Raise your hand if you've blown up an N54!
- Thread starter suspenceful
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Those are H-beams. Def not what you want for big boost / Big Tq motors. I-Beams or don't bother in my book. Thank god I didn't have H-beams in this motor. Thing would have snapped, and scattered the entire motor making it worthless.The Wiseco rods are nice. I love how a set of 6 2JZ rods are also $700 cheaper than N54 rods.
Although H beam rods will take more compression load especially in motors creating high torque In under 6000rpm
No they wont. you can quote any internet article you want. I site real world experience.
You ever try an aluminum rod? GRP, a local company to me makes tons of custom aluminum rods and their prices are reasonable.
Is it possible damage was already there when you were running stock turbos and KR tables ? Who tuned the car AFTER Mmp turbos and PI ? Were KR tables still being used ?
My name is Connor, I live in Anchorage ak. Im not positive but im sure my location played a large role in engine number 1, im going on number 2 now.
4 days after my new engine was installed, the crank bolt backed out and buried all 24 valves into the head and destroyed the entire valvetrain.
I made the mistake assuming my mechanic actually knew what he was doing, turns out he was full of shit, I lost thousands.
I shipped the car to Oklahoma with my remaining savings and Ghassan Automotive is hooking me up with a new engine, thank god for warrantys. Anyways, im flying down to drive the car back with a new engine, I guess I like to take chances, but I couldn't afford shipping it back.
Why did it fail due to my geography? Alaska has the worst quality fuel in the country, a selection of 88,89,and 90 octane values, you read that right, also no e85 what so ever unless you want to drive 1500 miles to seattle. So all us Alaskans run methanol because of this, and race gas is out of the question as its $16 a gallon, and my car is my daily. From what ive read, the stock intake manifold has a hard time distributing air properly, so im guessing 3 of 6 cylinders were gettings 17-18 psi with 90 octane only for fuel. This is all just speculation, I made some mistakes while trying to get a new engine, unfortunately I don't have the skill to swap it myself. I just learned the hard way, and not play with meth.
- Mileage:42,000
- Power: 400whp; JB4/MHD, fbo minus intercooler, meth ( single cm10 bung) down pipes, cp/bov, straight pipe exhaust with resonators.
- Reason: lost compression in cylinders 3,5,6. less 100psi. the rest were around 140psi. Why? im not completely sure, but here are the facts and issues I was having before hand. I had been chasing down what I thought was a pcv/vc issue for about 3 months. During this time car was still running great, just had loads of crankcase pressure, so much in fact It was forcing its self out of the oil fill cap making a huge mess when ever I was wot. Well after a new vc, rb external pcv, it mitigated my symptoms ( smoke on decal, that was all). I went for a little 3rd gear pull with the meth turned on, at this point it was spring so I hooked it back up, after about 3- 3rd gear pulls the car started to shudder really hard below 3000 rpm. it would have a choppy idle, decided to check compression at that point and that when I was blessed with the news.
- Now what? I bought a crate engine and went single turbo.
4 days after my new engine was installed, the crank bolt backed out and buried all 24 valves into the head and destroyed the entire valvetrain.
I made the mistake assuming my mechanic actually knew what he was doing, turns out he was full of shit, I lost thousands.
I shipped the car to Oklahoma with my remaining savings and Ghassan Automotive is hooking me up with a new engine, thank god for warrantys. Anyways, im flying down to drive the car back with a new engine, I guess I like to take chances, but I couldn't afford shipping it back.
Why did it fail due to my geography? Alaska has the worst quality fuel in the country, a selection of 88,89,and 90 octane values, you read that right, also no e85 what so ever unless you want to drive 1500 miles to seattle. So all us Alaskans run methanol because of this, and race gas is out of the question as its $16 a gallon, and my car is my daily. From what ive read, the stock intake manifold has a hard time distributing air properly, so im guessing 3 of 6 cylinders were gettings 17-18 psi with 90 octane only for fuel. This is all just speculation, I made some mistakes while trying to get a new engine, unfortunately I don't have the skill to swap it myself. I just learned the hard way, and not play with meth.
- Mileage: 125k
- Power: stock running a BMS DCI and RB catch can
- Reason: best as I can tell injector #1 flooded the engine, hydrolocked and lunched the piston
- Mileage: 75k used engine, drove for about 10k...$2k and two weekends wasted
- Power: MHD stage 1 w/ existing DCI and RB CC
- Reason: rod knock
- Now what? Leaning heavily towards a Ghassan Alneama / Ghassan Automotive basic $3500 "rebuild" and crossing my fingers that the upgraded bearings and improved ring gaps will allow a longer engine life. I've got a VRSF 7" IC and silicone inlets sitting in boxes but at this point in indifferent about this motor...I've had bad luck with basically nothing mods wise yet I see and know people pushing low 11's on their DD. I'm also considering buying another used engine locally for $1k that runs fine, replacing the rod bearings myself, pocketing the $2500 saved by not getting "rebuilt" and then telling the GF to enjoy her 535xiT with a simple flash tune and leave it at that because I feel like this engine is an eggshell.
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A huge problem with the N54? I always thought it was the NA M3 and M5 that had rod issues. I very seldom see or hear about rod knock on the N54.
Having looked specifically for examples of it, it's all I see now...plenty of threads on N54Tech, Facebook N54 pages and a handful of YouTube videos.
I'm in the very beginning stages of research about doing them myself and I've yet to find an N54 specific rod bearings replacement video. I've removed the oil pan, replaced bolts holding on the oil pump (LONG story but one used engine had the same issue as as this first video where the oil pump bolts has snapped just not been ingested yet), so hopefully changing the bearings will be like in the last two videos...just easier being on an engine stand. I just figure I'm gonna try and combine what I've seen in these videos and hope for the best via using bearings with better coatings and not such tight tolerances.
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We make 1200 whp on the budget Chinese H-beams in the LS world every day! Honda guys have pushed 900 whp on Eagle H beams, those are about as cheap as you can get.
I beam is definitely better but I wouldn't count out H beams as a blanket statement.
