precision sand cast blocks. The 2.0 and 2.3 transitioned over to HPDC 10 ish years ago. Rod buckling in stock rods is certainly possible due added boost... but as you know takes a lot to get there (congratulations). Ford just isn't going to spend the money to upgrade the rods when there isnt really any chance the rod will buckle at stock performance levels.
Thanks for sharing this information! Manufacturing has always been a fascinating subject!!
PS: Ford did release 2nd generation connecting rods in 2020, and it is my understanding, that all 2021 to 2023 engines are equipped with the new rods.
can I vote? let another win, I love the channel and my auto racing days are well gone,
Glory to the one with more need than me.
Badass Cap’n Greg! Truly appreciate your sharing of knowledge. ☮️
My 1965 Triumph TR4A also has an “open deck” style engine.👍
So does the intercooler duct make closer to mustang or fw-190, or possibly an P-47. The failure explained why WWII aircraft engines ran what we consider low compression. The Duramax suffered same problem with evolving turbo development in early life.
This is way above my pay grade. Interesting guesses from the participants. I really don't understand the failure to include the proper wiring harness with the new engine. It is, after all, a $5K engine, which qualifies as "expensive" at my house. Given the cost, including the proper wiring doesn't seem like too much to ask.
I always love hearing about other channels I watch on channels I watch. 😁
I have plenty of work fixing ford Powerstrokes. I feel your pain.
More about boost and it's margin of importance.
In the 1st video of this series, Greg stated the location of the OEM boost (TIP) sensor (at the exit of the intercooler and before the throttle body). The ECU controls the throttle plate, not the right foot of the driver. This makes the boost reading on the dash, in part, nothing more than a measurement of restriction.
You have to love value engineering, valuable to the manufacturer, not so valuable to the purchaser who expects it to last for a long time
Shocking to see an EcoBoost 4 cylinder that didn't fail due to the press fit timing components slipping and throwing it out of time.
These are just a poor copy of the BMW N54 with two cylinders chopped off. Everything is the same but worse.
Rods don't bend from compressive forces but normally from the pin end tightening up which then puts a bending force on the rod and in a few cycles will snap it. The other way they fail in highly boosted motors seems to be from the piston cocking sideways in the bore which puts a side bending force on the rod. Modern low drag slipper pistons don't have good lateral support like a full skirted barrel type piston does so that's something to think about when making a motor. If you can fit full skirts without hitting the crank...you're better off. If only slipper pistons will fit...then a rod with much greater resistance to side bending would be a good move.
A pin problem would have bent it in the other direction. I'm not sure I understand what you mean by "rods don't bend from compressive forces". They certainly do, it happens all the time from hydrolock. I do like the rest of your post though.
@@GregsAirplanesandAutomobiles Thanks for the reply Greg! Perhaps I should have prefaced my original statement with 'In a normal running engine'...and also let's distinguish a bent rod vs a buckled/collapsed one.
Hydrolocking a motor for absolute certain will buckle rods if you hit them hard enough, but the normal 'bent' rods seem to be mostly from big or little ends tightening up or the piston rocking sideways....at least that's what we've seen and believe.
The 'open deck' blocks will allow the cylinders to move around if pushed too hard and this movement obviously causes misalignment of piston to crank enough to stress the rod through the pin.
Pushing the 2.3L Ford any harder than stock would make me want to sleeve it with the deck locked together as their racing block was made. Would be good insurance.
Excellent debate topic! You both make well informed statements!!
Yeah. They are using plastic these days where they ought not. That's the fault of the consumer. People change autos like pants despite the cost. If people demanded durable vehicles that lasted 30+ years; they'd be built accordingly.
That's a good point, it's built to a price point.
This is a 2.3L 4 cylinder that makes 310+ hp from the factory, and does that quite reliably. Even a 20 years ago a "good" turbo 4 would probably make only 200hp from the factory, and if you were into modifying it, by the time you got it to close to 400 bhp (which is where the 2.3L EBs start to break), you'd ALSO have needed to upgrade parts and the whole package would be MUCH less reliable than the stock EB.
Cars today are also on the road, lasting longer, than any prior era of vehicles. Not sure what you really want, to be honest.
For starters I want an accessible dipstick for the transmission. Then I would like electrical connectors that don't crack and break when I remove them. You are right about everything else. The car does make a lot of power and it's at a very reasonable price off the showroom floor.
And then youd be crying about the lack of power, shitty fuel economy and how it drives like a cart.
@@GregsAirplanesandAutomobiles Yup. Us mechanics would appreciate it coming back too! Make sure you never let them remove the engine oil dipstick like the Germans did. I'd go even further, I won't buy any car with an electric parking brake, exterior door operated primarily by a solenoid rather than a cable (Tesla does a lot of this, but GM did it first with the C6 Corvette and its push button doors), or even a keyless ignition. Like I said, I'm way pickier than most car buyers (since I fix them myself I have every reason to be), but that's how you have to think if you don't want these companies to overcomplicate things where it need not be done.
My 2015 Honda Fit has direct fuel injection which I'm not the biggest fan of, but the injectors are at least easy to reach and can be changed out in less than 90 minutes if you know what you're doing (took me less than an hour when I did mine a month or so ago) and they made it really easy to walnut blast the intake valves, which DI cars need periodically. Plus it's as basic as a modern car can get. Manual transmission, keyed ignition, mechanical parking brake and exterior doors, and no integrated infotainment. And now that the Nissan Versa and Mitsubishi Mirage are both on the chopping block, I don't see myself being interested in anything new.
Saw several bent rods in Ford 4.2 V^s when coolant leaked into the intake port after shutdown. Triple chack make sure you didn't have a coolant leak.
Had a customer who had a Benz , 126, and an m103 . She lost coolant and filled it up with a garden hose…. In the valve cover. Slap full. Cranked it and it bent the 4. It also twisted the crank.
Sorry to read this, ive broke a 2.0l turbo before but it was my fault haha (using ignition cut flat foot shifting and broke a valve shim which fell into cylinder). You made alot of power to bend rod, now everyone knows the limit.. or maybe rpm, still watching🎉
It was power not RPM. We didn't raise the RPM limit at all. I'm not sorry though, it's part of our testing and a cost of doing business.
I don't have a Mustang, but I do have a 2.0 Ecoboost Focus. And while not the same, they are somewhat related. With the 2.0 engines stroking up to a 2.3 is always the last stage of upgrade because that extra 0.3 liters adds just enough extra stress on the conrods to limit their lifespan. It still baffles me that open deck, relatively low revving engine can make so much horsepower. It's no K-series, but for $350 at a pick-n-pull (Duratec) it's surprisingly good.
Same goes with the Mazda DISI, the spaghetti rods will bend if boost is too high while the revs are low
With regards to the balancing shafts, it is my thought (and i'm not an engineer) that they're there not for smoothness in terms of comfort, but for the prevention of fasteners getting undone from vibration.
Because the volvo redblock engine has a 16v variant which uses them, and the 8v don't, and people decomission the balancing assembly, because it's a notorious failure point with these engines for a number of reasons, the key of which is the belts for that shit being under the timing belt, and if that goes, the timing belt follows. AFAIK, not all balancing belts' quality was up to par.
The 8v redblocks are non-interference, and the 16vs aren't.
So i had mine's removed, and i didn't notice any sort of difference. The engine, in the end, died by other means and is being replaced by a vq30det.
I have a bent rod out of a Mazda BP. I heard the knock before any really bad things happened. I also lifted the head off the BP with boost.
Still crazy, after all these years.....
Eh, the closed decks had an issue, too (supposedly fixed in 2018, but not sure if that's true). My Focus ST failed at about 180k from a defect that causes the coolant to enter cylinders 2 &/or 3. Thought it was a turbo coolant line as there was no sign of a HG failure. Turns out, there's a TSB about it where Ford states the remedy as "engine replacement". I'm not exactly sure if the failure is block or head related, but it has something to do with the coolant passage between them and between cylinders 2 & 3. Too bad, as that car was absolutely bulletproof up to then. There are a few CA suits going on regarding it.
The 2.0 ST block is my favorite! My understanding is that Ford added steam slits to the 2017 block, while upgrading the turbocharger to a twin scroll. I've been told that Ford has corrected the issue, but when and how, I don't know.
@@coyote_chaser I heard the same thing and I hope it's true. I bought it partly for the closed deck-"no HG problem with this!". The universe, of course, laughed. Minus that issue, it's a robust engine with great power and mileage (I averaged around 30 mpg in mixed driving around Boston) and was Corolla reliable until the day I started the car and couldn't see out my back window. Even then, it had an almost reasonable 180k miles and otherwise looked and drove like it had 1/4 of that. A Camry I had with only a little more miles felt like it had double the miles it had.
Aman has got to learn his limitations, sometimes in a catastrophic way.
I wonder if you can match the engine alloy with billet aluminum and just CNC out the insert. It doesn't look too complicated (from here, famous last words)
@4:01 French parking.
Greg... I just read where you were running a ported turbocharger!??
Can you tell me what type of wastegate actuator and bov, you were using, as well as any exhaust modifications?
The Vizard turbo mod, the first one, he has videos on his channel where he shows what he did. It certainly allows for more power.
Thanks,
So, his ported turbo with factory stock bypass/bov, wastegate and stock catted exhaust?
I'm considering, doing some detuning on my car to move from the 1/4 mile to 1 mile track and have lost my notebook, from when I ran a stage 2 tune with stage 2 mods. Your information is very helpful!!
Thanks again!
I also keep an eye on what David is doing with his stage 2 Mustang.
He needs to at least, let you tune his transmission!
my d16y7 failed in a rather non-honda way. at least from what intel i've gathered from other nearby owners of such engines. rod bearing 4 completely ate away due to lack of oil, 1-3 were in damn near perfect condition. this is because this particular engine oils 1-3 directly and 4 from oil down off the head. my engine particularly had experienced prolonged oil changes that have me guessing the small outlets in the head got plugged up.
Sounds like the Ecoboost is a lot flimsier than a K20. Honda made some really good 4 cyl motors, too bad they're downsizing to 1.5L on all the common models.
I agree when things go bad in a turbo engine it happens fadt and hard...read expensive. Had my share of issues with a 2.0 Subaru. And it ate stock piston ring lands and rod berings.
Best factory boosted tuner engine out there right now is the BMW B58
Too much timing and/or boost at lower RPM before the TQ peak.
Balance shafts are such a waste. I expect a bit of vibration from bigger 4 cylinders. Companies want to worry about every 0.0001% of fuel economy, so they go to stupid wet belts running timing gear and oil pumps, instead of just getting rid of the stupid balance shafts, which do not actually FIX the problem, just hides the problem with extra power robbing mass. I know a few people running large displacement 4 cylinders ranging from the GM Iron Duke 2.5 liter all the way up to lightly and heavily modded Honda H-series engines that have removed their balance shafts with no ill effects from doing so. Balance shafts are the lazy band-aid fix, they have always bothered me, does not matter if it is a 4 cylinder or a 90 degree V6, balance shafts are dumb.
I hope this is my life once my kids move out... they move out right?!
"It had connecting rod failure" *thetta II flash backs intensify*
Oh and your first contestant is the winner,, his statement about the broken rod was straight forward and to the point! Thanks for your excellent channel!!❤
Sounds like the 10 speed with that wonderful new fluid spec, Mercon ULV. GM and Ford co-designed the 10L80, this time it was a Ford fluid spec compared to the 6T70 using a GM fluid spec
My guess would be that there was too much boost, especially at low rpm where turbos tend to generate maximum torque. Was the electronically-controlled wastegate functioning properly?
I'm not a fan of forced induction for street engines, racing engines fine. I like the high compression large displacement of my 370Z with its flat torque curve.
Interesting question about the wastegate!
The 2018 Eco Stang uses a pneumatic wastegate, but the new 2024, uses an electrical wastegate. Both are controlled electronically.
Since reading about Ford's new Ecoboost Motor, I've been searching for information about the changes made (including the wastegate) and the advantages.
Just a bit of my first answer in the other video. I have seen head lifting in 2.3 with a lot of cylinder pressure. The twisted/bent rod more specific because I have a broken rod souvenir from a friends F150 2.7 that was near or over 600 HP, he had drag raced this street truck with very low 12 second to high 11 second 1/4 mile ET's. His failure was during street cruising for errands. My own ride is a 2.7 F150 tuned to just over 400 HP. I will ad he was not running over 24 PSI but was using E50 and fueling upgrades to support, tuned and adjusted for the mods.
Hi Ken, you are one of very few people who even suggested a rod issue, and I think you were the very first. It's ironic as now that the cat is fully out of the bag we have a lot of people here saying they knew it was due to weak rods all along. However very few people mentioned rods. Good job!
@@GregsAirplanesandAutomobiles This is a young friend of mine and my source for some souvenirs. ruclips.net/video/UhlY-4ekvlM/видео.html
My mom paid two grand for the brand new Ford Mustang, 1964. Adjusting for changes that's 2 million today.
While the lowest possible price was $2,340usd back in the day, inflation adjustment brings that to $20-25k not millions.
Options also used to be MUCH more of a cars total price, with many Mustangs sold over $4k and the average over $3k and featuring the same basic running gear, while few people would consider +50% in options sensible now, with the few cars above double like hellcats sharing less with the base spec than between entire brands of common ownership in 1960's and 1970's, let alone a given model.
Likewise current prices for those vintage mustangs vary WILDLY, but the highest recorded sale was $87k (still not millions), average was $17k (so adjusting for inflation, slightly down from what owners bought them new, despite status as collectable), and plenty that where sold below $4k (likely because of poor condition, but interesting to note you could pay the same number of dollars both new and today).
@@SheepInACart - It's a joke. "2 mil" is a joke. My mom traded her 1958 2-tone Corvette for the Mustang. I rode a bicycle for transportation 1958 - 2018. I'm a bicycle guy making a car joke. The Corvette and I share the same birth year.
Just out of curiosity, why didn't you take take this engine out situation as an opportunity to put some upgraded rods in the new lump? I don't know much about the ecoboost but a quick google search came up with many options. Yeah a good set is like 1k but sounds like it would be worth it.
I believe he's also testing his product for Eurocompulsion which is meant for stock engines. Upgrading the rods would defeat that purpose.
I wish i saw the other video. You make too much torque too low in the rpm band. (My guess) Stock turbos come on early. Bent factory rods usually come from small turbos. Your spreading the power production between less cycles at lower rpm. More power per boom to make 100 hp at 2500 or 3000 vs say, 4500 or 5000. Old Bnw's bend rods when you make the power (450+ ft pounds) below 3500/4000. On a long stroke engine the rod usually bends, then its shorter. Piston hits the counter weight then the rod breaks and exits the block
Put an aussie ford barra engine in it. 1000 hp with stock bottom end.
these big tuned up turbo engines tend to overheat the oil on track too.
My first car at 16 was a ‘77 VW Rabbit, used it to get to work to buy my second car, a ‘70 Boss 302 (that needed a lot of work). Let’s see if I can get all of what my non-Ford friends said for “Ford”.
Found on road dead
Fix or repair daily
Fast only running downhill
Frustrated owner really disappointed
F*cked over rebuilt Dodge
How many I don’t even remember…
God I loved that car.
A old one from my day "If you cant buy a Dodge ,dodge a Ford
If you want a proper 2,3, source yourself a Saab B234; can do up to 450-500 hp on stock internals according to the Swedish tuning experts.
You described what is called a "money shift" when you shift to 2nd instead of 4th
G'day Greg,
Ah, oopsie !
My daughter explored the underwater performance of her Rav-4 about 3 years ago, turned her Engine into a Fluid-Compressor for long enough to break and bend Rods.
Back in the 1970s one of the Workshop Proverbs was,
"Aftermarket Turbochargers
Mean
Aftermarket Troubles...!"
Pumping in more Boost than the Connecting Rods and Piston Crowns were ever designed for.
Twisting up the Boost on a Factory-fitted unit basically amounts to making the same mistake.
Segue Warning...
I collected a useful datapoint.
My motorbike has a 3 Kw software limited Motor Output, and I paid Ozzie-$10,049 for 880 Watts of Solar Panels, 10 Kw/Hr of Gel-Cells, 1,500 Watt Charge Controller, and a 1,600 Inverter..., Installed, including 10% Goods & Services Tax.
So, for every Killowatt worth of Electric Motor in the Vehicle it'll cost $3,330 in Oz Currency to recharge the Battery to feed that 1 Kw of Rated Motor Output.
So, if a Tesla has a 50 Kw Motor (?), that'll be $165,000 Australian for the Stand-Alone Photovoltaic setup to recharge it at night, after coming home from work...(!).
Which makes the $92,000 for the Car kinda silly to think about.
What do you know about the "Accelerationist Movement"...?
About 10 days ago I posted a Rideabout-Talkabout video, with a Chest-Camera, titled,
"Electric Motorcycling, Into The Trumpocalypse...; Accelerationism Now In Control...?"
Ockham's Razor suggests that such appears to be the case...; what do you reckon ?
Such is life,
Live a good one.....
Stay safe.
;-p
Ciao !
It's not a party until Warbles gets here.
Ultimately with turbocharged engines you are going to have failures due to over pressure. Eco boost engines are prone to failure and yet ford keeps making the engines smaller with more turbocharging in order to comply with the CAFE limits.
So let’s get into what the exact problem is.
You have a mass, you want to accelerate a mass. To accelerate need a force, the force is applied over a distance, thus you need energy, and the energy per unit time (power) determines how fast you can accelerate. OK, this is just basic stuff.
An ICE can gain about 20% to 30% efficiency. And let’s say you need 500 HP that means there is 1500 to 2000 equivilrnts of waste heat, but since not all the fuel is burnt. So let’s knock it down to 1000 HP eq. So if you have say a 12 cylinder engine that heat is spread over 12 cylinders and the water jacket, it also means the manifold temperature and pressure is lower.
So now let’s put 500 HP in a 6 cylinder engine with a turbocharger, we can do that by doubling the pressure an using an intercooler, the problem though at TDC on firing the cylinder pressure is double the peak of the twelve cylinder engine. The exhaust valve temperature is hotter, the turbocharger also creates more back pressure, and some of these small engines have cylinder spacing as small as you can get, so that a cylinder head being pushed away from the block has a head gasket that is also being pushed against. The turbocharger itself is being pushed into a zone of thermal operation which is degrading the oil. And so this is an ominous nexus. The all you need is a small defect in any part in the cylinder or the turbo blades.
If you drive these cars at modest accelerations and only use the turbo charger for occasional acceleration, they will behave just fine. But if you like blowing the doors of other traffic, or speeding down the freeway at 2AM going 120 MPH, you have no tolerance in the lubrication or cooling system for failure.
There’s a fellow on Robot Cantina that turbocharged a diesel Kubota for a stripped down Saturn and he got 80 MPH with a 720 cc engine. These 3 cylinder ford engines are about 1000 cc, and they have a turbocharger on them, but they are not sports cars. That turbo is there for 15-20 seconds of continuous operation per interval . It’s stupid to make car engines that small and compensate with turbochargers. A 1250 cc engine with a pressure limiter on the turbo output is a much better configuration and it makes the engine trivially larger and more massive.
Better yet, get rid of the Turbo and use the hybrid battery for peak output.
Turbocharging works fine long term if the engine is built right. This has been proven in long haul trucking in which those trucks are on boost for millions of miles.
@ The key word is built, if you build to pressure. Second thing is diesel engines don’t peak output at 6000 RPM. A diesel truck is a relatively small engine connected to a large mass, thus its mandate is not weight saving on size or mass, but maximizing power output at a steady-state RPM. That’s not the way Eco-boost engines are designed.
Ford has a repeated problem of failure at the intercylinder head gasket due to under engineering the engine, it’s comparable to the North Star problem.
I wasn't defending Ford, I was defending turbocharging in general. There are lot of Toyotas and other engines that hold up very well long term with turbocharger. I have a Fiat with 150k miles on it and it's engine is just fine, and it's tuned to have quite a bit more power than stock.
In other words Ford is cheating us.
How much boost were you running when it let go?
Right?! He's was repeating how crazy high boost he was running but never actually said what it was, also repeated himself multiple times that it wasnt the engine failure, seems somewhat fishy keeping in mind the ecoboost motors are know for being pretty shitty.
6:30 we have to respect manufacturers for being the greedy SOBs they are. They wouldn't put in balance shafts if they didn't make a real difference in smoothness. It's not a tick-box on most car buyers' lists, where you'd get manufacturers throwing in a feature just to get sales even if it made no contribution. Even as a tech-head I'd never think to look at balance shaft existence when deciding which car to buy. I've had mostly straight-6 and crosscrank V-8 and don't know if my R35 or F430 even have balance shafts. Of course I trust your opinion too, and am not saying you're wrong per se. But it might be that you're simply less sensitive to the vibrations they kill than most people are. Or, it helps in some applications but not so much THIS chassis with THIS tuning, or some such. I'm not sure (haven't finished watching) if your statement is from literally the same engine in the same care with and without, but if not, it may be just a question of apples and oranges? Finally, it's possible that they designed the engine for a wide variety of applications and the balance shaft simply achieves nothing in this particular chassis but due to the economies of standardization makes sense to included in all models: cheaper to have an unneeded balance shaft in one car, perhaps, than to make a special version just for that car?
I may be insensitive to vibration, but I don't think it's just me. Looking around on forums I don't see people with engines without balance shafts complaining.
Ford lost me at four cylinder.
That's a pretty car.
It looks nice. 😂
eh, gonna have to disagree with the 2.3's holding up. not nearly 1.5 or 2.0 levels, but seen plenty of them come through the shop.
almost all of them have been due to excessive blowby.
Yeah the ecoboost are well known for being pretty shitty, guess thats why hes evading all question about power and boost numbers lol
I did diagnose a broken rod but I didn't know what would have caused it. Didn't reply to the other video though because I don't own a Mustang. 😁
is this the same 2.3 that was in the focus RS? because i thought that 2.3 was known for cracking the block
It's pretty much the same thing. At stock power levels the block is fine, but as with other things, it could have easily been much better.
Interesting. What would the solution(s) be here? I'm assuming reduced power is never an option. My assumption is aftermarket con rods though I don't know the drawbacks there. It sounds like they might be required for any EcoBoost with enough BMEP in fact? I can't think of any other solutions (not really an engine person) but I'd be interested if there's another way around the problem.
The solution is to run the same amount of power with lower cylinder pressures. At least that's my plan.
Want a reliable ecoboost? Change its oil often and don’t tune it. Keep it stock.
I have the same exact car with the same engine with the same failure mode... Rod in cyl 3. Snapped and windowed the block
How much power & torque were you putting out before it broke?
I gess the bent connecting rod was cause by the loss of counter balancing when number 2 connecting rod broke and the subsequent damage to the counter balancing shaft
No it bent before that.
Too much timing before peak torque?
Serious malice in the combustion palace!
i do cars enjoyer
My 2007 Shelby GT500 doesn’t have forged rods from the factory. That’s one of the first mods that must be done to raise the HP above approximately 650 HP.
I take it that these massive HP engines are in track cars We were more into road racing back in the 60/70s and the smaller cars were better for that type.
@ Agreed… Also, the modern HP cars are so refined, they take the fun out of driving on the street. There is no way that those cars (including mine) could be offered up to the general public without all the driver aids that make the horsepower numbers irrelevant. Pure “bragging rights”….
Eco boost on a mustang...it wants a supercharger!
I bought a 2011 Ford Escape Limited , a V6 . Its around 110,000 miles with no major failures . 5000 mile Oil changes. Seems when Ford was good.
All Ecoboosts , younger, seem to have issues?
Toyota ?
Is that the type engine valvoline did the 500K oil test on chassis dyno?
I don't know, but if so it wasn't running a lot of power in that test.
@@GregsAirplanesandAutomobiles Search valvoline oil test ecoboost. Road condition chassis dyno two ecoboost cars 500K miles then dissect. For fun watch Kristensen 1959 thunderbird goodwood. Shorter track view vid and longer in car vid. I got in a lot of trouble in a J model in early 70s. I've built HP, now only build best torque curve cruisers.
Me, listening to this video while driving an Ecoboost.
open deck seems nuts for high boost
Maserati does it and it works just fine, but they use stronger cylinders, head studs and more extras for strength.
They also hand built only 26,600 cars in 2023, ford sells twice that number of Mustangs alone, used the ecoboost engine in multiple cars, and combined it was still far from their most successful engine by sales. Yet despite this they DO fail at higher rates, both by year, and by distance. The choice for an open block also makes sense when you consider they are owned by the same group (and share a lot of engineering with) FIAT, and before that Citroën, both of whom use turbo charged open block v6 designs frequently. Its normally more economical to make a familiar design strong enough than radically change engineering principles to get a more "ideal" solution.
@@SheepInACart Surely trying to use a small 4 cylinder engine and boosting them is not as good as getting the V8 in the first place . I mean getting a Mustang and putting in a piddling engine is defeating the purpose of buying a Mustang in the first place
@@jacktattis as a muscle car guy and V8 lover myself, I definitely understand this position. However think about this: previous to the Coyote, the Mustang GT 4.6 V8 made 315 hp. The 2.3 Ecoboost makes 310 hp from the factory floor, and allows for significantly improved handling and cornering due to being quite a bit lighter in the front. So while the big power V8s still might rule for street drags and straight line racing, the Ecoboost makes a lot of sense for someone that wants to track their Mustang.
@@Ashcrash82 Thanks
Here’s a technical question for Greg: Too much power or too much torque?
Torque
@@GregsAirplanesandAutomobilesI'll agree with torque, understanding the relationship between torque, load and air mass per cylinder.
My question after the fact is how big of a fuel injection shot were you giving this engine before failure? It might be possible for too big of a fuel shot to bend the connecting rods. Top fuel dragsters will knock out rods if they are over fueling.
No, we were not hydro locking from excess fuel. While it's possible to do that it's not going to happen on a street engine. Even if an injector was stuck fully open as long as the engine was running it wouldn't hydro-lock it in this application. Now if you shut the car off and the injector stay on then it can happen, but it will happen when you start the engine.
@@GregsAirplanesandAutomobiles well then I guess you had too much boost and raised the compression enough to find the weak link.
Everyone keeps saying boost, it was really cylinder pressure at low rpm that did it.
Is that your car @7:05, with Mark Donahue’s #6 on it?
No, mine is at the start of the video and again at the end.
Thank you
Uff da. I'm running stage 3 (big turbo) on an Audi. 10,000 miles and lots of hard driving and all still okay.
The 2.3 is an excellent little 4 banger, I agree Sir,, as a matter of fact, back in the day there was an Organization specifically dedicated to these 4 cylinder motors called Racer Walsh ! They had some of the Most powerful engines, all sorts of parts and even offered technical assistance and support to the consumer! Thanks for your video!! Beautiful car by the way, Cheers 🥂
Simply put, Greg :
How much boost
and how much power ❓❓
Tuning and dyno is different video. This is a series.
@@GregsAirplanesandAutomobiles Why are you evading all the questions about boost numbers and power dude? I always thought youre an honest and upfront person but you getting this defensive is super weird!
Ben, if I wanted to evade I just wouldn't answer at all. The issue is that I want to give a complete answer which is more than I can do in the comments. It's not about boost and it's not even about peak power, it's about cylinder pressure and that's a complex subject. If I said that engine made XX boost and XXX peak power that would be taken as some sort of limitation unless accompanied by a full explanation of how this related to cylinder pressures. That's another video entirely.
@@GregsAirplanesandAutomobilesAnd I'm looking forward to that video!!
In my opinion "Boost" and "Horsepower" are selling tools!
Who'd a thunk it . Greg avoiding detonation ,,, ! ,,, if you know , etc .
Ford... 😂😂🤣