Hi there I was talking to a mechanic and he said there's no point having a Stage 2 ZZP pully/ECU upgrade on a 'weak' engine.

What the heck?

Ok I understand an engine is only as strong as the weakest link, so bad rings, worn engine, 300K miles on the engine, I get it, weak engine and probably not worth hooking up a smaller pully and more power because it's on it's last legs. I could see weak meaning less horsepower because of worn engine surfaces like cylinders, or rings or crank and so forth.

But I still don't know what 'weak' engine means when there's some, but not a lot, of road distance.

Is 128,000 kilometers on an engine too many kms to consider a Stage 2 upgrade for the SS/SC? 3.1 pully, etc.

Or will I require a compression test?

Thanks

 

128k km is nothing, especially for an unmodded ecotec. im at 230k km on my ss/sc and its had at the largest a 2.8" pulley (and supporting mods) since it had 20k on it and its still going strong.

 

Yeah a simple compression test would generally let you know how "weak" your engine is. Like sharkey said 128k is nothing.

 

Compression and leak down test will show how "healthy" or "weak". your engine is, 128km? that's only 80k miles. So long as its been taken care of its still in its prime for modding.

 

Your car has low miles considering the age, crank it up.

 

I was making over 500whp on a stock bottom end with 175k miles on it.
maintain with oil changes and these motors don't "age"

(pulled that motor out with 206k miles on it and it still had crosshatches on the cylinder walls).

 

Do a compression test and make sure nothing is mechanically wrong or leaking. As long as everything checks out, you're fine. I have 143k miles on mine with stage 3 and I still have compression numbers in the 180-200 range.

 

Just send it

 

qfe

 

Listen to this guy. He knows how to send it.

 

My car was stock power level until 156k miles and then I pullied down, tune, etc. Knock on wood, it's at 169k and still running strong.

 

Stage 2 plus cooling mods and your engine will go for 200,000 miles without blinking.

One thing people don't do enough of is monitoring and logging. You need to know the moment your IC pump fails and when other things go wrong. Get ahead of maintenance on the car and change the oil with great oil often and it will do well.

 

I agree with this big time. I think people let little issues go way too long and don't do anything about them until they turn into much bigger issue which could have been avoided. Like driving with the check engine light on and not even caring what it is for because the car appears to be running fine.

 

Ha! I try to give facebookers crap every time they post "what's wrong with my car???" and their CEL is on.

 

the only weak engine is the engine that isn't tuned correctly or not taken care of.

everything has its limits however.

 

One thing I can think of that will go weak in an engine would be some loss of valve spring load (load loss, relaxation). Short shift then problem solved!

 

Some cars start to show issues related to the porous block problem early LNF's had at higher miles.