What should he do? legal question engine dead due to workshop

[psi999]

SR20's are notorious for shitting bearings if the tune isn't spot on, even mild detonation will kill them over time, and bad detonation is enough to hammer a bearing/smash a ring land very quickly..

if its tanked a bearing, im almost willing to bet that its shat a land as well, do a leak down and compression test on it..

How many of the tuners here use knock detection gear, like the carman headphones, or the HKS knock amp?.. from the sounds of it, the tuner in htis case didn't as they had a lakcy listening to it, which is all well and good for the audible detonation, but low down detonation that isn't overly audible when theres a heap of noise going on, and something you definately won't hear out on the street will pound out a bearing the same..

as for claiming it, you'd have to do a tear down on the motor and check everything thoroughly, if its had bad detonation, the pistons will have noticeable det marks/broken ring lands..

it could also be oil starvation, which SR's also suffer from, but unless they where belting it sideways on the road test id point more at detonation..

that said, it could have already been on its way and just happened to be audible after the workshop had it for a 'tune'

tear it down and see..

I'm not a tuner but I’ve got a HKS knocking monitor I always use on my car if I’m turning the boost up or opening it up if the car has been sitting around for a while (ie,stale fuel etc).... so far never any pining in my GTiR SR20DET (GT3040 equiped).

My Tuner (Matt Spry - PITS) also uses a knocking monitor on the dyno which picks up knock much before your ears will in a dyno cell.... I’m surprised more tuners don’t use them.

Interestingly he also told me that SR20's do not like timing & that just about every SR20 that has ever come in that another workshop has tuned will have way too much of it (and be lightly detonating)…. Could be why a lot of them go cack.

[BigMuz]

Having a screamer means your car is gonna get treated like shit by any mechanic or apprentice who touches it. Plus you can't hear it pinging itself to death anyway. Plus you'll only shit me off when you drive it down the road late at night. :D

But anyways, these things just suck sometimes. My brother in law brought my ghetto turbo diesel van in the other day running fine (he says :D) I jump in, turn the key, and the thing kicks and makes the worst knocking noise you ever heard, accompanied by clouds and clouds of smoke. I broke his balls "What the fuck did you do to my van?" Nuthin.

Turned out the idler pulley on the timing belt had fallen apart and a bit of retainer went through the belt and made it skip a tooth on thecrank- forward if you can believe it. Bunged a new belt and pulley and bob's your aunty.

What if I left it at a workshop for an oil change that day? Would look pretty bad hey.

[Billzilla]

My Tuner (Matt Spry - PITS) also uses a knocking monitor on the dyno which picks up knock much before your ears will in a dyno cell.... I’m surprised more tuners don’t use them.

'Cause Matt knows WTF he's doing!

It's possible to simply not hear deep detonation with your ears. The engine is shredding itself, but you just can't hear it.

[INFLYT]

Hear detonation? How the fuck does a shop with a dyno run without any form of knock/detonation equipment???
So you say it's not the local mechanic, but a performance workshop. Why would they tell the customer to help them take the engine out??? WTF

[260BC]

Hear detonation? How the fuck does a shop with a dyno run without any form of knock/detonation equipment???
................................

My bet is most of them do, and not necessarily the dodgy ones either. And what if a particular engine does not have its knock sensor connected or has had it removed???????

Waiting to hear how every engine can be constantly and accurately knock tested on a dyno

[Billzilla]

My bet is most of them do, and not necessarily the dodgy ones either. And what if a particular engine does not have its knock sensor connected or has had it removed???????

Waiting to hear how every engine can be constantly and accurately knock tested on a dyno

Those sorts of knock sensors are almost useless as the revs pick up. In most factory ECU's they are ignored above a certain revs, due to plain mechanical noise and the inability of the ECU to discriminate between that an detonation.
So the best way is to have a guy that knows what he's doing, with the right gear listening.

[Denver]

ive watched a couple of the jap tuners whip out the knock gear, and have brought along there own sensors to attach to motors just in case the motor doesn't have one on it already..

the HKS knock amp is _extremely_ good at filtering out the majority of noise and picks up a little of the engine in motion but mainly detonation, its very distinct compared to the other noises being made..

[JZK25]

Waiting to hear how every engine can be constantly and accurately knock tested on a dyno

With one of the many knock monitors available on the market?
If it is too hard to screw a knock monitor on to the engine in an appropriate place then they have no right to be tuning cars or charging $150/hr and ^.

At a dyno day I saw these guys doing the head on the engine bay knock monitor and thought "they can't be serious". Is this really how tuners check for Knock? This was at a well known Bris tuner on a 270 kw atw EJ25. The chance of pieces of engine block and litres of hot oil whacking him in the ear were quite high too, doesn't seem like a safe way of doing it from a workers point of view either.

[Denver]

ive found most tuners don't use knock gear.. only a few in perth use it, others claim theres no need for it..

[psi999]

the HKS knock amp is _extremely_ good at filtering out the majority of noise and picks up a little of the engine in motion but mainly detonation, its very distinct compared to the other noises being made..

Yes its very bl00dy good, came in handy tuning a mates Autonic SMC T04Z 4G63T Lancer, even with AFR's good the HKS knock amp still picked up some slight detonation..... I'm sure it's already paid for itself already.

Any of you brissy blokes want to give it a try shoot me a PM..... pretty simple to setup & a great last line of defence.

[JZK25]

ive found most tuners don't use knock gear.. only a few in perth use it, others claim theres no need for it..

How can there be no need for knock detection? It's the most likely cause of engine failure in a modified car. If all else is spot on then knock is the variable that will kill the engine.
I seriously want to know? 10secRX7?

[260BC]

Don't want to drop names here but last I heard MoTec were still not satisfied that current knock sensor technology was reliable/accurate enough to incorporate it into their systems. Keeping in mind that a false knock reading could act to reduce performance, which may not be a problem with a road car but with a race car..........

[Denver]

How can there be no need for knock detection? It's the most likely cause of engine failure in a modified car. If all else is spot on then knock is the variable that will kill the engine.
I seriously want to know? 10secRX7?

Because the people that claim there isn't a need for knock gear, are, for lack of a better expression, fuckwits..

[JZK25]

I see, makes sense now.

[The Pupat]

Don't want to drop names here but last I heard MoTec were still not satisfied that current knock sensor technology was reliable/accurate enough to incorporate it into their systems. Keeping in mind that a false knock reading could act to reduce performance, which may not be a problem with a road car but with a race car..........

Jeez that's a new one since the OEM boys have been using it since the mid 90's and they don't know what they are doing at all.

Ohh and the Knock sensor they are talking about for dyno tuning are most like basically a tuned microphone (or at least I'm pretty sure that's what psi999's HKS one is if I remember) it basically tunes out all the other frequencies except the ones where knock occurs at or something like that.