Massive Stage II engine carnage. What do you think caused it? Painful pics inside. :)

Alright, so I bought a car with a known bad motor, as I have some of the parts to get it back together. Got the motor torn down and WOW, she is broke real good. Curious what actually started all the fireworks show, but most of the time all of the parts are so beat up it is impossible to tell. There is not much left of the rod... There is no big end, so whether it vacated the premises via one of the new windows in the block, or broke into nothing, who knows.

My thoughts on possible causes:

1. Excessive clearance on the small end of the rod/ wrist pin. (a few others seem loose)
2. Rod just gave up the ghost
3. Timing chain let go (or entire timing set)
4. Flux capacitor?

I am at a loss, but since everyone likes to see motor carnage; ENJOY! :biggrin::biggrin:


PS, not only are there windows of material missing near 1/2 rods, check out the piece of most of the pan rail still on the oil pan!

EDIT: here is a photobucket link to all the pics of each rod, piston, etc:

http://s35.photobucket.com/albums/d190/Squid4life/STAGE II CARNAGE/

more

I think the HRPartsnstuff motor mounts are all that saved the headers, dry sump oil lines, etc from damage. Both mounts got beat pretty good.

damn what a mess!!!

How much HP was this making when it failed?? I see a possible weak link. Mike

Ernest P. Worrell - Ehhhhwwwww (Ernest Goes to Camp) - YouTube

My guess is that it first bent the rod causing it to buckle and making the rod shorter. Then, because the piston is now closer to the crank pin, the counterweight hit the piston and pulled the pin out of the piston. It was all downhill from there with the small end of the rod playing hokey pokey with everything in its way.

a little JB Weld and you'll be good to go!

lol nice

id guess somthing happened with the rod itself...possibly too many seasons on a set of rods that had a internal defect......its kinda tough to guess when a motor let go at high rpm. what does the piston top look like?


man somtimes.... rods just wanna see what the sun looks like lol

I'm going to guess that someone got in trouble with the fueling and preignited the sucker, bent the rod, and it's down hill from there. That carnage looks very familiar to me. I went through two engines myself learning the alcohol (methanol). Both failed due to too lean an a/f mixture, the wrong spark plug, preignition and then rod failure. All in that order.

Post up a pic of the spark plug that was in that motor.

What fuel were they running?

James,

I think those pics are worse than you described to me over the phone. I'll take a swag at what happened. From the skirts of the remaining pistons there appears to be an abnormal about of scuffing which could be due to a tune problem like Don suggested. Part of that problem has to be because of the hole that is in the intake port wall where the sleeve for the pushrod failed on the #6 cylinder. I suspect that the #6 cylinder wasn't seeing the same boost pressure as the rest causing it to run rich. The wideband O2 looking at the composite A/F ratio for all 6 cylinders would see this and lean out the A/F ratio to compensate. This would cause the remaining 5 to go lean. Based on the air fuel distribution in the manifold #1 must have been the worst one and then the scenario Mike described played out. I guess you knew the motor was hurt but I feel bad that more isn't salvageable.

If you need help let me know.

Neal

5 or 6 were also the cylinders that preignited on me with my 2 failures. I wasn't using O2 correction, so my lean problem was due to my inexperience with alcohol at the time.

edit: Also, there were no signs of preignition looking at the bearings. When critical mass was attained, meltdown occurred very quickly.

Nice avatar JohnDeere gn :tongue:

My vote is for #4 Flux capacitor.

Nick, yes, parts of the cam gear... many, many parts. I may try to call you this week if you don't want to post up your thoughts. I don't want to bother on a Sunday, and tomorrow it is my day "off" which means installing more bamboo wood flooring here at the house...

Tell me about it! Made a huge mess when the pan came off. My son asked (about the pan rail coming off with the pan) "was that supposed to come off too?

Mike, not sure. It was pushing the 8 second envelope so 800-900ish maybe? Weak link; are you referring to the Carrillos, or the timing chain?

Awesome! Nice one Guy!

Makes sense.

Hell yes! JB weld, duct tape, ball hone it and let's head to the track!

Bob, porting broke through... It was epoxied on the outside, but obviously couldn't hold the boost.

Top of piston looks like hell. If you look at the photobucket pics, there are a bunch of them in there of it from all angled. Kind of hard to tell what may have melted and what got beat up against the head.

Donnie, they were running E85, and I don't have any plugs. They were removed before I got the car.

Yeah, they are pretty bad, huh!? Very good point on the hole in the runner. Oh, and there is no pushrod sleeve, just plain old air between the runner and valley.

The kiss mark on the counterbalance of the crank is really the only damage to the crank. Of course I will take it to Britt or Beans and get it checked out, but I got the rest of the rod off and the journal looks perfect. By the way, ever take off rod bolts with a pair of visegrips!?! Very troubling... :0

Bearings look real good on this motor as well...

time to do a TA engine

I am considering it. If I can sell off some of my parts I don't need, I may sell my iron 153 block and go TA. We shall see.

Kenny will be dynoing my wifes soon go take a ride.