Jetpilot Posted December 20, 2013 Share Posted December 20, 2013 There have been a few Zeds with broken engines recently, mainly bottom end failures it would seem. In general the question of oil level is bought up, but not what oil are you using. So with anyone with a broken zed like to contribute to what oil they are using. I am using Castrol Edge 5w-30 fully synth, when i told a good friend of mine who is very experienced with Skyline tuning he said instantly, get it out of there, i wont repeat the rest, lol. He explained further with examples and made note to a tuned R32 which he did an oil change to using Edge. By all accounts oil temps were a good few degrees higher immediately after changing, did a few 100 miles and wasnt convinced so swapped it out, i cant remember what he said he used (Motul i think) but did say oil temps were back to previous readings and the Edge he took out seemed to be very thin and contaminated, like a flushing oil. Not looking to get into a Edge is fine battle as it came recommended to me by Opie and i am sure they know their onions, but i would be curious to members recent failures if they want to contribute. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pagan Posted December 20, 2013 Share Posted December 20, 2013 Please,not another "what oil" saga. As someone on here one said: oil in sump - good, no oil in sump - bad. I would be looking more at what octane fuel they were using 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jetpilot Posted December 20, 2013 Author Share Posted December 20, 2013 Please,not another "what oil" saga. As someone on here one said: oil in sump - good, no oil in sump - bad. I would be looking more at what octane fuel they were using Well maybe not quite as simple and i am curious, so if you dont want to contribute, please dont Octane rating of fuel will make no difference to big end bearings which seems to the theme at present Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Floydbax Posted December 20, 2013 Share Posted December 20, 2013 Sounds like a good idea to me - especially if there turns out a common theme!! Maybe you need to PM the guys who have had their engines let go, or post a link to this thread on their sad demise threads! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Neilp Posted December 20, 2013 Share Posted December 20, 2013 I'm sure mark said he had a bottom end fail on a car due to the fuel octane. In the process it also smashed the pistons to pieces also. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tricky-Ricky Posted December 20, 2013 Share Posted December 20, 2013 I severely doubt that there will be any comparisons as far as oil is concerned, as said oil level and fuel octane will have far more impact, unless of course somebody has put totally the wrong oil in which these days is very unlikely. The DE is rather prone to det and although the piston ring lands are the most likely first casualty, this will lead to seizure and the next weak point of the engine is the con rods, which is what you see in most pics, a hole in the block where one has broke and gone through, big end seizure doesn't usually result in a rod thought the block. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dblock Posted December 20, 2013 Share Posted December 20, 2013 Not looking to get into a Edge is fine battle as it came recommended to me by Opie and i am sure they know their onions, but i would be curious to members recent failures if they want to contribute. They don't know these cars. They look up their spec sheet or autodata or whatever and go from that. They where recommending a certain gearbox oil for a car that needed gl4 but they said gl5 was better. Apparently shifts got sloppy and rubbish and the gl5 ate through some parts of the gearbox. Their fault maybe, maybe not. The people who took the advice where at fault IMO. So basically don't rely on anyone for info as they wont pay your bills if it breaks. Just research yourself and see whats good. If its really that rubbish you could get an oil analysis done but its going to cost money. I personally silkolene/fuchs stuff. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keyser Posted December 20, 2013 Share Posted December 20, 2013 Personally I run Fuchs, Seen 2 blown engines in the last 3 weeks - I have had a 3rd but that was bad tuning and the wrong fuel. If I have time I'll strip them and see if I can find anything interesting to report back, I don't think it's oil pump failure and the engines have always been thought as almost bullet proof as long as serviced regularly the should see well over 150,000 miles without a major rebuild. unless they are being run with low oil or have another problem I'm at a loss as to why we have seen this in the last few weeks. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GMballistic Posted December 20, 2013 Share Posted December 20, 2013 Personally I run Fuchs, Seen 2 blown engines in the last 3 weeks - I have had a 3rd but that was bad tuning and the wrong fuel. If I have time I'll strip them and see if I can find anything interesting to report back, I don't think it's oil pump failure and the engines have always been thought as almost bullet proof as long as serviced regularly the should see well over 150,000 miles without a major rebuild. unless they are being run with low oil or have another problem I'm at a loss as to why we have seen this in the last few weeks. I always use Fuchs oil as well. Have done ever since I had a Type R around 4 years ago and highly recommend the brand imo. Do you think some of these engine failures though could just be down to the age of the vehicles & poor service histories. eg: running on wrong fuel/oil ~ not following correct service schedules ~ low oil etc. ...and just coincidence there all happening at once it seems?! The blown engines you've seen recently did they all come from similar age/mileage cars? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wizurd Posted December 20, 2013 Share Posted December 20, 2013 (edited) I would have thought that regardless of brand if the oil is the correct type then surely it wouldn't lead to all these engine failures? More likely to be historic issues on how they've been looked after by older owners and the odd random unlucky failure? Edited December 20, 2013 by wizurd Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keyser Posted December 20, 2013 Share Posted December 20, 2013 Personally I run Fuchs, Seen 2 blown engines in the last 3 weeks - I have had a 3rd but that was bad tuning and the wrong fuel. If I have time I'll strip them and see if I can find anything interesting to report back, I don't think it's oil pump failure and the engines have always been thought as almost bullet proof as long as serviced regularly the should see well over 150,000 miles without a major rebuild. unless they are being run with low oil or have another problem I'm at a loss as to why we have seen this in the last few weeks. I always use Fuchs oil as well. Have done ever since I had a Type R around 4 years ago and highly recommend the brand imo. Do you think some of these engine failures though could just be down to the age of the vehicles & poor service histories. eg: running on wrong fuel/oil ~ not following correct service schedules ~ low oil etc. ...and just coincidence there all happening at once it seems?! I think this may be the case The blown engines you've seen recently did they all come from similar age/mileage cars? No - one was a 2006 with 65k the other a 2003 with 80k You run low / no oil in any engine you WILL kill it! performance engines just go quicker. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GMballistic Posted December 20, 2013 Share Posted December 20, 2013 Personally I run Fuchs, Seen 2 blown engines in the last 3 weeks - I have had a 3rd but that was bad tuning and the wrong fuel. If I have time I'll strip them and see if I can find anything interesting to report back, I don't think it's oil pump failure and the engines have always been thought as almost bullet proof as long as serviced regularly the should see well over 150,000 miles without a major rebuild. unless they are being run with low oil or have another problem I'm at a loss as to why we have seen this in the last few weeks. I always use Fuchs oil as well. Have done ever since I had a Type R around 4 years ago and highly recommend the brand imo. Do you think some of these engine failures though could just be down to the age of the vehicles & poor service histories. eg: running on wrong fuel/oil ~ not following correct service schedules ~ low oil etc. ...and just coincidence there all happening at once it seems?! I think this may be the case The blown engines you've seen recently did they all come from similar age/mileage cars? No - one was a 2006 with 65k the other a 2003 with 80k You run low / no oil in any engine you WILL kill it! performance engines just go quicker. Definitely.I check my oil level very regularly. Just common sense to do this I think but unfortunately common sense doesn't seem all that common nowadays. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JetSet Posted December 21, 2013 Share Posted December 21, 2013 (edited) Another possible cause is overheating as fan failure is quite common on the Zed. However, lack of lubrication is probably the biggest engine killer out there and there's no doubt that running a Zed on nothing but 95 RON will shorten the engine's life and considerably shorten it if the car spends a lot of it's life above 3k revs. One of the reasons I think we are seeing more engine failures is that many Zed's are now on there 4th or 5th owner and as the number of previous owners increases then there's a higher chance that one of those owners has let the oil run low, missed services or run the car on 95 RON..... I've yet to hear of a one owner Zed in The U.K having an engine failure, even high mileage ones. Pete Edited December 21, 2013 by JetSet Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jetpilot Posted December 21, 2013 Author Share Posted December 21, 2013 The recent spat of failures are mostly big ends, fuel octane rating will have no bearing (excuse the pun) on big ends, see Keyser & Busters very helpful xmas tale on a members car Oil or lack of will be the culprit. Of course as 2nd or 3rd owners etc of a car we have no idea just how previous owners have cared for the car besides any service history although that would be at specific intervals. I hate to be negative and by no means trying to have a dig at 350s, just trying to perhaps highlight causes for these big end failures, if there is any common ground of course, we could just dismiss it as circumstance or ask the questions for our own benefit Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jez @ H-Dev Posted December 21, 2013 Share Posted December 21, 2013 The other thing is that running 95 ron fuel is more of a problem at low rpm rather than high rpm. The VQ engine tend to knock easiest below ~2500rpm at high load. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jay-350z Posted December 21, 2013 Share Posted December 21, 2013 The other thing is that running 95 ron fuel is more of a problem at low rpm rather than high rpm. The VQ engine tend to knock easiest below ~2500rpm at high load. Read the manual. It says about this. It says something along the lines of you can run on 95 Ron fuel if performance fuel is not available. Don't rev above 3500rpm and don't put the engine under heavy load. Fill up with performance fuel as soon as possible. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Neilp Posted December 21, 2013 Share Posted December 21, 2013 The other thing is that running 95 ron fuel is more of a problem at low rpm rather than high rpm. The VQ engine tend to knock easiest below ~2500rpm at high load. Read the manual. It says about this. It says something along the lines of you can run on 95 Ron fuel if performance fuel is not available. Don't rev above 3500rpm and don't put the engine under heavy load. Fill up with performance fuel as soon as possible. Jez is an engine tuner mate. I think what he means is that it knocks at low rpm mostly and not too bad at high rpm. The good thing is the 350z has a knock sensor/controller at low rpm. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ilogikal1 Posted December 21, 2013 Share Posted December 21, 2013 I check my oil level very regularly. Just common sense to do this I think but unfortunately common sense doesn't seem all that common nowadays. Common sense is so uncommon these days, it should be considered a superpower! Based on a fairly recent thread on here, I think it's clear what the reason for all these failures is... warming the engine up whilst stationary. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WhackyWill Posted December 21, 2013 Share Posted December 21, 2013 I check my oil level very regularly. Just common sense to do this I think but unfortunately common sense doesn't seem all that common nowadays. Common sense is so uncommon these days, it should be considered a superpower! Based on a fairly recent thread on here, I think it's clear what the reason for all these failures is... warming the engine up whilst stationary. I agree, sitting outside your house with 6000 rpm on the clock for 10 mins so the heater works when you drive off... :lol: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ilogikal1 Posted December 21, 2013 Share Posted December 21, 2013 Not the thread I was referring to, but that would do it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tricky-Ricky Posted December 21, 2013 Share Posted December 21, 2013 The other thing is that running 95 ron fuel is more of a problem at low rpm rather than high rpm. The VQ engine tend to knock easiest below ~2500rpm at high load. The other thing is that running 95 ron fuel is more of a problem at low rpm rather than high rpm. The VQ engine tend to knock easiest below ~2500rpm at high load. Read the manual. It says about this. It says something along the lines of you can run on 95 Ron fuel if performance fuel is not available. Don't rev above 3500rpm and don't put the engine under heavy load. Fill up with performance fuel as soon as possible. Jez is an engine tuner mate. I think what he means is that it knocks at low rpm mostly and not too bad at high rpm. The good thing is the 350z has a knock sensor/controller at low rpm. Which kind of begs the question if the danger area is lower RPM high load on low octane fuel, and knock retard is not stopping damage, maybe Nissan should have been a bit more careful about their knock retard/fuel map. Mind you knock sensors do wear with age, the piezo element becomes less sensitive as it ages, so on an older car it could be down to bad fuel and old sensors. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tricky-Ricky Posted December 21, 2013 Share Posted December 21, 2013 I check my oil level very regularly. Just common sense to do this I think but unfortunately common sense doesn't seem all that common nowadays. Common sense is so uncommon these days, it should be considered a superpower! Based on a fairly recent thread on here, I think it's clear what the reason for all these failures is... warming the engine up whilst stationary. Nah! I think its more a case of thinking the VQ motor is a torque monster and changing up at 2.5K RPM Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ekona Posted December 21, 2013 Share Posted December 21, 2013 I'd be amazed if most of these failures were down to anything other than either wrong fuel or more likely lack of oil. The Zed has been around too long now and the DE lump even longer, so if there was an inherent fault then it would likely have shown its face by now. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mack Posted December 21, 2013 Share Posted December 21, 2013 The other thing is that running 95 ron fuel is more of a problem at low rpm rather than high rpm. The VQ engine tend to knock easiest below ~2500rpm at high load. I guess the key part of Jez's statement is high load. Putting the foot to the floor at less than 2500 RPM. I've heard cars detonating when people try to move off at very low RPM. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Neilp Posted December 21, 2013 Share Posted December 21, 2013 I'd be amazed if most of these failures were down to anything other than either wrong fuel or more likely lack of oil. The Zed has been around too long now and the DE lump even longer, so if there was an inherent fault then it would likely have shown its face by now. I concur Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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