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Lubrication issues you should understand. LONG
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Posted by Dean (more from Dean) on Thu, 14 Mar 2002 10:02:54 Share Post by Email
In Reply to: Re: Any Major Problems w/1997 2.3L engine ??, Bill D, Thu, 14 Mar 2002 08:38:29
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In response to a question of whether there are any problems with the 2.3L NA engines.

Some (few) 2.3 Liter NA engines have lubrication problems. The 2.3 turbo's do not. The 2.0 turbos are ok too. The turbo engines have larger oil pumps to deal with the oil flow to the turbo and the piston cooling jets.

It is hard to say what the problem is. Many turbo owners are very into taking care of their investents and use synthetic oils. Some drivers with 2.3L engines may be neglecting maintenance and the lesser oil pump capacity might be making the engines vulnerable to lapses in maintenace.

The chain tensioners are the same in the turbo and NA engines, so the tensioner is not the cause. But once the chain tension gets bad, the chains and sprockets can start to wear, and get noisy, very rapidly. Some of large wear bits get into the oil intake screen, others get through the pump, causing wear there, and other get caught in the filter. Small bits, in the 5 to 15 micron range will pass through the filter and circulate. These are of the size of the lubricateing oil film and these hard ferrous particals accelerate general wear, especally of soft parts such as bearing babbit and piston skirts etc. A magnetic drain plug will capture some of these, and provide warning of things amiss at the time of oil change. A really strong magnetic drain plug will remove most of the steel and iron particles from the oil and will provide continous protection. Remember that even when things are in good shape, wear is occuring. Most of the ferrous wear particles will be iron from the cylinder walls. So even an engine in optimal contidion with the finest oils can benefit from a really strong magnetic drain plug. A bypass filter is also of great benefit, but that is another story.

Some engines have had oil turned to sludge. One report was that thick STP oil addative was added to synthetic oil and the oil in the sump was later so think that it would not pump. When oil breaks down, it is not the fault of the engine.

Rapid balance chain wear and timing chain wear is caused by the tensioners not working properly. This can be caused by low oil pressure. There have been various reports of the oil pump intake screens been plugged up.

So I recommend that you use Mobil One 10W30, and use a can of a product that claims to free sticking rings one week before the oil change, and use a 1 quart can of oil flush as part of the oil change, following the directions! But if the engine is known to have been running on synthetic, then skipp all of that. The reasons for the flush etc, it to release the sludge gum and varnish deposits from dyno oil, as synthetic oil will tend to remove such over time, an older engine with a service history on dyno oil should have this stuff removed quickly if possible. Not vital, but reasonable practice in my mind.

Use better oil filters as well. The Purolator Pure One filters are superior to all but the Mobil One filters and the price is not sky high.

Also keep your fuel injectors clean with Techron Concentrate and use premium fuel to allow the ECU to take advantage of your 10.5 compression ratio.

Also test drive a turbo before you make a decision. And consider a 5 spd transmission. This is a great combination. But if you have lots of stop and go city traffic, possibly with hills, then the automatic might be a better choice.

Whatever you end up driving, if you expect to keep the vehicle past warranty, then syntheic oil will provide superior lubrication. Dyno oils will eventually coke in the top piston ring lands. The piston rings have been moved up closer to the top of the pistons to reduce emissions. So the top ring now runs hotter than previous generations of engines. Synthetic oils are vastly more resitant to coking than dyno based oils. So experience with dyno oil in older engines does not apply. It has been found in some engines (in general), that cam lobes are wearing with 10W30 dyno and synthetic oils, but that wear is almost not measureable with xW40 oils. What this means, is that the cam lobes remain the severe pressure-wear point in an engine. Bargan and house brand dyno oils will not measure up on critical areas such as the cam lobes, or top piston rings.

With water cooled turbo bearings, the issue with oil coking in the turbo bearings is not a critical item any more. The critical spot for oil coking is the top piston ring. This brings the issue of oil coking from the turbo engines to a concern for every modern engine. So everyone needs to be concern with oil coking. This is no longer a issue for just the turbo owners.

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