Lancia/Fiat 2.0 16v turbo engine - robustness

[Evodelta]

These engines seem to suffer with oil starvation, so if i was putting one of these engines together, high on my list would be an oil accumulator. Money well spent !!

Andy.

I don't think they do, or not in my experience anyway. I think that people have bottom end failures and mis diagnose the fault, it can be caused by many other things such as over-revving, detonation, poor/old oil, blockages etc. The 16v turbo sump is pretty well designed as stock and is quite well baffled, a few minor mods can improve it of course.

The reason I say this is because I have run my 16v integrale at trackdays on sticky slicks, the engine was pretty standard but was burning a fair bit of oil through the worn valve guides, I usually checked it often knowing that it did this, but one day I was having so much fun I forgot, when I checked the oil it wasn't even showing on the dipstick, the damage? None...

I'm in no way suggesting that you shouldn't take the belt and braces approach of protecting an engine which is has cost you a lot of money and is used in a car that can sustain some very high cornering forces though.

As to the question of aftermarket ECUs I am using MoTeC, mainly because I picked it up with everything ready to go and a base map for a reasonable price, it is also good in that it is well supported and uses all the existing sensors.
If I was to choose another I think I would maybe go for the Emerald, the price is attractive, it's well thought out, you can buy a book/manual/cd/down loads to go with it and the fella behind it (Dave Walker) comes across as a decent chap who has his own rolling road facility so you can get it mapped/problems solved quite easily.
I also think it's fair to say that tuners in different parts of the world favour different brands of ECU, so I wouldn't neccesarily go with what someone from a different country recommends, rather, what my trusted local tuner would. It would be less appropriate to employ an Emerald unit in a car in Norway when the brains behind it and all the support is here in the UK.

Martin.

[sumplug]

Martin.
Ive looked hard at the 16v, and all the engines that have seen let go have mostly cooked their bearings and bent conrods and cranks. It was noted that most engines ive seen also had severe wear to the inlet cam again pointing to oil starvation. What i think happens is a bearing is picking up due to heat and then seizing, possibly caused by a blockage around heat exchanger???. Or is it down to oil pump?? The turbo has a proper oil cooler, and so is much better at avoiding oil starvation [bigger oil capacity and better baffling], but the N/A engines just have a sandwich plate with an exchanger to cool things down and these are no good.
The question i have seeked is why it effects some engines and not others. There is a Tipo 16v with 155000 miles near me, and the engine has never caused any trouble and is driven hard. And it is certainly not serviced beyond normal. Yet another 16v scrapped its bottom end at 52000 miles and was serviced beyond normal!! And it was driven sensibly too.
So this is why i suggest beefing up the oil side of things, and as well as an accumulator, extra oil for the crank too.

Andy.

[berjohansen]

'As to the question of aftermarket ECUs I am using MoTeC, mainly because I picked it up with everything ready to go and a base map for a reasonable price'

May ask which version are you running?
Is basemap safe to get you to the rollers?



GC note - discussion of price is prohibited on this site.

[Evodelta]

It's an M4 Pro, I picked it up used with all the appropriate leads, a laptop etc.
The basemap is for a 16vt, and as for driving it on the road before getting it fully mapped I wouldn't know exactly how good it is, (it's also irrelevant to me as the car is not road legal, it is track use only and so gets trailered around) it starts and runs the engine well enough and this in itself is worth a lot when you consider how much time and ‚£‚£‚£ per hour a tuner will charge.

[Evodelta]

Andy,

Ahaa, by discussing the N/A 16v we are not comparing eggs with eggs! The discussion title is 16VT....

Martin.

[sumplug]

Martin.
Engines are basically the same, and some 16VT's are letting go, but it is rarer. I would still alter crank oil ways and use an Accumulator on one though to get ultimate reliability.

Andy.

[Evodelta]

Andy,

I disagree, lower the comp ratio, fit a couple of different cams, an oil cooler, piston cooling jets and a turbo (and a whole host of other items) and we are talking about quite a different 'kettle of fish' from the N/A engine, which will inturn have it's own unique failure points and causes.
Are the sump designs the same on these two engines?

The turbo engine suffers from worn out exhaust cams, you said it is the inlet cam on the N/A, also that the oil cooling set up is externally completely different, etc, etc...

Specifically, what do you mean by 'altering the crank oilways' ?

Martin.

(Hope your enjoying your turkey sandwiches btw ;-) )

[sumplug]

Hi Martin.
N/A engine has piston oil jets as standard.
The crank, i would drill out the oilways so that the bearings have extra lubrication. Guy is the one to talk to about this, but it decreases the likelyhood of bearing "picking up" or overheating due to friction heat [ cooking].
Accumulator i like the idea of a lot. Engine oil pressure will be a lot better and more consistant with one, and this is something i will look at more closely when doing my next rebuild.

Andy.

[ not got to sandwiches yet !! ]

[Guy Croft]

In my view - neither the n/a nor turbo 16v has any inherent fault. I think that in normal design duty - road driving - and with diligent attention to coolant and oil maintenance (and other servicing regimes) these engines can both be expected to give many, many years of good service.

Certainly, in terms of longevity they are as good as anything else in that class. Yes the number of oil drillings in the crank is reduced compared with the 131/132 type crank but the engines have a much higher capacity oil pump and I just cannot assert that the revised crank is worse because of that cost-reduction alteration.

You've got to remember engines for road cars are designed to fulfil some particular 'duty cycle'. You will not find 'driven flat-out at race speeds for sustained periods' in any manufacturers regime. I make this point because people still don't quite understand that. That's racing not road use. They're not set up for it, sorry, don't care how strong you think it is, I know what race engines need, that's my job. If you put the car 'thru its paces' like Top Gear, it's going to break.

'Tuned up' and driven at what I would describe as race conditions whether it's the public highway or anywhere else it's a so totally different animal. I already made some points on page one.
Now everything depends on the quality of calibration and the integrity of the lubrication, cooling systems. The standard systems are going to go into overload, and quickly. And the turbocharged unit is vastly more at risk than its n/a counterpart, so it's most likely the oil that's going to fail, due to overheating of same and consequent viscosity loss. Sure if the oil cools it will recover but drive the engine hard when it's in a thinner condition and the risk of a rotating part/bearing failure is far, far higher. And if over-fuelling is present you'd have to change the oil much more often to protect it. The risk of mechanical failure is no worse than any other engine and causes are just the same.

Few people (in reality) consult me about the loads on tuned engines, despite that I give that advice freely and readily. More prefer to 'have a go'. And more's the pity because they'd learn a thing or two rather useful that comes only from someone with cutting-edge experience of what breaks and what doesn't. Read all you like - this is learned from direct experience only.

Remember this is GC Q&A, the top level focus for fact on a race engine website. If anyone has direct experience - not opinion - that conflicts with what I have offered, let's hear it.

GC