Blown motors: how bad have you had one let go?

[schreurs1]

Its my project time of year and for the last couple months ive been tripping over 2 of my crate engines that blew up on me throughout this past racing season. Which leads me to wonder, how bad have you had an engine let go?

Blown crate motor #1:
Id started 6th and was working thru the pack and had made it to about 3rd when i noticed that my water temp guage was kind of flickering around 220. i never thought a lot of it and kept racing. 3 laps later i took the lead and had a caution for a 2 lap shootout. when we went green i went into turn one and the motor just popped, sputtered, and wouldnt gain any rpm. i shut it down and pulled in to see the water temp guage at about 290. got it back to the pit and ran some water thru it and it was running out the exhaust. looked at the water guage and the needle was wrapped around back to the peg. it spun so far that the guages at rest position is 270 degrees! which means the motor was damn near 400. found out the radiator cap blew off and ran it out of water without me noticing. took one of the heads off and the head gasket burned thru between cylinders and the leaking combustion gases burned about 1/8 in of metal out of the head.

Blown crate motor #2:
Was running in the top 3 and going for 2nd when the motor picked up a vibration, followed by BOOM. looked at it at the track and saw a hole in the pan. got the motor out in october and took it apart tonite. if your squeemish, you may want to skip this one haha. I pulled the valve covers off and saw that the back 2 cylinders rockers were loose and the lifters were gone. so i then pulled off the flywheel and when i did, the cam with one cylinders worth of lobes fell out of the back of the motor. so i peeked inside and saw the cam broke off at the next journal which means there is still a piece of cam with one cylinders worth of lobes floating around somewhere. pulled the heads off and found cyl 7 and 8 were both still there but not attached. pulled the pan and found the following in the sump: half a connecting rod with the wrist pin still in it, 2 whole lifters, one lifter in pieces, a chunk of the cam, about 12 pieces of connecting rods, a few pushrod pieces, and some pieces of a piston. survey says the number 8 piston pulled apart and grenaded from there.

blown motors suck and are expensive but in there own wierd way, they are almost fun to see when they fail in the sense that the amount of power when they blow can send a tiny piece of aluminum thru a cast iron block.

soooo how bad have you had one blow?

[schreurs1]

pic of the head from the overheated motor.

[Flyin4stroke]

Over boost!

[91mcnasty]

My lil b3 lost some rings but I put a 1 inch window in my trans today!

[rockin86ranger]

Moving to Arkansas from Michigan in our Chevy C30 with a 40ft trailer loaded down the small block decided it was tired of working on the side of a mountain, temp gauge started to rise dad said the hell with it we will make it to the top and deal with then, by the time we hit the top the gauge had pegged out on the oposite side (still sits that way) we limped it to the new house and a bout year later i finally pulled the head and you could probably stick a pencil in the crack.

But my brother send his Honda out with a bang on the way to town one day sent pieces of the block all down the highway. Then when he went to haul it off he managed to get the transmission in his F150 to explode across the highway (we had a hard time figuring out which pieces where the front pump and the drums) really nasty ordeal.

But worse failure i've seen is in tractor pulling, saw a tractor with 8 fully build hemis blow 3 of the blocks clean in half and send them out the side of the tractor, also saw one shoot one of the heads about 60ft in the air. Bad thing is those motors are about 50k each

[Ford Fester]

Over boost!

How boost? More detail....b6t stock?

[Flyin4stroke]

Picture is from eurotiva's car. Bprt, what we found was the blow off valve blew off the vacuum line from the intake so it never let the boost out while shifting and kaboom. he was already pushing the car to about 18lbs. Cheap eBay blow off. The nipple that goes to the vacuum line came out of the bov.

[htchbck]

Never got a good pic because I sold the car shortly after to a guy that needed a clean shell but my '96 saturn SL used to burn about a qt of oil every 150 miles. Roommate borrowed the car planning to just go to work and come home. Ended up with a family emergency out of town and tried to call me a few times but my phone was off so he took off. Made it there ok (about 100 miles) and got almost home within a few miles of the house and the car suddenly started clanking and lost power. #4 rod had broken and come through the side of the block at about a 60* angle from straight up. When you tried to crank it you could see the rod moving in and out of the block! It was pretty weird looking lol, still not sure how it got through the block in the way that it did, but I'd have to say thats probably the worst I've had on any of mine. That poor motor was bone dry, and I'm sure he had been running it pretty hard most of the way down there (his dad was in the hospital with a heart attack).

[mudder]

Had a one ton Ford Dump with a 390 blow a rod through the side of the block once, drove it 15 miles more to get home hauling a load of broken concrete.
It didn't run very well for that last 15 miles.
Ford rules.

[fastivaca]

Had a 390 in my 64 Galaxie convertible and after a long run on the highway when I was in no condition to drive (not proud of that one :nono the engine started to bang quite a bit as I pulled into to town. I never opened the block up, used it as a core for the new rebuilt 428 I put in. End result was that the only part useful out of the core was one of the heads. I'd bent the crank and damaged the block.

I managed to blow the ring lands off one of the back two pistons in the new engine. I lucked out on that though as it was the only piston I could change without pulling the entire engine.

[blkfordsedan]

Back in about 2001, my brother and I rented a Ryder truck in Casa Grande, AZ. It was the largest single axle straight truck they had available. We asked for a Navistar diesel, but all they had was a brand new (<1K miles) Chevy with a 454 gas engine with automatic transmission. We loaded it up with engines, tools & car parts and headed back to Nebraska. When we got into the mountains of New Mexico, I noticed that the truck would not downshift going up hill (even manually) and the governor would not allow us to get enough speed built up to make it up the next mountain. It would lug down to 35MPH and still not downshift. To make matters worse, the only fuel available in the mountains was 85 octane. Not a good combination.
We made it to Colorado Springs before the engine finally checked out for good, and we coasted downhill for about 2 miles downhill into town. We called Ryder and they sent out a contracted mechanic. The first thing he did was tow the truck to a scale and weigh it, which I assume was to see if we had overloaded it. He then pulled the plugs out, which basically had nothing left past the ends of the threads. He asked me if I had noticed the engine "pinging or knocking" or if I had held the gas pedal to the floor going up hills.....at which point I decided the best response was "I have no idea what you mean, I know zero about cars". He smiled a little and said "that's the fourth one of these new gas Chevys I've seen self destruct in the last couple months. I told them a truck this big needs to be a diesel".

We ended up stranded in Colorado Springs for the entire weekend waiting on a new replacement truck. Finally on Sunday evening, after a rather spirited conversation with a customer service manager, they agreed to have our truck towed to the destination and we rented a car and drove back. We actually got a bill from Ryder for the truck repairs about 4 months later, but my brother's lawyer sent them a letter stating that we had incurred some expenses on our own. End result was that they agreed to reimburse us for all hotel room costs, meals and car rental and we paid nothing in terms of damages.

[Damkid]

A buddy's 2.4 from his cavalier, the red is the tool box on the other side of the engine, it still ran too

[htchbck]

^ I guess thats so you can check the crank without having to pull the oil pan?

[Damkid]

^^from both sides of the engine :lol:

[drddan]

My 1980 Bronco found its death on the 3rd engine for it.
It blew a head gasket on the way to work, dumping anti freeze into the oil. It was the last workday before thanksgiving. I tried to make it home, about 17 miles. Pulled out of work, made it about 1/2 mile when the engine tried to seize and blew itself apart.
I had never seen such a cloud so thick blow out of a vehicle! Covered my Bronco and the entire roadway. Couldnt even see my black Bronco in broad daylight. Traffic had to stop 'till the wind cleared it away. There were 3 BIG holes in the block, 7 of 8 cylinders toasted, along with the connecting rods. :eeeeeek:

Oh yeah! Almost forgot. There was a HUGE dent in the firewall right by where my right foot rests on the gas pedal.