5th gen 800FI catastrophic engine failure questions

So, we move on the car to get then back to the bike. Wich car are we talking about? I've seen tons of turbo cores on china for less than 100€ that could do the work. Changing turbo should be easy. Lets do it!

Keep us updated!

 

For what its worth, I have 2007 VFR800 with 70k miles. I use full synthetic 10-40 in winter and 20-50 in summer. I routinely beat the shit out of this bike and bring it up to the red line and wheelie it a few times each ride. I have done a few top speed runs with various gearing combinations. I have done probably a few hundred 1/4 mile runs and a few hundred wheelies. One thing though, I never let the bike get that hot. I have a manual fan switch and always turn it on early and even in bad Florida summer traffic it usually stabilizes around 200. I have never let the bike go over 230*F. I will either lane split or shut the bike off if it looks like its going to break 230. Also, if the engine temp is over 200, I baby it until it drops below 200. I change the oil at 3000-4000 mile intervals. I have had zero issues so far. These engines are extremely durable. You might have got unlucky or you might have flogged it to death.

 

There will always be a fraction that will fail. It's useless to debate.

 

it's all good

 

Ok finally, i was able to logon to the website. Seems there were some database problems after the renewal, so i was unable to logon earlier. Anyway as promised i am providing some information about the failed engine. The bike has a new one already btw. So the old engine seems to have been in a good shape, and unfortunately my suspicion about the rod bearings was correct. As you can see from the screenshots, the rod bearing on cylinder 2 has failed and due to the pressure it has contacted the bearing in cylinder 1, pushing it a bit to the side. Due to this at some point the bearing of cylinder 1 tried to go in between the bearings of cylinder 2, which were already on top of each other. This was the moment the crank seized due to the clearance becoming virtually zero. There was no other damage in the engine, so the engine is probably repairable, if the crank is intact. However due to the force applied to the crank during the seizure, i suspect it has cracked somewhere, if its not, it look serviceable probably on 3rd. Close inspection showed all the other bearings to be in good condition, all the pistons were perfect and there was no damage to the heads, or cams. Upon further investigation i found that the high temperatures i have seen on the engine were due to a dirty oil cooler. When removing it i found it was covered in dirt and basically half of it was clogged and the other half was dirty enough to prevent contact of air with aluminum. Unfortunately due to the high quality and thick racing oil i was using, i never noticed the problem. During normal operation the oil couldn't become thin enough, so that i can hear the cams ticking, which is usually a sign of oil getting too thin due to temperature problems. So guys, check your oil coolers, before trying to check the max speed of your bikes

 

I'm glad you followed through and posted findings.
It can happen to any motor, regardless of reputation.
Too thick an oil can stop flowing to critical areas at high revs due to tolerances.
That's why they specify 10W40.
Shame it went south for you, but you live and learn.

 

I think you misunderstood me a bit. By too thin i mean it gets to look like water, meaning there is not enough pressure to handle the load on the bearings at high rpm. If i was using 10w40 i would have probably noticed, during usual operation that the engine becomes noisy. 10w40 can't handle the lack of oil cooling that good, and would have become watery a lot earlier, hence informing me of the problem, but that does not mean its a better oil. Everyone who has a slight idea of engine oils, would tell you that for high load operations during hot weather 15w50 is tons better. If you take a look at the chart provided in the FSM it states 20w50 for hot climate due to the fact at that time ~1998 synthetic 15w50 was not available , or just too expensive.

 

FSM... Is f.. Service Manual? I went back last week from motul 7100 10W50 to motul 7100 10W40 and noticed easyer warmup lower drag at operation temp and barely the same valve-cam ticking after a long trip. Couldn't tell the difference from the ticking... And AFAIK, if there is not ticking it means that the valve has become closer to the cam (as long as there are no hydraulic valve lifters on our bikes) due to valve seat recession. The bike could work, but the valves would not close properly affecting compression, and thats why valve clearance adjustments are on the maintennance schedule. So if valves do not tick, they need clearance adjustment, besides oil weight.
What could be the case here is that thicker oil would not flow properly on this bike. Clearances on the oil pump, crankshaft bearings and camshaft ones are designed for a determined oil weight so it only makes sense to increase weight when the engine has lots of miles on it due to increased clearances on that bearings.... But in that case we should monitor at least oil pressure to ensure it is between operation range at all temperature, because oil pressure switch only monitors low pressure but wont warn about a high one.
Thicker oil does not always mean better oil even if it is full synth. Oil must be adequate for each purpose.

 

I never said 10W40 was a better oil.
15W50 or 20W50 is not much heavier then 10W40.
When you stated thick racing oil I assumed you were using a straight 50 or something like that.
But if your oil cooler was blocked it would not help anything on a hot day.

 

Yep it was badly blocked, unfortunately. I never looked at it to be honest, in fact its quite small for my preference. I will probably upgrade it in the near future. I noticed a thread here describing late VTRs having the same mounting point, but the cooler on them was upgraded to like twice the size of the standard.

 

I've got a spare daelim roadwin 125 oil cooler to implant on the vfr... I just need some spare time to find a nice spot and fabricate some fittings.
Looks similar to this one

 

any bent or crumpled oil cooler or rad fins need to be fixed for optimum cooling

 

any bent or crumpled oil cooler or rad fins need to be fixed for optimum cooling