Sand in my motor?

[Undercover87T]

A little background first. Production 4.1 291 block with stock crank/rods, hyper pistons apx 6k and 20 passes on it. Motor has been running fine for two years never skipped a beat. Last month I had alky installed and the boost/tune adjusted accordingly. Then drove it to Kirbans open house. On the return trip I started loosing oil pressure to the point were it was 0-5psi at idle but no knocking or abnormal noises. This was verified with a mechanical gauge. Oil pan was pulled and all of the main bearings had excessive uniform wear but nothing was spun and there was a fine grit in the pan like trash had went through it. Motor was pulled and what was found in the back of the passenger side head could only be described as coarse, beach-like sand and not magnetic. Piston skirts were also torn up and valve guides were damaged. This has never showed up before in the oil or filter. How could this happen? Some have called it "casting sand" but this seems unlikely. Others have suggested possible vandalism. Basically I'm now committed to a full rebuild as it needs a crank, pistons, bearings, heads rebuilt, etc etc. As long as the block checks out the plan is to do a build similar to Full Throttle's 4.1 except with a stroker crank.

 

[Phoneguy]

WOW, that sucks!!!!!!!!
I can't think of any reason other than vandalism

Bryan

 

[bison]

Definitely vandalism

 

[Undercover87T]

If it was vandalism, I have no way of proving who, where, when, why, or how. If I could insurance would cover it but I have no leg to stand on there. Now I'm out of pocketing $5-6k for a rebuild that otherwise wouldn't have been needed. Car is always under lock and key whether its in storage or at Andersons getting work done. Only time its left un attended is at car shows with the hood up. I would hope at a show someone would see somebody popping the breather off and dumping sand in the motor and raise hell.

 

[Phoneguy]

Sand in a quart of oil ??? Could have been from auto parts store employee for all we know....

Bryan

 

[tbone87]

Sucks man!!

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[rmar]

Did you happen to have any of your engine components powder coated? Intake /valve covers/heads ect.

 

[Undercover87T]

Upper plenum, valve covers, tensioner, and accessory brackets were powder coated 2 years ago.

 

[rmar]

Lot of coaters blast clean. It embeds in the corners,egr passage, where ever. That could very well be the culprit. Seen this before. Just a thought.

 

[Undercover87T]

Lot of coaters blast clean. It embeds in the corners,egr passage, where ever. That could very well be the culprit. Seen this before.

Lower intake is a champion ported stocker. Everything was cleaned and blasted with compressed air when I first put the motor together. I see how it could happen but it's unlikely. Definitely not in this quantity. There was over a teaspoon worth sitting in the head and more in the pan.

 

[Pronto]

I agree with rmar, it looks like blasting media b/c of the uniform size of the particals.

 

[bison]

The last engine I remember that had sand in it was from a sand blasted intercooler. There was sand everywhere in that engine. It got past the rings and was sucked up by the oil pickup and destroyed the engine in 10 minutes. There's no way in hell that engine went 6000 miles with all that sand in it. It was done maliciously


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[Undercover87T]

The last engine I remember that had sand in it was from a sand blasted intercooler. There was sand everywhere in that engine. It got past the rings and was sucked up by the oil pickup and destroyed the engine in 10 minutes. There's no way in hell that engine went 6000 miles with all that sand in it. It was done maliciously


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Starting to think this is what happened. Intercooler is a GN1 unit that I just sprayed black instead of coating. Condition of the turbo hasn't been verified yet but I'm sure that got trashed as well.

 

[charlief1]

Ask Aminga about blast media. He killed an engine because the EGR port had some left in it. The other possible is which antifreeze you used. The old conventional antifreeze had silica in it and would do the same thing if you blew a head gasket or even a minor intake leak.

 

[Undercover87T]

Regular green antifreeze 50/50 in the winter, water with rust inhibitor in the summer. Head and intake gaskets were 100% perfect. That intake manifold was spotless when it was installed.

 

[Pronto]

Ask Aminga about blast media. He killed an engine because the EGR port had some left in it. The other possible is which antifreeze you used. The old conventional antifreeze had silica in it and would do the same thing if you blew a head gasket or even a minor intake leak.

Charlie, I use a liquid at work that has silica in it. The graduated cylinder that I use to measure the liquid accumulates a whitish crust if the liquid is not rinsed out well. I have to chip off the crust and it is pretty hard but it breaks up into granuals that are not as small and uniform at what's in that engine. Silica would do damge but can't see it looking like that.

 

[Chuck Leeper]

What Ronnie said.....
A used engine will have pockets, [EGR, etc], of gunk in it. [rebuilt or not]. Should it not be COMPLETELY disassembled and cleaned, it is a haven for media mixed in the gunk. Blast media WILL hang in it until the engine is heated up. Then, it starts the destruction process...Maybe, not all at once, either.
Recently, I was called to provide testimony about a "powder coat engine" failure. This was a BMW...
It looked EXACTLY like this failure.
I have also had to use an air chisel to knock casting sand lumps out of SBC's...

 

[Xflatrater]

In the dealerships during the 90's we used scotchbrite disc to clean parts on a high speed grinder, it was fast and did an excellent job......the aluminum oxide also destroyed every engine it touched it looks just like your failure totally worn out after 600 miles. Cost GM a fortune in engines until they issued a TSB banning the process.

 

[bison]

Starting to think this is what happened. Intercooler is a GN1 unit that I just sprayed black instead of coating. Condition of the turbo hasn't been verified yet but I'm sure that got trashed as well.

Was it sand blasted prior to install? The engine I'm referring to didn't have a pile of sand on top of the head like yours does bit everything was gritty in it. The oil pan had a lot of sand. All the rings were seized in the grooves. The engine had no cranking compression after 10 minutes!


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[Pronto]

I have also had to use an air chisel to knock casting sand lumps out of SBC's...

Yes. A clump can have a skin over it and when if you knock it off there is a bunch of casting sand under it. Seen that myself. The amount in this engine seems like more than what would come out of a clump.